Governance Challenge and Tiered State Assistance: The Fiscal Gap in the Chinese Ethnic Tibetan Autonomous Areas

ABSTRACT Contrary to the arguments in most of the literature, the central government of China applies diversified rather than homogenous measures to govern its Ethnic Tibetan Autonomous Areas (ETAA). Applying the analytical framework of ‘inner and outer peripheries’, this research argues that the central government has favoured the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), particularly in state fiscal assistance, over the other ETAAs, due to its unique governance challenge. This research analyses the central government’s fiscal assistance to the ETAAs from 2010 to 2019 and reveals an increasing fiscal gap between them. Not only has the TAR been consistently in the lead but fiscal inequality has also grown among ETAAs in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai and Gansu. Fieldwork in the TAR, Yunnan, Gansu and Sichuan reveals that the fiscal gap, combined with varied local circumstances, has created multifaceted social and economic unevenness in the ETAAs.