Civilian intrastructure used for military purpose on the plateau

I have often written about the dual use of the infrastructure in China (and particularly on the Tibetan plateau).
Yesterday, Xinhua reported that during their bi-monthly session, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) discussed a new law on national defense transport.
The legislation will cover the use of railways, waterways and air routes for defense purposes as well as civilian purposes.
According to Xinhua: “The new law is expected to regulate the planning, construction, management and use of resources in transportation sectors such as railways, roads, waterways, aviation, pipelines and mail services, for national defense.”
The idea is to integrate military and civilian resources and make sure that the national defense transport network is compatible “with market and economic development”.
It is what Zhao Keshi, head of the Logistical Support Department of the Central Military Commission, told the legislators.
A national authority will be formed with the objective of “overseeing the national defense transport network”.
The main players will be the local governments, military departments and more importantly, the newly-created Theater Commands.
They will be jointly responsible to implement the new law.
Xinhua explains: “A consultation mechanism will be established between local governments and military departments to disseminate and discuss information on construction plans, ongoing projects and demands.”
And when the needs occurred, civilian transport vehicles and facilities will be pressed into service by the PLA.
The concept behind the new law is that the national defense transport should consider the needs of both peace and war times and vice-versa, when the civilian departments plan for a new infrastructure it should be usable by the PLA.
Interestingly, the national defense considerations will include in any technical standards and codes for transport facilities and equipments.
Xinhua adds: “No organization or individual is allowed to undermine the proper use and safety of national defense transport projects and facilities.”
China should be setting up “a strategic projection support force to facilitate efficient organization of long-distance and large-scale national defense transport”.
Though the draft law says that “the expenses for defense transportation missions should be born by their users and the criteria should not be lower than the market price,” it is not clear who will pay the bill as both the PLA and the civilian administration are the ‘users’.
A Joint Command Organization for national defense transport will be set up in wartime or under special circumstances of peacetime, such as armed conflicts that endanger national sovereignty, says the draft.
The Joint Command will have large powers such as coordination of national or regional resources, organization transport operations, repairs and protection of transport infrastructure and facilities, etc.
Those who embezzle defense transport funds or whose dereliction of duty results in severe losses should beware, they shall be punished "in accordance with laws."

Western Theater Command
With the creation of the Western Theater Command, regrouping all the units on the Tibetan Plateau (earlier the plateau depended on two Military Regions, namely Chengdu and Lanzhou), the coordination and management of the infrastructure on the ‘Indian’ front should be much easier and more efficient for the PLA.
And course, the infrastructure built for the Disneyland of Snows can be used in an official and regulated manner by the PLA, People's Armed Police Force (PAPF) and other border forces units.
India should wake up.

Where has the Tibetaness gone?

Gone with the Quake!

On April 14, 2010, the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province was struck by an earthquake of 7.1 on the Richter scale.
According to Xinhua, 2,698 people have been confirmed dead, 270 missing, and 12,135 injured of which 1,434 are severely injured.
The epicenter of the quake was near Rima village, 30 km from Jyekundo, the seat of Yushu Prefecture (and some 240 km from Chamdo).
Take a look at the pictures post-earthquake, it is frightening.
Last year, I reviewed the beautiful book of Tsering Wangmo Dhompa’s A Home in Tibet about Tsering's visit to her ancestral place in Eastern Tibet, Kyegu or Jyekudo, the same town in Yushu Prefecture.
This was before the earthquake.
Now everything has changed.
Since then, China has ‘rebuilt’ the Tibetan city to make it a showcase of the efficiency and the caring of the Communist Party of China (more than 7 billions dollars were invested in the scheme).
The New York Times (NYT) recently reported from Yushu.
Andrew Jacobs, the NYT correspondent wrote:

Despite a herculean effort and Beijing’s best intentions, the $7.2 billion reconstruction project has inadvertently aggravated the animosities that have long bedeviled Han-Tibetan relations, favoring the well connected over the disenfranchised and fueling the systemic corruption that often plagues large infrastructure projects in China. In Yushu, the absence of public participation or transparency provided local officials ample opportunity for self-dealing, angering members of an ethnic minority that the government can ill-afford to alienate.

