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A Note on Tibet's Population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Leo A. Orleans
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Extract

Remote and sparsely settled Tibet is a most unlikely region for demographic analysis. In view of the complete absence of current population statistics from China, however, the recent publication of a few figures for Tibet make it unique among Chinese provinces. Nonetheless, the figures themselves are only of secondary importance. Their primary significance is in the indirect commentary on the general handling of population statistics by the Chinese Communists.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 27 , September 1966 , pp. 120 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

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References

1 Krotevich, S., “Vsekitayskaya perepis' naseleniya 1953 g.” (“The All-China Population Census of 1953”), Vestnik statistiki (Statistical Herald), No. 5 (09 1955)Google Scholar.

2 The Ten Great Years (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960)Google ScholarPubMed.

3 New China News Agency (NCNA), August 24, 1965.

4 The very high incidence of venereal disease in Tibet has tended to depress fertility and increase mortality. Furthermore, the rarefied air presumably causes excessive strain on the heart and lungs.

5 Because the Indians have no restrictions on border crossings between the two countries, they have no figures on the number of Tibetans in their country. Tibetan sources estimate that their number was 10,000 (Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 1959).

6 Tang, Peter S. H., Communist China Today (Washington: Research Institute on the Sino-Soviet Bloc, 1961), p. 286Google Scholar.

7 NCNA, August 24, 1965.

8 See Orleans, L., “Population Statistics: An Illusion,” The China Quarterly, No. 21 (01–03 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Although there undoubtedly has been an acceleration of Chinese civilian migration to Tibet, their numbers would not be large enough to affect the present discussion. The large number of Chinese Army troops in Tibet are, of course, omitted from the reported figures.