Memo #12
By: Sophia Woodman
The imprisonment of Tibetan environmentalists in June and July 2010 and the stalled negotiations between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and Beijing make it hard to imagine that more tolerant Chinese rule in Tibet is on the horizon.
But aspects of the PRC legal framework have the potential to institutionalize greater autonomy in Tibetan areas. The Constitution gives all five of the Autonomous Regions in the PRC – Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Ningxia – the power to enact an “autonomy regulation.” This can be a kind of independent charter for each region and the minorities that inhabit it. If opposition in some parts of central government could be overcome, processes accompanying the drafting of such charters could be an opportunity for public debate about how the people of that region wish to make it different from the rest of the PRC to reflect their own cultural traditions and values.
The rub is that this constitutional power has been in place for over 25 years. Despite continuous efforts since then by institutions such the National People’s Congress Minority Affairs Committee and the autonomous regions themselves, none have been able to complete the process of enacting charters. The main obstacle has been the unwillingness of powerful central government ministries dealing with economic matters to recognize that existing constitutional and legal provisions to give autonomous areas powers beyond those of other localities. This lack of will reflects the much more restrictive sense conveyed by the Chinese term “zizhi” (自治, literally self rule) than might be inferred by its usual English translation as “autonomy.” Unlike the English word, “zizhi” has not usually implied that in specified subject matters the powers of the autonomous area may trump those of the centre.
However, the Constitution and the 1984 Law on Nationalities Regional Autonomy (revised in 2001) have been interpreted by some PRC legal scholars as permitting autonomy legislation that trumps national rules. In the long run, then, a strategy of supporting such internal efforts to give autonomy meaning and pushing Beijing to implement existing legal commitments could be a good policy choice for governments and international organizations concerned about the situation in Tibet.
About the Author:
Sophia Woodman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Law and teaches sociology at The University of British Columbia.
Links:
- China ‘jails Tibet activist for five years’, BBC News, July 3, 2010
- Yash Ghai and Sophia Woodman. ‘Unused powers: autonomy legislation in the PRC,’ Pacific Affairs, Volume 82, No. 4, 2009
- Yash Ghai, Sophia Woodman and Kelley Loper. ‘Is there space for “genuine autonomy” for Tibetan areas in the PRC’s system of Nationalities Regional Autonomy?’ International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Volume 17, 2010
- Photos of Tibet
Related Memos:
See our other Memos about China and Tibet and our collection of Memos on the Origins of Social Protests in China.