All things tibet
New hope for the women of Tibet: Sciences of healing, Sowa Rigpa and Community Health Workers This is the fourth of four blogs on the number of Tibetan women dying in childbirth, at a rate equivalent to some of the poorest places on earth, and what can be done. The first blog took up two […]
What’s in a name: SHIGATSE AND CHAMDO BECOME CITIES China has declared Shigatse and Chamdo henceforth to be municipalities, rebadging not only two of the bigger towns in Tibet but their entire prefectures, which are largely rural, mountainous and mineraliferous. What to make of this? Just a shuffle of administrative nomenclature? Hardly. In China’s […]
HOW TIBETANS FARED AT THE WORLD PARKS CONGRESS 2014 When China gains leadership of global institutions, everything shifts. The urbane, talented Chinese who now head the World Health Organisation and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are pioneers in what will be an accelerating trend. Talented as these individuals are, China sees their ascent […]
What is really happening in protected areas in China BY ENVIRONMENT DESK OF TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE, INDIA For IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 When a government declares an area protected that’s good. When state power draws a red line round a large area, designating it a nature reserve, that’s good, right? Not always. […]
“LHASA CONSENSUS” AND CHINA’S WESTWARDS DEVELOPMENT A gathering in Lhasa in August attracted brief headlines, generated less by its’ dry subject –the future development of Tibet- than by the intriguing announcement of a “Lhasa Consensus.” This knowing nod to the once-famous “Washington Consensus” held out the enticing prospect that the Tibet problem is now solved, […]
BUT FIRST, DO THE DIRTY DISHES The previous blog on Steve Jobs and Xi Jinping made the seemingly counter-intuitive case for likening Steve Jobs and Xi Jinping. It’s not just the sheer force of will both embody, but the capacity to proclaim new realities, a new normal that fuses a mass of contradictions into a […]
WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON? MORE THAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT What could Xi Jinping and Steve Jobs have in common? To liken them is surely a stretch? Maybe not. It’s not just the personal psychologies of two alpha males driven to tightly control all aspects of their mighty enterprises. There are plenty of […]
WHY THE CHARISMATIC KHENPOS OF TIBET URGE PASTORALISTS TO WITHOLD LIVESTOCK FROM CHINA’S URBAN NEOLIBERAL MARKET WHICH PROMISES PROSPERITY, AND INVARIABLY FAILS. GABRIEL LAFITTE glafitte1@gmail.com Department of Management, Faculty of Business & Economics, Monash University Presented to CONTESTING TIBET SEMINAR, Community Identity & Displacement Research Network www.communityidentity.com.au Victoria University, Melbourne, 8 July 2014 [this […]
NEOLIBERAL CHINA FINDS NEW WAYS OF EXPLOITING TIBET China’s failure to make constructive use of Tibet’s traditional economy is a major tragedy. For decades there was opportunity to build linkages with the Tibetan livestock raising economy and the growing Chinese demand for dairy and animal products. There was ample opportunity, if the Tibetan nomads had […]
MAKING CHINA IMPREGNABLE AGAINST THE RAW BARBARIANS, WITH YET ANOTHER GREAT WALL Ever since the ascendancy of Xi Jinping as China’s new helmsman, at the end of 2012, Tibetans have looked for signs of fresh thinking on ethnic relations. With the optimism so characteristic of Tibetans, they scanned the media for the slightest sign in […]