Economic Dimensions of Autonomy and the Right to Development in Tibet

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© International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 2004.

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INTRODUCTION 1

Autonomy refers to a political arrangement that would offer Tibetans increased voice in the governance and management of the ethnic Tibetan areas in China. Nonetheless, the highly politicized impasse surrounding "The Tibet Question" clouds many of the more practical issues that are implicit in the concept of autonomy. This entrenched posturing can be sidestepped if the principle of autonomy is addressed in developmental terms, thereby opening up dialogue under the rubric of an alternative language. The Right to Development provides just this framework, an appropriate lens through which to synthesize the issues of autonomy within a developmental analysis, thereby helping to guide policymakers through the thorny political underbrush.

This discussion paper will open with a brief presentation of two concepts from a development economics perspective: the right to development and ownership of development process. It will discuss how China has been exemplary in its application of these concepts at the national level as a matter of effective and substantive development policy. It will then examine the dilemmas of polarized growth in the Tibetan areas and the consequent outcomes of social exclusion and disempowerment, and suggest that part of the solution lies in the application of the same principles of the right to development and ownership at the sub-national ethnic level. One mining example will be used to illustrate this point. The paper concludes by tying these issues back to Canada's potential role in promoting dialogue between Beijing and the Tibetan exile leadership.