Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is no longer the sole city-level administrative unit in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). The Chinese administration is upgrading five of the seven prefecture-level administrative divisions of the TAR to cities: Qamdo (Tibetan: Chamdo), Xigaze (Shigatse) and Nyingchi (Nyingtri) have been recently upgraded and Shannan (Lhokha) is now to be incuded. China’s official Xinhua news agency reported the decision by China’s State Council, or cabinet on February 16.
The new status means these cities will now have a new city committee of the Communist Party of China, as well as a new government, a new local people’s congress standing committee, and a new city political advisory body. The Tibetan Review reports that this means that the cities will have more decision-making power and be less subjected to the TAR authorities at Lhasa, and that it is expected this will lead to a faster pace of urbanisation which in turn facilitates greater inflow of Chinese immigrant population in Tibet.
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