Chinesepod -

X. People's Health and
Demographic Growth

Old Tibet, under the feudal serf system, had only three officially
operated, small traditional Tibetan medical establishments, having simple
and rough medical equipment, and a few private clinics. There were close
to 100 practitioners. Even adding folk doctors of Tibetan medicine, the
number totalled only about 400, averaging less than 0.4 per 1,000 people.
These medical establishments and medical workers chiefly served the
nobility and officials. Absolutely no medical treatment was given to the
broad masses of serfs and slaves when they fell ill. Deadly infectious
diseases such as smallpox and the plague occurred frequently and even ran
rampant. According to records, in the 150 years before the peaceful
liberation of Tibet in 1951, smallpox raged four times, and the contagion
in 1925 caused 7,000 deaths in the Lhasa area alone. Epidemic typhoid
fever in 1934 and 1937 took more than 5,000 lives in Lhasa. When some
infectious diseases spun out of control, the former Tibetan local
government did not take measures to save the afflicted but, on the
contrary, drove them into high mountains or deep valleys, whose exits
were guarded by troops. This resulted in the death of the expelled
sufferers. Historical records show that in old Tibet, the average life
span was 36 years, and the growth of the Tibetan population stagnated for
a long time.

The primary task facing Tibet in the development of public health care
has been to gain control over the most deadly infectious diseases. The
Chinese government conscientiously carries out the principle of "taking
prevention as the main task," with the result that no case of smallpox
has been reported in tibet since the early 1960s. The incidence of
various infectious and endemic diseases has gone down by a substantial
margin, and some serious diseases that threaten the lives of people have
been wiped out or brought under basic control. In order to assure the
healthy growth of Tibetan children, a planned immunization program has
been widely implemented in tibet since 1986. Over 85 percent of children
have been inoculated.

After the Democratic Reform in 1959, the autonomous region gradually
established a medical and health network throughout Tibet. In 1991, the
region boasted 1,197 medical establishments, 401 times as many as in
1951. There were no hospital beds in 1951 but 5,077 in 1991. Professional
medical workers numbered 9,740, or 98 times higher than in 1951. Among
them 7,749 were health technicians, with Tibetans accounting for 80
percent of the total. Now, 88 percent of Tibetans are living in rural and
pastoral areas, where there were 850 health establishments containing a
total of 2,300 beds and 3,700 medical workers in 1991. A further 3,500
local rural doctors and health workers directly serve the masses of
farmers and herdsmen. In Tibet, on average, there are 2.3 beds and 2.1
doctors per 1,000 people, figures equal to and above the national average
respectively, and also higher than that of middle-income countries.

Traditional Tibetan medical science, comprising Tibetan medicine and
pharmacology, has been handed down and developed. The government invested
20 million yuan in building a new inpatient department of the region's
Hospital of Traditional Tibetan Medicine, as well as five local hospitals
of this kind. In 1991, there were 1,015 Tibetan medicine doctors and
pharmacists in the whole region. In order to meet the needs for the
development of Tibetan medicine, the autonomous region founded the
Tibetan Medical College and the Tibetan Medicine Research Institute, and
encouraged and supported famous veteran Tibetan medicine doctors to write
scholarly books. A chronology of valuable medical expertise was compiled
by a group of aged specialists. The Four-Volume Medical Code, a famous
book on Tibetan medical knowledge, was published and distributed. Efforts
have also been made in the compiling and publishing of A Complete
Collection of Wall Charts of the Four-Volume Medical Code and Medical
Science Encyclopedia: Tibetan Medicine, plus dozens of teaching materials
and special books about Tibetan medicine, including Physiology,
Pathology, Pharmacology, Dietetics, and Newly Compiled Tibetan Medicine.
Pharmaceuticals production is developing quickly too. Now, there are
three Tibetan medicine factories.

Scientific research institutes of Tibetan medicine have put more efforts
into the study of plateau sickness and other diseases which endanger the
lives of Tibetan people, and have achieved important research results.
Tibetan medical workers are both domestic and international leaders in
rescue and the treatment of plateau pneumochysis, mountain coma and
chronic plateau sickness.

To train more health workers, the Tibet Institute for Nationalities has
opened a medical department. In addition, the Health School for the Tibet
Autonomous Region has been established and another two in Xigaze and
Qamdo. These schools have trained more than 6,000 high- and
middle-ranking health workers. Since 1980, more than 5,000 health workers
in the region have received on-the-job training, which has helped raise
their professional and administrative levels.

The government provides free medical care for all Tibetans. This, plus
considerable improvements in medical and health conditions, has greatly
raised the average life span and health level of the Tibetan people.
Average life expectancy has risen from 36 years before liberation to 65
years at present. When compared with 1965, the average height and weight
of young Tibetans in the Lhasa area increased by 8.8 cm and 5.2 kg
respectively.

