It's the Tibetan Economy, Stupid

This man was trilingual, educated at one of Beijing's best universities. But he was having trouble making it in the new economy, and he was not alone. Another Tibetan man complained that he'd lost his guiding license after police began to enforce rules requiring annual exams -- in Mandarin. Another reported that police forced him to rename his business after a Chinese investor chose the same name for his own shop. Meanwhile, signs for Tibetan businesses had universally been translated into Chinese, with small, scarcely visible Tibetan subscript as an afterthought. Tibetan identity was being chiseled away, replaced by the pell-mell flow of new businesses, new initiatives and new laws to support them.

In October 2006, several hundred young educated and otherwise "modern" Tibetans gathered in front of the local government administrative offices in Lhasa in what may come to be viewed as the precursor to the widespread unrest last week. The protesters didn't take aim at religious persecution or human rights complaints but at the unfair rules of their new economic world. They were upset that, despite their own education and middle-class standing, jobs were going to Han Chinese instead.

The Chinese portray all that has happened in Tibet as progress, attributing the whopping 12 percent to 15 percent growth in gross domestic product in recent years to an almost philanthropic commitment to Tibetan culture. But their policies seem to have been aimed at something quite different.

China has consistently pursued a policy of "taming" its far-flung western regions through economic and ethnic assimilation. It has crafted tax incentives to encourage Han business owners to move west from eastern cities and has loosened migration rules. "Go West, Young Han" is the clarion call of the times. Chinese state-run firms have staffed large construction projects such as the railway and even local road building with Han Chinese contractors and crews, who send their earnings home.

All the expansion and wealth that has streamed into Tibet has benefited Tibetans very little. Even after decades of investment, the illiteracy rate remains four times that of neighboring Sichuan province, and vocational schools per capita are one-fourth as prevalent as in the rest of China.

The Beijing Olympics in August afford Tibetans -- and many other downtrodden Chinese -- what may be their last great opportunity to draw the world's attention to the inequity of China's economic miracle. For the Tibetans, it may be their final chance to hold onto an ethnically, religiously and economically unique homeland before it is lost forever. This is what makes the uprising of 2008 different from that of 1989, and this is what is bringing Tibetans into the streets.

Back at that nightclub in Lhasa, I asked the young owner whether he thought the rising inequality was worrisome. His sanguine response nodded to the Chinese policy of seeking stability in Tibet by flooding it with Chinese: "It is very Han-friendly," he said. "There are many Sichuanese people now, [so] I feel more comfortable."

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Abrahm Lustgarten is the author of the upcoming "China's Great Train: Beijing's Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet."