Published by: World Tibet Network News Issue Id: 97/12/14

Tibet Information Network Press Release

Date: December 14, 1997

This month three delegations of leading Tibetan cadres from Tibet have asked to visit western countries in a new move to win international support for the region's politicians. At the same time press reports show that a struggle for power is taking place within Tibet between younger Tibetan cadres and Chinese apparatchiks.

A major new study released on 15th December by Tibet Information Network charts the emergence of this new generation of Tibetan leaders, nurtured for 20 years by the Party and now ready for presentation to the outside world.

*Leaders in Tibet: A Directory* gives the background, history and statistics of Tibet's "second generation" of leaders - ethnic Tibetan cadres brought up by the Party to replace the former aristocrats, who are no longer trusted by Beijing - and of the institutions they run.

Of the cadres who run regional or higher level departments in the Tibet Autonomous Region, 44% are Tibetan, according to the new TIN study. The official figure for Tibetans at the regional level, arrived at by looking at a tiny sample of top, largely ceremonial positions, is 82%.

The study also found that Chinese cadres are generally given positions either in economic planning, in the military or as deputy leaders - 62 of the 72 counties studied in the TAR had Chinese cadres as deputy heads. The TIN Directory, which lists over 1,200 of the leading cadres in Tibet, found that only 6% of its sample were women, although the official percentage of cadres who are Tibetan women is 32.3%.

*Leaders in Tibet*, using data from internal documents, shows the extent of the Communist Party's influence over the Chinese system of provincial administration. The documents show that 20% of all cadres in the TAR administration are running Party organisations, with the result that there were 10 Party organisers for every 34 government officials. Most government officials were also Party members - 44% of all cadres in the TAR were Party members, according to the data.

*Leaders in Tibet: A Directory*, probably the first comprehensive study of provincial level leadership in China or Tibet, gives the names and positions of over half of the leading officials in Tibet, biographies of the top 100, and details of Tibetans who hold national level positions in China.

It also includes a detailed chronology of the formation of political institutions in Tibet as well as a year-by year study of Beijing's efforts during the last fifty years to ensure that the Party retained control over Tibet, while making it appear that governmental or legislative institutions are in fact in control.