Full Text: Successful Practice of Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet (9)

Farmers and herdsmen are living in a clean and beautiful environment. Tibet has also improved its facilities in the areas of water, electricity, highways, gas, telecommunications, postal services, radio and television, and the environment in farming and pastoral areas, basically solving the problem of drinking water safety. It has also realized telephone communication and radio and TV coverage in all villages, and broadband connection in all townships. Tibet has improved the living environment of 4,500 administrative villages. Almost 240,000 farmer and herdsman households use clean biogas, and more than 95 percent of rural households cook with iodized salt. Since 2010, work on improving the people's living environment and the ecological environment has been carried out in Tibet according to the requirement of "clean water, clean farm and clean home." At present programs for improving the appearance of villages and the ecological environment have been carried out in 4,500 administrative villages with an input of 4.4 billion yuan.

The poverty-stricken population has been substantially reduced. From 2006 to 2014, Tibet launched the "Campaign to Develop Border Areas and Improve the Lives of the People," relocated poverty-stricken families and people with Kashin-Beck disease, and increased by 20 to 30 percent the per capita living area of 116,300 poverty-stricken families. Many people have moved from small, dark, adobe houses, where they lived alongside livestock, to safe, more suitable homes. Poverty relief projects have benefited 2.6 million people in 578,000 households. Tibet has built and renovated a total of 3,223 km of country roads, 3,371.6 km of irrigation channels, 347 ponds covering a total 2.3294 million sq m; it has built 883 bridges for agricultural purposes of a total 12,834 m in length, 4,583 greenhouses, and 35,000 pens. It has also installed or improved irrigation systems for 300,000 mu (one mu = 1/15 hectare) of farmland. Tibet has moreover improved the ecological environment of poverty-stricken areas, and the total area of fenced grassland, improved grassland, and planted grassland has reached 287,800 mu. Since 2003, the income of farmers and herdsmen has recorded double-digit growth for 12 consecutive years. The poverty-stricken population - people with a per capita per annum income of less than 2,300 yuan (at constant price of 2010) - has fallen from 1.17 million in 2010 to 610,000 at the end of 2014. The proportion of poverty-stricken population in the Region's total population of farmers and herdsmen fell from 49.2 percent in 2010 to 23.7 percent in 2014. Since 2006, the Region has directly or indirectly allocated a total of 70.636 billion yuan in subsidies to strengthening agriculture and benefiting farmers, 189 million yuan in subsidies to grain production, 358 million yuan as general subsidies for purchasing agricultural supplies, and 340 million yuan as subsidies for purchasing home appliances and furniture. Those subsidies have increased the income and purchasing power of farmers and herdsmen and improved their living standards.

Tibet's social security has entered a new stage. Due to its proactive employment policy, Tibet has maintained a high employment rate. In 2014 the registered urban unemployment rate was maintained at below 2.5 percent, and newly increased urban employment totaled 43,000. Graduates from institutions of higher learning were provided with 11,000 jobs in the public sector, while provinces, municipalities directly under the central government and centrally managed state-owned enterprises offered 5,335 job vacancies. More than 1,500 graduates from Tibet found jobs in other parts of the country. The number of public welfare jobs in the Region totaled 30,000, and 26,018 people found jobs in public welfare sectors. More than 2,500 zero-employment households were provided with jobs in a timely manner, and the employment situation remained stable. In recent years, the social security system that covers both urban and rural residents has been established in an all-round way. Tibet strengthened the security system of "five major insurance types" (endowment insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance, medical insurance, and maternity insurance), improved the social endowment insurance system for urban and rural residents, expanded the basic living allowance, implemented free accident insurance, and established the basic endowment insurance and medical insurance systems for monks and nuns. These moves have benefited 2.606 million insurance participants. The basic old-age pension for enterprise retirees in Tibet reached 3,338 yuan per person per month, one of the highest in the country. The basic living allowance for urban residents was raised to 534 yuan per person per month and to 2,231 yuan for rural residents per person per year. The yearly payment to those who enjoy the "five guarantees" (for food, clothing, medical care, housing and funeral expenses) was significantly raised to 3,873 yuan per person per year, the standard of rural decentralized support rose to 3,874 yuan per person per year, and the minimum subsistence guarantees for children housed in orphanages was 1,200 yuan per person per month. Condolence money was also timely extended to impoverished urban and rural residents. By the end of 2013, there were 263 social welfare organizations, eight state-run children's welfare homes, and two private children's welfare homes in Tibet. Centralized support covered 72 percent of those who enjoy the "five guarantees," and more than 5,900 orphans were effectively supported.

Tibet's medical undertakings are also rapidly improving. A medical and health network that integrates traditional Chinese, Western and Tibetan medicines has been established in Tibet, covering all cities and villages in the Region, with Lhasa as the center. The Region has built 71 county hospitals and 678 township clinics that provide free basic medical services to all farmers and herdsmen. The medical service system that covers all urban and rural areas is improving, and a three-tier medical service network that covers counties, townships and villages is in place. By the end of 2014, there were 1,430 medical organizations in Tibet, and 3.79 hospital beds and 4.08 medical workers for every 1,000 residents. Maximum payment of basic medical insurance for urban employees reached 300,000 yuan, and for urban residents 200,000 yuan. The fiscal subsidy standard for urban residents' basic medical insurance increased to 380 yuan per person every year, and the inpatient reimbursement rate for urban residents covered by the medical insurance policy reached 75 percent. All farmers and herdsmen in Tibet are now covered by a medical system based on free medical service. It provides each farmer and herdsman with an annual medical allowance of 420 yuan, and an 80 percent reimbursement rate for medical services that the policy covers, with a maximum medical reimbursement of 60,000 yuan. All monks and nuns are included in the basic medical insurance system. Tibet has abolished the deductible line of medical assistance, and was among the earliest in China to realize full coverage and urban-rural integration of medical assistance. Tibet also provides free physical examinations for urban and rural residents, and 99 percent of the Region's urban and rural residents have health records. In 2013, the childbirth mortality rate had fallen to 1.5451 per thousand and the infant mortality rate to 19.97 per thousand. Average life expectancy has risen from 35.5 years in the 1950s to the present 68.17 years. The Region has basically stamped out diseases caused by iodine deficiency. (mo