Tibet
Prior to Fifth Forum, Politburo Sets "New" Governing Strategy: Developing a Tibet With "Chinese Characteristics" and "Tibetan Traits"
A February 8, 2008, Xinhua article entitled, "Qinghai Tibet Railway Transports 5.95 [million] Tourists," contradicted information provided by a December 20, 2007, Xinhua article (reprinted in China Daily the same day) by reporting a significantly higher number of passengers traveling to and from Lhasa, the capital of the TAR, and characterizing all of the passengers as tourists. (See details below.) The February 2008 report, which did not provide any explanation for the unexpectedly high figures, adds to the confusion about the number and purpose of passengers who travel to the TAR on the railway. As a result, the report may mask the probable impact on Tibetan population in the TAR. Tibetans made up 92.8 percent of the TAR's population in 2000, according to official Chinese census data.
In one case, on November 12, 2009, the Gannan (Kanlho) Intermediate People's Court, located in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Gansu province, sentenced Konchog Tsephel, a Tibetan man who co-founded a Web site on Tibetan arts and culture, to 15 years in prison for "disclosing state secrets," according to a November 16, 2009, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) report. Information is not available about the Criminal Law (CL) statute under which the court convicted Konchog Tsephel.
The current series of discussions between the Party's United Front Work Department (UFWD) officials and the Dalai Lama's representatives began in September 2002 and stalled in November 2008 after the eighth round of formal dialogue.
Special Envoy Lodi Gyari described as "concrete and substantive" the fourth round of meetings between the Dalai Lama's envoys and Chinese officials in Bern, Switzerland, on June 30 and July 1, according to a statement by Gyari released by the Tibetan government-in-exile on July 7. "We put forward some concrete proposals that will help build trust and confidence and move the ongoing process to a new level of engagement aimed at bringing about substantive negotiations to achieve a mutually acceptable solution to the Tibetan issue," the statement said. "Obviously, major differences on a number of issues, including on some fundamental ones, continue to remain."
The Chinese government has announced the start of construction of a railroad that will link Lhasa city, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), with Chengdu city, the capital of Sichuan province. Congressional-Executive Commission on China analysis shows that, based on comparisons of population and economic data, the potential scale of demographic, economic, and environmental impact that the Sichuan-Tibet railway could have on Tibetan autonomous areas in China could far surpass the impact of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which began operation in July 2006 after a five-year construction period.