Economic Restructuring and Labor Market Reforms in Amdo, Qinghai

This chapter focuses on recent economic restructuring and its asymmetrical impact across various ethnic groups in the Tibetan areas of Amdo Qinghai. It argues that this asymmetrical impact has exacerbated the underlying conflictive fault lines between Tibetans and Chinese Muslims, as well as amplified expressions of Tibetan nationalism toward the Chinese state. It examines two processes in particular.
The first concerns the collapse in the terms of trade of the traditional commodities produced by rural Tibetans in combination with the deindustrialization of local manufacturing in Tibetan towns in Amdo since the 1990s. This is contrasted with the success of certain neighboring Muslim counties in consolidating control over locally integrated manufacturing.
The second process concerns the implementation of national employment policy reforms in the Tibetan areas, with a focus on the policy of ending guaranteed employment for high school and university graduates throughout China, which was implemented in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai in 2001 and 2002.
Within the context of rapid economic growth and rising living standards, the confluence of these two processes-in combination with other, more commonly analyzed factors-has arguably played a key role in fuelling grievances, nationalism and, in particular, prejudice against Muslims among Tibetans in this region.