Kunchen Norbu, 52, a trader of semiprecious gemstones told Jacobs: “The tragedy of the earthquake became an opportunity for the powerful and the greedy.”
Beijing has done big, very big; it engaged some 100,000 outside contract workers "to clear debris, lay waterlines and build new houses and high-rise apartment blocks that have been trimmed with colorful Tibetan flourishes."
The Tibetans (Yushu Prefecture is 97 percent Tibetan) had no place in the scheme.
Jacobs explains: “But in interviews over four days last month, many Yushu residents were especially vocal about inequities in the distribution of new housing. Government employees and Communist Party members, many said, had ended up with several new apartments each, while ordinary households with up to a dozen family members were squeezed into cramped, three-room apartments.”
What is even more tragic is that the Tibetaness of Jyekundo has disappeared. It has gone forever.
It seems to be a systematic policy from the Chinese government to 'sinicize' Tibet. I have often mentioned this on this blog (see: The Disneyland of Snow).
A similar process (minus the earthquake) occurred on the Square in front of the Potala in Lhasa.
Ditto on the Bakhor streets around the Jokhang cathedral in Lhasa.
Beijing is slowly, but surely rebuilding Tibet with Chinese characteristics and ...a tiny bit of Tibetan make-up.
Just have a look at these pictures, you will understand.
Very sad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more new airport in Tibet

A year ago, I mentioned on this blog, the construction of some new airports in Tibet.
One more now!

Xinhua just reported, "Southwest China's Sichuan Province opened its fourth high-altitude airfield, which local officials hope will boost tourism in the heavily Tibetan-populated region."
It shows that Beijing's policy of 'opening up' restive areas to tourism continues.
It must pay rich dividends.
According to the official news agency, the new Hongyuan Airport is located in Aba [Ngaba] Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture at an elevation of 3,535 meters.
The Prefecture is situated in northwestern Sichuan, at the border of Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
Ngaba, also known as Ngawa (or Aba in Chinese) was the epicenter of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which over 20,000 of its local residents died.
The area has also been the epicenter of the wave of Tibetan self-immolations in 2011 and 2012.
While half of the 'Tibetan' self-immolations happened in Ngaba Prefecture, very few of them happened in Tibet Autonomous Region.
Can the number of self-immolations be inversely proportional to the number of tourists visiting an area on the plateau?
It is what Chinese officials believe.
According to a local official, the new flights will be "cutting travel time to the local plateau prairie and Jiuzhaigou Valley, a World Heritage site famous for its colorful pools and snowy mountains."
But the main purpose is clearly to bring 'stability' in the restive prefecture.
Xinhua admits: "Lack of transportation facilities has long troubled the province's out-of-reach Tibetan region, which includes the two prefectures of Aba [Ngaba] and Garze [Kartse] and the county of Muli. Prior to Hongyuan, the province opened three high-altitude airports to link the region with the outside world"

Luo Erwu, head of the tourism bureau of Ngaba told the Chinese news agency: "The new airport will not only help travelers but also benefit locals by bringing more tourists to the region."
This is part of Beijing's policy to make the Tibetan plateau a giant Disneyland.
Beijing's rationale is that by bringing more tourists, the level of employment (and the revenue) of the local population will automatically increase, so will the 'stability' of the area.

New Tibet is Burning

First, we heard of a huge fire breaking out at the Serthar Tibetan Buddhist Institute (known Seda Larung Wuming in China) in the Kartse (Garzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province.
The fire was reported at 7.30 pm on January 10. 
Serthar, is said to be the largest Buddhist institute in the world with 10,000 nuns and monks (in an earlier posting on Serthar, A 'spiritual' revival in China or another gimmick? I quote some sources speaking of 40,000 monks and nuns).
Then, images of a new fire, also in Tibet (but in the neighbouring Yunnan province) appeared in the media; the fire is said to have engulfed 200 'traditional' houses in Dechen county.

Fire at Serthar

About the first one, The South China Morning Post  reported: "The blaze destroyed more than a dozen buildings, which some reports said were living quarters for student monks or nuns. No casualties have been reported as yet. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire, according to initial reports on microblogging platform Sina Weibo."
It is said that some 450 people joined the rescue operations. Weibo showed people in uniforms as well as monks walking through the debris with the fire raging in the background.

New Tibet?
These 2 fires have something in common. They represent 'New Tibet' (or Tibet with Chinese characteristics). 
In a posting earlier this month, I speak of the 'spiritualization' of the Chinese society (see The Year of the Horse: a Prediction).
The Serthar Institute is the main example of this 'spiritual' search, with thousands of Chinese joining Larung Gar as a monks or nuns. 
The other aspect of 'New Tibet' is what I have called the Disneyfication of the Land of Snows: 14 millions Han tourists in the Tibetan Autonomous alone!
A couple of days before the Yunnan fire broke out and engulfed the town of Dukezong, China Tibet Online invited Chinese tourists to visit the spot:

Shangri-la before the fire

Shangri-la, a place where the majority people believe in Tibetan Buddhism, is full of religious atmosphere amid the sutra streamers everywhere.Shangri-la has an area of 11,613 square kilometers populated with near 130,000 people who are mainly Tibetans.
The prevalent religion is Tibetan Buddhism believed by not only Tibetans but also people of the Naxi, Yi and Bai ethnic groups.
Shangri-la is one of the main sites on the plateau for 'Tibet tourism' where hundreds of thousands of Chinese visitors rush every year in search of some exoticism.

