breadan raised an interesting question to my "tibet train post":
One concern raised by Wang Lixiong is that the benefits of economic development in Tibet will go mainly to the Han Chinese, who are more business-oriented, and that ethnic Tibetans will be marginalized. Similar things have happened in other heavily touristed minority areas like Dali and Lijiang, as I understand it.
many han chinese raised similar questions as why chinese minorities like tibetans could receive preferential treatments in fields like birth-control, education, etc. and worried that han chinese will be someday marginalized. on the other hand, they asked for preferential treatments for chinese enterprises in front of foreign-invested enterprises.
is it fair or unfair to treat one group of the society with better opportunities than the other? does such "most-favored nation treatment" help the weak and the poor?
i couldn't argue for others, but the reality is that the most protected sectors of chinese economies are the least competitive today, and industries like consumer electronics, which completely opened the domestic market to foreign players and received almost zero help from the government, now become internationally competitive. the same thing happens, although in a less extent, in china's minority and backward regions. the sad fact is that preferential treatments and protections didn't ensure the minorities and underdeveloped regions in china get the drive and motivation that are critical to their development, to the contrary, competition does.
i know a web site selling tibetan handicrafts to the world and the idea was from a han chinese living in lhasa, he buys handicrafts from local tibetans and sellls them to others, mostly foreigners outside of china, certainly he gets the largest chunk of the profits and tibetans get the rest, but even so, tibetan craftsmen are better off with this business, and i bet those young tibetans, who are more familiar with internet (thanks to many internet cafes launched by han chinese in tibet) and have better connections, will someday open their own web sites selling these goods. all in all, this is not a zero-sum game.
will the tibet railway marginalizs tibetan people? possibly yes in the short term but definitely no in the long run. i don't believe people can not understand this, certainly those with political prejudices are the exceptions.