State Growth and Social Exclusion in Tibet: Challenges of Recent Economic Growth (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Reports): 47 (NIAS Reports)

This ground-breaking work on the Tibetan economy places development issues within their larger macroeconomic, structural, and regional contexts and will be required reading for scholars, NGO workers and others wishing to understand the transformations gripping the Tibetan areas of China. The most pressing economic challenges relate to the marginalization of most Tibetans from rapid state-led growth. The urban-rural divide plays an important role in this polarized dynamic but only partially explains differences with other Chinese regions, all of which generally exhibit strong spatial inequalities. This book focuses on several further factors that determine the ethnically exclusionary character of current peripheral growth in the Tibetan areas. These include urbanization, immigration, employment and education as key factors underlying structural economic change. The study draws from the analytical framework of social exclusion and is based on extensive use of official Chinese statistics, focusing on the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai but with numerous comparisons to the other provinces. Qualitative insights are also taken from recent fieldwork and secondary sources. This macro focus aims to complement the growing wealth of micro-level studies on Tibet produced from a variety of disciplines.