A touch of spirituality was even added with the very name 'Shangri-la'. Why should these two symbolic sites of 'New Tibet' burn at the same time?
Probably a coincidence!
Incidentally, a Communist cadre who served in the two 'burning' places in Eastern Tibet (in Kartse in 1995-96 and Aba in 1996-2000) has been sacked. He was close to the former security tsar Zhou Yongkang.
Li has got the boot after being suspected of corruption, according to the Chinese media. It is the latest move against people close to Zhou, himself under graft investigation.
Xinhua has announced that Li had been removed from his post as head of an advisory body to the legislature in the southwestern province of Sichuan for suspected severe violations of discipline: "Authorities are investigating his case according to procedure,” Xinhua added, citing a statement from the Communist Party’s powerful Organization Department.
Li Chongxi was the chairman of the provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He is the third senior Sichuan official to fall under suspicion in 2013.
This has no connection with the fires.
One more story about 'fire'. The great Indian Guru Padmasambhava is said to have been able to set on fire the robe of the Chinese Emperor, just by reciting powerful mantras.
Again no connection with the Serthar and Shangri-la fires, though both these mishaps have been 'miraculous', in the sense that there was no casualty.

Blaze in Tibetan town of Dukezong unlikely arson, authorities say
South China Morning Post
January, 2014
Adrian Wan
Authorities in Dukezong, the Tibetan town in Yunnan province that was largely destroyed in a fire over the weekend, said it was unlikely the blaze was started deliberately.
The possibility of arson has been mostly ruled out but an investigation was still under way, Xinhua reported.
Some people living in the town in Shangri-la county, which is about 1,300 years old, have questioned the speed of the response of emergency services.
A 30-year-old woman, who gave her surname as Wang, said that when she arrived at the scene of the blaze at 3am on Saturday, more than an hour after the fire had started, there were only two fire engines in the area. They had not begun spraying water on the flames, she said.
Other residents said firefighters arrived 30 minutes after the blaze broke out.
Chen Tianchang, a fire captain, told Xinhua that firefighters were at the scene in five minutes but that there were delays in tackling the blaze.
He said the old town did not have any firefighting equipment until several years ago and that water pipes were built above ground so as not to damage the town's historic character.
"To avoid water in the pipes freezing and breaking them, no water was stored in them. So it took time to fill them with water," he said.
Wang said: "I'm not sure why, but they only began hosing the fire about 15 minutes after I arrived, that's about 11/2 hours after the fire had broken out … Nothing is left. Luckily nobody was hurt. The old town will never be the same again."
A building she owned, which had been let out as a cafe and bar, was destroyed in the blaze.
She said her losses could well run into millions of yuan.
No injuries were reported in the blaze, but at least 2,600 people were evacuated from three neighbourhoods of the town with cobbled streets.
At least 240 buildings burned down, affecting 335 households. Cultural relics and Tibetan art works were destroyed. The cost of the damage was initially put at more than 100 million yuan (HK$128 million).
The fire broke out at 1.30am on Saturday morning and took just under 10 hours to bring under control, Xinhua reported.
Most of the houses were made of wood and the windy weather made the fire spread quickly, Zhang Zhijun, deputy chief of Deqen Tibetan autonomous prefecture, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
"About 2,000 professionals were deployed to fight the fire, which was burning wildly and causing chaos," he said. "The fact that nobody was hurt shows the way it's handled was scientific."
Chen Limei, who works at a hotel 500 metres from the blaze, said that because tourists would probably avoid the area, some hostels were allowing homeless residents to stay for free.
"It's really cold out there so people need help," she said.

China wants to turn Tibet into an amusement park

The new Potala by Night

My article China wants to turn Tibet into an amusement park appeared in NitiCentral on August 11

Here is the link...

