The Relocation & Rehousing of Tibetan Nomadic Populations
Introduction
People in the village are desperate about abandoning their homes and having to resettle. They don’t have any other skills than farming, and won’t have any herds or land worth speaking of anymore. How is the next generation going to survive as Tibetans?
The sedentarization and resettlement of Tibetan nomadic herders began in the early 2000s as part of China’s Great Western Development Strategy. China carried this out on the two premises that the living conditions of the relocated peoples would be improved and that the environment would be preserved. Additionally, it was part of their larger plans for poverty alleviation and socio-economic development. The plan for resettlement was formally introduced in the year 2000 by the “New Socialist Countryside” policy. China aimed to build modern villages and sedentarize the pastoralist farmers of the Tibetan grasslands. While in some cases this was achieved, many Tibetans struggled to find work and were disrupted from their traditional cultural lifestyle. Furthermore, China’s real objectives were to establish control in disputed border areas as well as create modern villages that can easily be surveyed. So far, the PRC has been successful in the relocation and rehousing of over 2,000,000 Tibetans.
In Practice
One of the Chinese government’s main angles of attack is their Ecological Migration Policies. These policies are created to protect the environment, but in reality they have the potential to drastically change the grasslands ecosystem for the worse. The removal of nomadic farmers and livestock after centuries of pastoralist culture will only hurt the grasslands. While some farming and herding still occurs, it is severely limited to small areas of land. In 2018, China introduced the “Very High-Altitude Ecological relocation plan.” The measure was created in order to “conserve the environment,” however there is no evidence that the relocation of Tibetans would have a “positive impact on the environment.” The real objective of the PRC is to strengthen their border control in strategic locations. Many from the North East of Tibet have been involuntarily removed from their homes and rehoused in southern Tibet near Nepal and India.
Today I am living in new house with a comfortable life. I am so happy. All of my fortunes do not come from my prayers, but rather from the Communist Party.
Continuing on, China has also fostered the idea of poverty alleviation and improved living conditions. While the improved living standards is true to some extent, many Tibetans have become unemployed as they have had to leave their livestock and the Chinese have given limited job opportunities. The government has disrupted centuries of Tibetan tradition and culture and has uprooted their nomadic living in exchange for a modern sedentary lifestyle. China advertises this mass resettlement as a positive and voluntary experience when it is quite the opposite. The truth is that they wanted to defend their borders and establish modern communities that can be monitored and contained.
In conclusion, China’s sedentarization policies have undeniably hurt Tibetan culture and Tibetan lifestyle. These measures have left many nomadic herders and pastoralists without familiar jobs and have forced them into often unwelcome circumstances. According to experts on the subject, "the hasty implementation makes the people change their lifestyle from one day to another, without having enough time to adapt to the new situation naturally. The lack of the nomads' experience with urban life might bring serious problems for the settlement communities and for the Central Government in the future."1