New Report of the Tibetan Field Study Focusing on Its Economy

One of my very important research field is the Chinese minority issue especially focusing on their economic situation, and Ohnishi(2000) revealed that the essence of the ethnic conflict comes from the difference of these ethnic groups’ interests. For example, capitalists and workers have different interests and sometimes these interests cannot stand together, and if all of the capitalists are Han Chinese and all of the workers are Tibetans, this class conflict becomes ethnic conflict. In my understanding, the nature of the Tibetan conflict is this type of class conflict that only Marxist economics can understand. If so, the most fundamental solution of this conflict should be Tibetans also have to be entrepreneurs. If they can be, class struggle can exist as ‘class struggle’ itself not as ethnic conflict. In the capitalist society, we cannot abolish all of the class struggle, but can avoid this type of ethnic conflict. From this understanding, we had a field research in the ethnic conflict in Tibet soon after the Lhasa Riot in 2008, and found many facts on the riot and economic situations as the social base of this riot. However, after this research, already two years has past, and has this situation become better or not? For this purpose, this new field research has been planned and will be conducted by the help of the Chinese Association for International Understanding. Of course, this association stand on the governmental side, and in this sense, we need to be careful to understand. But as an expert, we are planning to make some independent research in Tibet, and will report them in our conference. Officially, our research includes schools which teach Chinese language, ethnic ratios of the political and educational leaders, Tibetan and Han Chinese entrepreneurs, situation of the international trade with Nepal, agriculture and livestock industry, infrastructures, industrial zone in Lhasa, Buddhist leaders, and also includes Chinese Tibetology Institute and Buddhist temple in Beijing.