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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
The seniority of the group’s members, and the broad spectrum of interests represented
by their respective offices, suggests that the group acts more as a conduit through
which existing policies are reviewed and refined prior to their implementation in
Tibet, rather than as a body for actually initiating and formulating policies. The working
group met just five times between 2003 and 2006 according to research published
by the CECC.
Notably, none of the known members of the working group are themselves Tibetan.
From the limited sources available, it appears that membership is a secondary role
within other senior government and Party positions. So for example, the positions of
Minister of Finance, Minister of Public Security and the Director of the Reform and
Development Commission — among other positions — appear to include membership
of the working group within their remit (see table below). This might explain
why, for example, the former Minister of Public Security, Luo Gan, was present at the
enthronement ceremony of the Chinese government’s selection of the 11th Panchen
Lama in Lhasa in 1995.
It is also notable that membership of the working group is not listed on any of the
members’ official biographies; however, this omission is possibly more likely to be a
result of the Chinese government’s tendency towards non-disclosure on Tibetan issues
than any downgrading of the significance of the working group.
As the table below indicates, recent changes in top Party and government positions —
outcomes of the 17th Party Congress in October 2007 and the 11th National People’s
Congress (NPC) in March 2008 — are mirrored almost exactly in reported changes
of personnel in the working group. It is likely, although as yet unconfirmed, that the
posts of deputy chairmen of the working group are also tied to the positions of
Director of the UFWD, Minister of Public Security, and Secretary General of the State
Council.
It is not yet clear what impact the protests in Tibet since March 2008 have had on the
working group and its mandate, or on its standing within the Party and government
as supposedly one of the spearhead organizations tasked with bringing stability to
Tibet. As far as ICT’s monitoring has been able to determine, the working group has
not been mentioned in the online editions of China’s official press since well before
the protests started in mid-March 2008. However, a human rights monitoring organization
in Hong Kong — the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic
Movements in China — reported membership changes in late May 2008, which are
indicated in the table below. THE
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