Reports
Tibet Outside the TAR: Bathang Dzong
by Steven D. Marshall and Susette Ternent Cooke
MACHEN
Brief Description and Impressions
The capital town of Golog TAP is genuinely known by the name Machen formal Chinese administrative name is Dawu. The Tibetan name Tawo is also applied to the town and is the source of the Chinese 'Dawu'. The county in which the prefectural capital is located is also called Machen
The town lies at an elevation of around 3,700 meters within Machen County in the eastern sector of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. It may be reached from Xining by the shorter route running 445 kilometers through the pasturelands of Tso inside the Great Bend of the Yellow River, or the longer route of six hundred kilometers via the Xining-Yushu highway. Machen, although considered isolated, is in fact accessible within two days of the Provincial capital.
Golog TAP may be divided into two approximate topographic sectors. In the northwest, high grasslands at an average elevation from over 4,000m up to 5,000rn stretch to the Yellow River sources area. In the southeast, the Anmye Machen and Bayanhar Ranges enclose a lower but more uneven topography ranging from an elevation as low as 2,500m to over 4,000m Nomadic pastoralism is the principal economy traditionally practised in both sectors. Fifty kilometers to the north of Machen the Ma Chu (Yellor River) forms the boundary between Golog and Tsolho TAP'S.
Machen lies in a river valley so flat that it forms a wide, marshy plain rising gradually to higher treeless slopes and eventually rugged snow mountains. The plain and slopes provide excellent grazing for yaks and sheep. Approaching Machen via southeast Tsolho, the way passes through a landscape of enigmatic castle-like rock formations, full of legendary significance for local Tibetans.
Chinese publications boast that while Machen was only a wild animal habitat before 1960, it is now a flourishing town'. In fact the Chinese were aware that humans also inhabited the valley, as they named the town "Dawu" after the Tibetan tribe whose territory it had been, the Tawor Tsowa.
Those Chinese references that admit Tibetans, not only wild aninials, also lived in the region assess their presence in terms typically used to justify China's occupation of Tibetan lands: "For over a thousand years, generations of Tibetans here, in order to open up the Yellow River sources, protect the unity of the motherland, and develop the area's economic and cultural undertakings, made an outstanding contribution."'
It is true that no town existed on the site before Machen was built, but like the Tibetans the Chinese have since made their own contribution to the region. In this scenic valley they have, since the late 1950's, constructed a town of such grimness that even prefectural capitals elsewhere in transformed Tibetan areas cannot rival its bleak artificiality.
Machen consists primarily of buildings and compounds strung roughly north-south along a very long main street. The majority population still appears to be Tibetan, though notably less strongly than in Golog's county towns. The balance is tipping against Tibetans as more Chinese and Hui enter the area. The exciting, raw frontier aspect of other Golog towns iimparted by the presence of visiting nomads is largely absent in Machem. Apparently it is not an important Tibetan trading area, as some county towns are. None of Golog's new towns are adjacent to monasteries, emphasing their lack of Tibetan roots. Built largely for the purposes of control and occupation, Machen presents a profile dominated by a conspicuous component of armed force installations. On the eastern outskirts of the town the standard Martyrs' Cemetery commemorates the sacrifices of those deemed to have died for the cause of building Chinese socialism in Machen.
Economy
The Statistical Yearbook of Qinghai 1995 provides a prefectural summary of production statistics for Golog and Yushu TAP but no county-level breakdown. The distribution of economic activity throughout the prefecture is thus obscured.
Golog's overall production is, at least according to official prefectural statistics, small. Only Yushu's numbers are lower, and they are lower in primary secondary and tertiary production. Both prefectures are areas where herding accounts for most of the recorded economy. production made up 166.2 million Yuan, or 56%, of Golog's 295.7 million Y GDP in 1994.24 Per capita GDP in Golog was strikingly higher than in Yushu: 2,426 Yuan compared to 977 Y, or 2.5 times higher'. But the spread in rural per capita net incomes (I 992) was not quite so dramatic with Yushu's pastoralists earning 750 Yuan and Golog's 462 Yuan.1.76 times as much. Golog's nomads are substantially better off than those in Yushu, but the government is the real winner, with a much larger share of its GDP staying out of the pockets of locals compared to Yushu. Official sources report that Golog has substantial gold reserves, but exploitation of this valuable mineral resource is probably a provincial responsibility and so proceeds do not appear in prefectural statistics. Secondary industrial output for the prefecture (24.6 million Y in 19942) is curiously low, so much so that it could not account for the handful of factories in Machen's capital town. It may be that the plants are operated as provincial enterprises, thus removing their productivity (and profits) from prefectural accounts. Tertiary sector productivity, often dominated by the administrative, educational, medical, financial transport and communications activities of local governments totaled 104.9 million Y in 1994, an amount low in comparison with other TAP'S, but higher than Yushu. Machen, as the capital county, plays the chief role in areas of tertiary production.
Agriculture
Valleys in Machen County are too high for agriculture, although barley and potatoes are grown by Tibetan farmers in some pockets of arable land, especially along the Yellow River in the north of the county. Theirs is subsistence-level farming and their per capita net income undoubtedly falls below the 703 RMB claimed for Golog's rural population in 1994". Farm produce consumed in the town of Machen is trucked in from Chinese agricultural areas far to the north, including Xining.