The government has special policies on birth control in Tibet. Family
planning is not practiced for the farmers and herds people who constitute
88 percent of the region's entire population. The government only
conducts publicity campaigns to inform them about rational births and
ways to have healthy babies. Tibet has a vast expanse of territory, but
few land resources which can be developed. In 1991, the average amount of
cultivated land per person was only 1.54 mu. As Tibet's population has
been increasing at a fast rate, population control is necessary. Since
1984, the regional government has advocated and carried out the policy of
two children per couple among Tibetan cadres, workers and the staff of
enterprises and residents in cities and towns. However, among the Han
cadres, workers and staff members in Tibet, the policy of one child per
couple has been advocated and enforced. Only 12 percent of the people in
Tibet are covered by the family planning policy. In the process of
carrying out family planning, the government always persists in the
principle of "mainly publicity, volunteering, and service," and prohibits
any form of forced abortion.

Over the past 40 years, the population of Tibet has rapidly mounted.
Between 1950 and 1990, there was a net increase of 1.196 million people
in Tibet, with the number of Tibetans climbing to more than 2 million,
more than double the figure of 1 million in 1950. In 1951, when Tibet was
peacefully liberated, there were no accurate population statistics
provided by Tibetan local government. When China conducted the first
national census in 1953, the Tibetan local government headed by the Dalai
Lama reported that there were 1 million people in Tibet. The second
national census in 1964 showed that the population in Tibet was 1.251
million, of which 1.209 million were Tibetans, making up 96.63 percent of
the total. The third national census in 1982 said there were 1.892
million people in Tibet, of whom 1.786 million were Tibetans, accounting
for 94.4 percent. The fourth national census in 1990 showed that there
were 2.196 million people in Tibet, of whom 2.096 million, or 95.46
percent, were Tibetans. People of the Han and other non-Tibetan
nationalities have always made up around 5 percent of the total
population in Tibet. Since 1970, the birth rate and natural population
growth have both been above the average national level. Between 1982 and
1990, there was an increase of 309,800 ethnic Tibetans in Tibet, and the
rate of natural population increase was 17.34 per thousand, 2.64
perthousand points higher than that of the national level in the same
period. For Tibet, it is impossible to reach such relatively high levels
in terms of birth rates and the natural growth rates of population in so
short a period of time without the abolition of the feudal serf system,
and economic growth plus the obvious improvement of people's living
standards and medical and health conditions.

On the question of the size of the Tibetan population, the Dalai clique
has spread many rumors. The most sensational was that more than 1.2
million people were killed after the peaceful liberation of Tibet. In
1953, the Tibetan local government under the Dalai Lama reported the
population stood at 1 million people. If 1.2 million inhabitants had been
massacred, it would have been a case of genocide and certainly the
population in Tibet could not have increased to the present 2 million.

The Dalai Lama clique has also contended that geographically Tibet
extends far beyond the boundaries of today, including areas inhabited by
the Tibetans in Sichuan, Qinghai and other places, making a total
population of 6 million. This so-called Tibet Major is merely a
conspiracy hatched by imperialists in an attempt to carve up China. As a
result of long historical changes, ethnic Tibetans have settled not only
in Tibet but also in areas in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan
provinces. But these areas were not under the jurisdiction of Tibet in
the past, and the former Tibetan local government never administered any
Tibetan-inhabited areas beyond Tibet. From the 13th century on, the
central governments of the Yuan and Ming dynasties placed Tibet and other
areas with Tibetan populations under separate administrations. The Qing
Dynasty further defined administrative divisions in Tibetan-inhabited
areas. During the period of the Republic of China, Tibetan-inhabited
areas beyond Tibet remained under the jurisdiction of the provinces where
they were located. These administrative divisions basically remained
after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the
Tibetan-inhabited areas of the four provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu
and Yunnan, ten Tibetan autonomous prefectures and two Tibetan autonomous
counties were set up. The Tibetan population, including Tibetans in Tibet
and Tibetan-inhabited areas of other provinces, fell short of 6 million.
When China conducted the first national census in 1953, the overall
Tibetan population, including those residing in Tibet, totalled 2.77
million. The 1990 national census gave a count of 4.59 million people. As
in Tibet, the numbers of Tibetans in other areas had grown considerably
over the period between the two censuses.

Another lie is the claim that a large number of Hans have migrated to
Tibet, turning the ethnic Tibetans into a minority. It is very easy to
confuse and poison the minds of people who are not aware of the truth. In
Tibet, the natural conditions are harsh, the air is oxygen-poor and the
climate is bitterly cold. Most of the land consists of mountains,
wilderness, and permafrost and snow zones. Customs there are so different
from those in the heartland of the country that people from the interior
can hardly adapt to them. Tibet is not like the western part of the
United States, where large numbers of people moved in for development.
The figures from various national censuses have thoroughly exploded the
lie that the Han population in Tibet has already surpassed that of the
Tibetans.

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