On the 60th anniversary of the founding of China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, CGTN published an article highlighting the region’s remarkable social and economic progress over the past six decades. The article emphasizes that Xizang, under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, has experienced unprecedented development and significant changes, with people enjoying increasingly tangible benefits.
A grand gathering to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of China’s Xizang Autonomous Region was held at the Potala Palace square in Lhasa on Thursday morning. Chinese President Xi Jinping joined around 20,000 local officials and people from all ethnic groups and all walks of life in the celebration.
Dressed in festive attire, crowds waved red flags and flower bouquets, extending a warm welcome to President Xi, who was also presented with a hada – a scarf-like white silk used by people in Xizang to show respect and blessings.
In a historic first for both the Party and the country, Xi led a central delegation to attend events marking the anniversary of the founding of the Xizang Autonomous Region as general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Hearing work reports from the CPC Xizang regional committee and the regional government on Wednesday, Xi urged efforts to build a modern socialist new Xizang that is united, prosperous, civilized, harmonious and beautiful, calling on the region to advance high-quality development and continue to make solid efforts on the four main tasks of ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting the eco-environment and strengthening the borders.
Profound changes
Kala Village of Xizang’s Nyingchi City was once an impoverished and isolated village, where logging, herding and growing highland barley were the main means of livelihood for the villagers.
The turning point came in 2015 when a paired assistance team from Guangdong Province, tasked with aiding Xizang, took full advantage of the village’s cultural and tourism resources, identifying tourism featuring peach blossom as the breakthrough point to accelerate the village’s development.
In 1998, villagers earned 2,000 yuan (around $276) from tourism, while in 2024, Kala Village welcomed over 110,000 visitors savoring the peach blossoms, with tourism revenue topping 3.7 million yuan. From relying solely on its natural resources to developing a thriving “peach blossom economy,” Kala Village’s vibrant practice of rural revitalization has made it a microcosm of Xizang’s broader progress.
Since 2012, Xi has elevated Xizang’s strategic position to a new level, and presided over two central symposiums on work in Xizang, defining guiding principles, objectives and tasks in the new era. To date, Xizang has experienced a period of unprecedented development and momentous change, with people enjoying more and more tangible benefits. It showcases the remarkable success of China’s system of regional ethnic autonomy.
Figures highlight Xizang’s historic progress in economic and social development. The region’s GDP hit 276.5 billion yuan in 2024, 154 times that of 1965, reaching an average annual growth rate of 8.9 percent. The per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents increased from 456 yuan and 108 yuan respectively in 1965 to 55,444 yuan and 21,578 yuan in 2024.
Notably, the region has eliminated millennia-old absolute poverty and realized a moderately prosperous society in all respects alongside the rest of the nation. The transformation of people’s daily lives is evident – moving from buckets of water, oil lamps and dirt paths to running tap water, electric lights and paved roads. Xizang residents now have access to services such as the internet, rail and air travel.
Governing Xizang, ensuring its stability and promoting its prosperity must begin with maintaining political and social stability, ethnic unity and amity among different religions, Xi pointed out during Wednesday’s meeting.
Building a modern socialist new Xizang
In addition to the peach blossom economy, Kala Village has also diversified its income sources through ways such as the introduction of fruit-picking gardens and organized planting and breeding projects, forging a path to prosperity that achieves a win-win result between ecological conservation and economic development.
How to promote Xizang’s high-quality development? Xi pinpointed during Wednesday’s meeting: “Xizang needs to develop competitive plateau industries based on local conditions, with a particular focus on industries of agriculture and animal husbandry with local features, as well as the clean energy sector.”
In recent years, the region has continued to enhance its distinctive and advantageous industries such as cultural tourism, agriculture and animal husbandry, digital technology and Tibetan medicine, and accelerated the cultivation of emerging industries such as plateau light industry.
Green development is also a benefit to people’s livelihood. The region has always prioritized eco-environmental conservation and has become one of the world’s healthiest eco-environment regions.
In Wednesday’s meeting, Xi called on the region to promote ecological conservation, and to make coordinated efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green development and pursue economic growth, so as to protect “the roof of the world” and “the water tower of Asia.”
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