Location: The Boardroom, 29 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow
 

This paper reviews the place of the Tibetan Plateau, with its vast and largely untapped natural and geological resources, within the overall structure of the economic development of the Peoples' Republic over the last fifty years, from the Core Industrial Area strategy of the early Cold War, through Deng Xiaoping's Western Development Strategy in the late 1990s, and the more recent New Socialist Countryside, Environmental Migration and Comfortable Housing Schemes developed under Hu Jintao that precipitated the 2008 riots across the Tibet. The combined results of these policies has been a segmentation of the Plateau into regions increasingly dedicated to the specific needs of the mainland's growing needs: minerals, water and 'authentic' culture.

 

Dr Martin A Mills is senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, Director of the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research and Secretary of the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Tibet. He is author of Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism (Routledge, 2003) and specialises in the religious culture and constitutional history of the Tibetan Plateau.

 

The Scottish Centre for China Research Seminar Programme gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the MacFie Bequest.

 

For enquiries and information, please contact: Professor Jane Duckett (jane.duckett@glasgow.ac.uk)


First published: 14 January 2019

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