China’s farm tax scrapped A welcome move on the long way ahead
Dharamsala 25 January 2005: The recent decision of the Chinese government to eliminate taxes on farming and stock breeding in 22 provinces, and Prime Minister Wen Jianbo’s promise of zero-tax for the agricultural sector within five years are welcome and timely. Xinhua reported that “farming and stockbreeding taxes” have never been imposed by the Chinese government in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The claim by the Chinese government that it has never imposed “farming or stockbreeding taxes” in TAR, might be true, but it is also true that local government continues to impose a range of taxes and fees on the Tibetan farmers and nomads. A news report on tax and fee in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) by the Lhasa-based China Tibet Information Centre reported that a reform has been implemented in the TAR region since August 2003 and that the first phase of reform has resulted in relief of 51 % tax burden per capita. Further, the news report say that the goal set by the central government to “ease, regularize and stabilize” taxes and fees was generally achieved.
This discrepancy between the Chinese government claims of no tax for Tibetan farmers and actual taxation by local officials is a very common feature when it comes to understanding the reality in Tibet. Some experts refer to this “question of fuzziness”.
Economists call the widespread practice of local cadres inventing new imposts and charges on farmers “extrabudgetary revenue.” Unfortunately, despite regular central government directives banning these extrabudgetary charges, they persists, not only in Tibet, where farmers have little opportunity to defend their livelihoods, but also in mainland provinces where farmers are allowed to speak out.
Two recent researches”one on property relations and the other on rural development in Tibet”published in the academic journals”Asian Survey (September/October 2003) and Conservation and Society (2,1, 2004) give some insights into the reality in Tibet.
The Conservation and Society article is a study on property relations in Tibet since collectivisation and the question of fuzziness. The study found that “…While the heterogeneity of property forms in Tibet is similar to that in other parts of China, Tibetan farmers are also more constrained than their [Chinese] counterparts in exercising the ‘bundle of powers’ that constitute property.”
The study also observed that “Han citizens of the PRC generally have more opportunities to claim their rights through both open protest and ‘rightful resistance’ in the form of petitions and lawsuits”. The study presented evidence of instances of “fuzziness that seem unique to the TAR and its historical and geopolitical situation of internal colonialism. This includes the slippage between legal definitions of collective property and villagers’ interpretations that their land is actually owned by the Party. Furthermore, the ‘politics of fear’ and disciplinary power exercised in the TAR make open resistance to land expropriation”or any sort of economic issue”almost impossible.”
The second study in Asian Survey conducted by the noted anthropologist and Tibetologist, Dr. Melyvn Goldstein and his colleagues with 780 households in 13 villages of TAR from 1997 to 2000 throws some light on the problems of development and change in rural Tibet. The survey found that taxes and fees have increased for rural Tibetans, while price of manufactured foods and other essential products such as fertilizers, sugar, tea, cooking oil and rice experienced inflation ranging from 107% to 400% over periods ranging from 1984 to 2000. By contrast, the price of barley [the major produce of Tibetan farmers] increased only 56% around the same period.
The survey observes that, “There have also been increases in taxation and fees for services previously provided free by the government, e.g. salaries of local leaders and health care. All individuals 18 to 60 years of age are required to provide 20 days of free labor annually.”
It is apparent that the Chinese government’s well-intentioned plans and policies for the rural masses often are undermined and distorted at the local level where official arbitration often lead to abuse of power. Over the recent decades we have had numerous reports of arbitrary imposition of taxes and predatory nature of local officials. A respected Tibetan leader in Amdo province, the late Dhondrup Gyal, in the 1990s in his post of vice-chairman of the province-level department of animal husbandry, helped tackle multiple taxes on meat and wool in the nomadic areas of the Amdo region. He ordered the dismantling of the numerous check posts set up by local officials on the road between Golog and Xiling to prey and impose tax on Tibetan nomads’ produce like wool and meat.
Tibetan producers are especially vulnerable, as they have few choices of who to sell to, given the distance between producer and market. Usually, they have to take whatever price buyers are willing to pay.
Today, China is moving in the right direction in reducing the tax burden on China’s farmers and nomads. The efforts are laudable, and would definitely help to relieve the tax burden on the disadvantaged farmers and nomads. We have reason to believe this move to reduce tax on farmers and nomads is a genuine effort on the part of China to alleviate poverty of rural people. It is encouraging to hear from a few recent arrivals from Tibet that some taxes have been eliminated. A recent arrival in India from Karze area in Kham region of Tibet happily reported that he did not have to pay the usual tax of 600 gyama (300 kg) of grain in 2004.
Nonetheless, we believe that this reduction in tax is the first step towards improving the life of rural Tibetan farmers and nomadsâ€â€ÂÂbe it health, education and employment opportunities. Genuine participation of the Tibetan farmers and nomads, the needs and aspirations of Tibetan farmers and nomads, and safeguarding the rights and interests of the rural Tibetans are some broad issues that need to be addressed. Unless major changes in development policy that benefits and empowers the Tibetan farmers and nomads are instituted, whatever progress rural Tibetans have made since collectivisation may not continue, let alone increase, in the coming decade.
China says poverty remains persistent in upland remote areas, including Tibet, and that this is almost beyond remedy. This is not so. The simplest way of alleviating poverty, without all the trouble of specifically targeted programmes, is simply to allow Tibetan farmers and nomads to receive more for their produce.
In the 1980s, China made spectacular gains in poverty alleviation, by allowing farmers to sell at actual market prices. The time is overdue for Tibetans to get a better return for their hard work as farmers and herders. Raising rural incomes has been the official policy for a few years, but Tibetans have benefited very little so far.
This is because Tibetan farmers and livestock producers face buyer cartels, heavy taxation and extrabudgetary charges, lack access to microfinance enabling hem to buy trucks, and do not have an effective agricultural education extension service bringing scientific advances to the farmers.