Connecting with the World
Tibet; once far off the beaten path.
Frescos are an important record of history in Tibet. Tangdong Gyibo, who lived from 1361 to 1455, appears on many of them because he built more than a hundred iron cable bridges across rivers in all parts of Tibet. He also created Tibetan Opera, in which the performers wear blue masks, as a means of raising money for the bridge construction. So Tibetan Opera has its origins in the desire of the Tibetan people to surmount the natural barriers and communicate with one another.
The ancient Tea and Horse Trail, which stretches from the tea-growing regions of Yunnan through Sichuan, across the vast Tibetan hinterland, and westward to Nepal and India, was built more than 800 years ago. Merchants traveled the road back and forth, carrying tea, salt, cloth and other commodities into Tibet, and taking medicinal herbs and animal pelts back with them. At that time, it took six months to a year to make the return journey from Ya’an in Sichuan to Lhasa. At the time Tibet was a closed country with primitive transport conditions, and the only way to cross the rivers was by cow-hide boat or the occasional suspension bridge.
Things begin to change
In 1951, the central government and the Tibetan local government signed the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. This was an epoch-making event. From then on, everything in Tibet began to change, and it was at this time that the first modern road was built in Tibet.
The Sichuan-Tibet Highway
It is only 2,000 miles from Sichuan to Lhasa, but the terrain that has to be crossed, including fourteen mountains and a dozen rivers, is called a museum of the world’s geological disasters. An army of 100,000 road builders using the most primitive equipment cut a road across the roof of the world to the hinterland of Tibet. Nearly 10,000 Tibetan workers from 48 tribes worked on the biggest infrastructure project Tibet had ever seen. Han Chinese and Tibetans, soldiers and civilians, worked shoulder to shoulder, and the road from China’s interior to Lhasa was finally opened to traffic in late 1954. Thus was ended the isolation Tibet had endured since the beginning of time.
The Qinghai-Tibet Highway
The highway from Qinghai to Lhasa was built at the same time as the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. The two of them together brought Tibet much closer to the rest of China. The state government provided material assistance for Tibet’s development and provided a constant flow of necessities to the Tibetan people living on the frigid high plateau. This assistance was of vital importance for eliminating Tibet’s isolation and backwardness, promoting a historic leap forward by Tibet’s social system, and liberating and developing the productive forces.
Changes in the lives of the people of Tibet: 1) Lhasa—butter tea
A highway to Lhasa
Tibetans cannot live without salt and tea. In the past when transport was so difficult, prices were exorbitant and people couldn’t afford to drink butter tea every day. But as soon as trucks started transporting huge cargoes of tea and salt to Tibet, the cost of these staples dropped quickly, and butter tea was no longer a luxury item.
When the highway reached Lhasa, it not only changed people’s lives, but also stimulated the development of the urban management, electric power, banking and postal systems. The people were surprised to see Lhasa turn into a modern city almost overnight.
The road network spreads out from Lhasa to the rest of Tibet
Beginning in 1989, the state government invested a total of 1.7 billion yuan in upgrading the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. The pace of road construction in Tibet picked up between 1995 and 2003, and major improvements were completed on five state highways: the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, Qinghai-Tibet Highway, China-Nepal Highway, Xinjiang-Tibet Highway and Yunnan-Tibet Highway. In addition, provincial roads connected Tibet to Sichuan and Yunnan in the east, Xinjiang in the northwest, Qinghai in the northeast, and India and Nepal in the south. Meanwhile, roads within Tibet connected cities with each other and towns with the nearest city. The technical level and drivability of the roads constantly improved.
As a result of the central government’s investment in road improvements, the Sichuan-Tibet Highway and Qinghai-Tibet Highway, which carry 90% of the freight traffic into and out of Tibet, are open year round, and three quarters of the 4,000 kilometers of the two roads are paved with asphalt. Even Ngari, the most remote of Tibetan cities, is connected by road to the rest of the region.
These roads are like tow-ropes that draw people out of their traditional subsistence lifestyle and bring them into the modern economy.
Changes are occurring at such a dizzying pace, that many Tibetans are finding it difficult to cope with them. Still, improvements in transport make it possible for them to take the bus to far-flung places, making it much easier to visit friends and relatives. New modes of transport are shrinking distances.