China is a strange country. While its new leaders dream of a modern nation with a scientific outlook, some of China’s present practices take us back to the darkest days of Mao’s era. Where has the glasnost gone?
Take Yu Zhengsheng’s visit to the Tibetan Autonomous Region. But first, you may ask, who is Yu?
Yu is one of the 7 bosses of the Middle Kingdom; he is the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the member of the Standing Committee responsible for Tibetan Affairs. He paid an ‘inspection tour’ around Lhasa from August 1 to 6; the most extraordinary is not the visit itself, but the fact that nothing appeared in the Chinese (and the local Tibetan) press before Yu was back in Beijing on August 6 evening.
Outside China, it is difficult to believe that an official responsible for a region such as Tibet, can stay there for nearly one week with the world remaining unaware of his visit until he had left.
Like Xi Jinping when he addressed a Tibetan delegation in March in Beijing during the National People’s Congress, Yu spoke of "achieving leapfrog economic and social development in Tibet and long-term stability".
Yu rejected the Dalai Lama's proposal for a high-degree of autonomy for all Tibetan-inhabited areas. Yu said that it "runs counter to China's Constitution, the law, and the fundamental interests of Tibetan Buddhism."
Yu asked the monks to "have a clear understanding of the secessionist nature of the Dalai Lama clique and resolutely safeguard national unification, ethnic unity and Tibet's harmony and stability."
The 'secret' visit was unusually long (6 days) and seems to have focused on the way "to scientifically develop ideas to strengthen infrastructure construction and cultivate industries."
But developing Tibet for what?
Probably to flood the Tibetan plateau with more and more Han tourists!
To receive the 15 million Chinese visitors expected this year, a good infrastructure is required; airports and the railway line are the backbones of a booming tourism industry in Tibet.
Xinhua recently reported that the airport in Chamdo (known as the Bangda Airport) was to be reopened after major repairs.
Soon after, the 4,411-metre-high Kardze Daocheng Yading airport will be functional in Kardze in Sichuan province. It will become the world’s highest civilian airport (It is hardly imaginable in India, it will be completed a year earlier than planned!!).
The airport will also facilitate the quick transportation of fresh troops from the Military Area Command in Chengdu to Kardze prefecture, one of the most restive areas on the Tibetan plateau.
The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reported a serious incident which occurred in the area on the occasion of the Dalai Lama's birthday (July 6). At least nine Tibetans e sustained serious gunshot wounds and are believed to be in critical condition. Many others, both monastic and lay Tibetans have been injured after paramilitary forces from People’s Armed Police (PAP) lobbed teargas shells and beat them.
The new Kardze Yading airport will greatly facilitate the transportation of PAP reinforcements in case of unrest. With one stone, two birds are killed: the Tibetan protesters are 'pacified' and the deluge of Chinese tourists can bring hefty revenues.
The website Chinanews.com told Han mainlanders : “Tibet with its mystery is the spiritual Garden of Eden; and is longed for by travelers home and abroad; Only by stepping on the snowy plateau, can one be baptized by its splendor, culture, folklore, life, snow mountains, saint mountains, sacred lakes, residences with local characteristics and charming landscape.”
Tibet is fast becoming the largest entertainment park in the world; thousand times larger than Disneyland.
Today, the leadership in Beijing has found a sophisticated way to submerge (or drown) the Tibetan population under waves of Han Chinese.
The government in Beijing markets the Land of Snows as the ultimate ‘indigenous’ spot for the Chinese people to spend their holidays,
Tibet has two unique assets: first, its physical aspect. The beauty of the landscape, the imposing mountain ranges, the purity of the air and the rivers, the dry pure sky (especially when compared to the sky of China’s great metropolis); Tibet is the ideal place to have a break from the fast pace of the polluted mainland.
The second advantage is the rich historical past of the Roof of the World, the Land of the Lamas. In Tibet, you can find everything, proclaims Chinese propaganda: a beautiful Chinese princess falling for the powerful emperor and converting him to Buddhism; the monasteries and nunneries, seat of a wisdom lost in the mainland; the folkloric yak or snow-lion dances; the Shoton  (yoghurt) festival; the beautiful colourful handicrafts; the exotic food, you name it.
And you get entertained!
Take the ‘Grand Princess Wencheng Opera’; an opera on the life of the Chinese wife of the Tibetan Emperor Songtsen Gompo, who lived in the 7th century CE. The Opera is staged at the outskirt of Lhasa with some 600 actors on a nearly-100 meters long stage; but more funny (or tragic), in front of a newly-built replica of the Potala Palace, a few kilometers from the real one.
The Tibetan blogger and dissident Tsering Woeser, who lives in Beijing but frequently visits Tibet, posted images of the ‘new’ Potala on her blog. She explains: "In reality this is a project to rewrite history, to 'wipe out' the historical memory and culture of a people. This is a 'win win' project."
She says that more than $120 million had been invested in the project.
To further entertain the Chinese visitors, the administration of the Tibetan Autonomous Region is organizing ‘festivals’ such as the Lhasa Shoton Festival, the Damxung Horse Racing Festival and hosts of others.
One of these festivals is dedicated to Tsangyang Gyatso, the 6th Dalai Lama, born in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.
The Chinese propaganda tells the tourists that he is born in Tibet. The announcement says: “tourists can enjoy beautiful Tibetan love songs performed by locals from the Tsona County in Lhoka Prefecture, hometown of Tsangyang Gyatso, the household name of the 6th Dalai Lama.”
The fact that Tsangyang Gyatso is born on the other side of the McMahon in Tawang district of Himachal Pradesh is cleverly overlooked. The Chinese authorities probably extend ‘Southern Tibet’ to the plains of Assam.
With a few stones so many birds are killed.