Pastoralism
Nomadic pastoralism has been the only form of livelihood in Golog since human habitation was first known here, except in a few of the lower river valleys. Most of Machen County is grassland at an elevation of 3700 - 4200 meters. The nomads of Golog and western Yushu are probably the freest of any outside parts of the TAR to pursue their traditional way of life without stifling Chinese interference. In common with the nomads of Ngari and Nagchu in the TAR, they inhabit a landscape so extreme that the Chinese have apparently not set a high priority on curbing them to any great extent. In a region as harsh and challenging to humans as Golog, it is difficult to imagine people other than Tibetan nomads managing to survive unless supported in modem settlements like Machen or the other outposts built since subsumption by China. Tibetan-style pastoralism therefore remains the primary form of production in Golog, and has resisted attempts to revise its organization and practise more successfully than most other animal husbandry areas of Amdo.
Collectivization was incredibly difficult to enforce in Golog, and was indeed delayed for some years after the Communist occupation. The Tibetans of Golog always fiercely resisted attempts by the Chinese to control them. Except in the immediate vicinity of Machen and perhaps at the Army Pasture Land, little grassland in Machen has been fenced, and relatively few nomads have been forced to settle in fixed abodes, as is the favored Chinese policy.
Marketing of their produce has been well organized into the Chinese consumer systen-4 however. The large and gloomy Golog Prefecture Meat Processing Factory lies at the northern end of Machen. The Factory was built between 1979 and 1982, when the Provincial authorities decided to try to inject new impetus into the moribund economy following decades of recurrent natural disasters and destructive political campaigns and policies. The Qinghai Provincial Planning Committee and other government bodies allocated nearly 32 million RMB for the establishment of meat processing facilities in the province's pastoral areas, including Machen", so that meat products could be more easily transported to Chinese markets. An abattoir is attached, and on the other side of the road is another plant for animal byproducts processing. A leather factory and milk products factory also process products supplied by Golog pastoralists. Traditionally, dairy products have had little importance for Chinese, but as more modem, high-protein diets become commonplace, milk products have become popular. Tibetan areas are foremost as potential suppliers. Demand is rising sharply.
Chinese markets, growing in size and demand for meat, are fully capable of absorbing the produce of Amdo's grasslands. Tibetan pastoralist in Golog are still maintaining their traditional way of life to a great extent. Within that context they are enjoying a high economic level, raising large herds and earning sufficient cash to purchase items such as expensive brocades for traditional clothing and motorcycles to supplement their ponies. However, they do not reap the benefits of the free market trading open to most products. Livestock prices are effectively fixed at below-market levels by the government, as is the case with staple grains. Primary livestock sales are thoroughly dominated by local government enterprises such as abattoirs. A small amount of localized livestock trading is done privately but the current economic environment clearly places the government in charge of the value of pastoralists' herds. It was raising sheep c. 1990, which inevitably involves fencing of pasture and more intensive grazing, practises detrimental to native pastoralists in the area.
Deer farms have been established in at least two places in Machcn County, at Lower Dawu -Ft ft in the extremly northwestern tip of the county, and north of Dongxiegou, about fifty kilometers northwest of Dawuzhen. These are most likely State enterprises, supplying the valuable medicinal products of musk and deer antlers.
Apart from the produce of its pastoral sector, Machen contains other natural resources exploited by the State. Along its northern edge are rich forest resources, and a variety of valuable medicinal herbs grow in its forest and grassland areas. Its mineral deposits have been of great interest to the Chinese since the earliest years of their occupation. Rare wildlife such as the snow leopard, brown bear, musk deer, blue sheep and argali sheep inhabit the grasslands and forests of Golog, protected by law but threatened by destruction of their habitat and illegal hunting.
The forests growing along the Yellow River which form the northern boundary of Machen County are virgin growth, and so exceptionally valuable. Machen and Perna Counties together provide the greatest virgin forest resources in Qinghai Province". Lumber processing was not observed in Dawuzhen, rare in a TAP capital, so logs must be transported northwards or west to join the Xining-Yushu highway. Medicinal plants such as caterpillar fungus, vetch root and snow lotus bring high prices on the Chinese markets.
Coal was the main mineral resource exploited in Machen when the Chinese began their domination of the region during the 1950's. At least two coal mines operate just south of Dawuzhen, the Shixia and Yematan Mines. The Yematan Coal Mine is very close to the Army Pasture Land, and the two facilities may be connected. The De'enii Copper and Cobalt Mine in Machen County also produces a variety of minerals including sulphur, copper, gold and silver, as well as many subsidiary mineraIS14. The mine, which began operations in 1989, has estimated reserves valued at 6 million RMBN. China is keen to find and exploit rarer mineral deposits under its own administration so that it will not have to import them. This becomes an imperative of increasing importance as China's industrialization and technological development progresses.
[Reproduced by permission from TIBET: Outside the TAR, by Steven D. Marshall and Susette Ternent Cooke. ©1997, S. Marshall and S. Cooke.]
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