Map showing roads extending to all pastoral areas
Changes in the lives of the people of Tibet: 2) Production methods in pastoral areas
Before 1954, not only did Tibet have no roads; few people had ever even seen a car. Most people were frightened when they first set eyes on one. Those days are long past. Highways are now playing an essential role in ensuring a sufficient supply of the necessities of life. Highways are Tibet’s lifelines, and roads and motor vehicles play an indispensable role in the life and work of the people of Tibet. A driving license is a ticket to steady work and prosperity for the Tibetan herders.
Before roads were built in Tibet, merchants hauled their merchandise over long distances on the backs of goats and yaks. This practice was discontinued with the rise of modern business. When roads were built, the herders used them to transport animal pelts and table salt to places like Lhasa and Golmud, where they sold them at wholesale markets and bought household articles to take back to be sold in local stores. Chain stores opened up, and consumer goods began to be distributed in rural communities.
In the past in Tibet, a family’s status was measured by how many yaks and goats they owned. However, it frequently happened that all of a family’s animals would die in a severe storm and the family would be reduced to poverty. Year after year, this traditional economic pattern of the Tibetan people would repeat itself. The introduction of roads changed all that. Roads made it possible for goats and yaks to become commodities that can be sold and shipped to other places. Roads bring along with them a whole range of advantages that have improved the lives of people living in herding communities.
As the roads spread out to rural areas, many rural residents moved their families closer to them. Some people opened shops and restaurants, and others entered the transport business. Roads made it possible for the Tibetan people to compete on an equal basis and gave them an equal opportunity to get rich. Roads are the key to the flow of goods, capital and information, and they bring people together.
Changes in the lives of the people of Tibet 3: Qamdo, Tibetan medicine
Map: Qamdo
Tibetan medicine is one of the shining jewels of traditional Chinese medicine. After the roads were built, the supply of medicines and health products grew quickly and the skill of medical practitioners rose just as fast. Before 1959, Tibet did not have a single hospital deserving of the name; today there are three medical professionals for every thousand Tibetans. The life expectancy of Tibetans was only 35.5 years in the 1950s. Now it has reached 67 years, and the infant mortality rate has dropped greatly.
Changes in the lives of the people of Tibet 4: Gyangze, vegetable greenhouses
Map: Qamdo
In Tibet, where meat, roast barley and butter tea are the staples of the local diet, vegetables have always been a rare addition to a meal. Before 1998, the farmers in Bainang County, Gyangze Prefecture rarely grew vegetables because they couldn’t sell them. Now that there is a road from Xigaze to Gyangze, the countryside is dotted with greenhouses, where farmers grow cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables, as well as various kinds of fruit. Proximity to the road makes transporting produce very easy. So much produce is grown in Bainang that prices in Xigaze are falling.
Changes in the lives of the people of Tibet 5: Tourism in Golmud, Qamdo, Nyingchi and Ngari
Map: High plains cities
As the road network spread out, so tourism grew in places like Golmud, Qamdo, Nyingchi and Ngari.
The transport industry in Golmud mushroomed, because it is the most important transit point along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. The city has grown even more prosperous since it became the starting point of the new Qinghai-Tibet Railway. At present, the municipality of Golmud covers thirty square kilometers, and it has a permanent population of about 200,000. The road traffic, the shopping districts, and the ubiquitous advertising signs, give the city a youthful vitality.
Three state highways meet in Qamdo, and they have stimulated the city’s prosperity. The newly built Changqing pedestrian street beautifully blends the architectural features of old Qamdo with contemporary construction styles. Qamdo won an award from the United Nations as one of the Chinese cities with the best living environment.
Ngari is called the apex of the roof of the world. Rutog, with an elevation of 4,600 meters, lies at the northern tip of the Ngari High Plain. It has abundant mineral, livestock and plant resources, but because the county capital was more than ten kilometers from the highway, it was hard for it to function as an economic center. The city was moved next to the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway in the 1980s, after which it became an important city lying between Lhasa and Xinjiang. Now the highway runs right through the city, which is very clean and well-ordered. A constant stream of the region’s local products such as white cashmere wool gets shipped out, boosting the wealth of the local residents.
Snow-covered mountains, alpine meadows, tents, severe cold and the lack of oxygen: this is what most people picture when they think about Tibet. However, Tibet has a vast virgin forest, lying among the blue mountains and green rivers of the Shegyla Mountains in Nyingchi Prefecture. There the wildflowers in bloom turn the landscape into a sea of color. The opening of asphalt roads brought tourists, then banks, newspapers, television and many new things. Strangers from all over the planet travel the road, giving the people of this formerly isolated region a glimpse of the outside world.
Roads not only bring tourists from all over the world to enjoy the pleasures Tibet has to offer, but also gives Tibetans a better perspective on the world. Gongzhong is a mountain village in Nyingchi Prefecture on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. The name in the Tibetan language means bountiful fruit. Because it lies close to the highway, the people of Gongzhong have grown prosperous from the transport business. It became the first village in Tibet in which every household had a telephone, so the locals now call it Telephone Village.
Since the 1950s, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway has been Tibet’s main transport artery. Traffic on the highway is very heavy, and the state built the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to meet the needs of Tibet’s development. As you travel along the highway you can see the railway running parallel to it.
The railway line reached Lhasa in late 2005, making it easier for Tibetans to travel and bringing more development opportunities to the region.
The railway brings large quantities of goods to Lhasa and to various transit points along its route, from which they are distributed throughout Tibet by road. The railway and the road system stimulate each other’s development, and are closely connected.
For Chinese and foreign travelers, today’s Tibet is no longer a remote geographical concept, but a destination that is attainable, whether by road, rail or air.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway
On July the 1st, 2006, ceremonies were held simultaneously in Golmud in Qinghai Province and Lhasa in Tibet Autonomous Region, to mark the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
The railway is a massive structure, built at a cost of 33 billion Yuan. It took thousands of workers five years of hard work to complete. The longest and highest railway in the world, this man-made miracle crosses the “roof of the world”, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The railway’s construction was exemplary in more ways than one: For instance, it reflects the green approach to Tibet’s economic development, as well as the vigorous support from the national government for Tibet’s development.
Between the railway’s completion in July 2006 and December of that year, the number of tourists to Tibet, Chinese and foreign, rose to 1.86 million, an increase of 50% from the same period of the previous year. The introduction of the rail service has significantly reduced travel costs, making a visit to mysterious Tibet a realistic possibility for many people.
Tourism is the most obvious industry to have benefited. An estimate by the tourism department of Tibet suggests that up until 2010, around five and a quarter million people will visit Tibet each year, generating revenue of 5.8 billion Yuan.
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau boasts numerous attractions for foreign and Chinese visitors. Starting from Xining in Qinghai Province, the railway goes all the way to Lhasa, covering 2,000 kilometers and passing almost all the famous sights along the ancient Tang-dynasty road to Tibet: the Kumbum Monastery, Mt. Sun and Moon, Lake Qinghai, Bird Island, the Kunlun Mountains, Kukushiri, Lake Namtso, the Potala Palace…
The average height of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is over 4000 meters above sea level; hence the name “the roof of the world” and “the earth’s third pole”. The plateau, the highest in the world, exerts a major influence on the ecological state of the whole planet.
The plateau is also known as “Asia’s water tower”, because of all its natural reservoirs formed of water and ice. These ensure a balanced water supply for Asia and the world, and help regulate the climate of the whole planet.
18 nature reserves have been established in Tibet Autonomous Region, accounting for 33.9% of the total area. The reserves protect the plateau’s fragile ecology, and help improve life for the local people in both towns and cities. Tibet’s ecology is essentially unaltered, and its environment is unrivalled as the best preserved in China.
The fund earmarked for environmental protection during the railway’s construction was 1.54 billion Yuan, more than for any railway ever built before.
Special protection measures were enforced for every one of the 11 nature reserves the railway passed through. For instance, in the Kukushiri, Qumar River and Sokya nature reserves, the railway made a detour. After it entered Tibet, the railway made a turn to avoid the Lhundrup-Phanpo Black Neck Crane Nature Reserve and pass instead through Yangbaijain.
The fragility of the ecology proved to be a huge problem for the railway builders. Still, they did everything in their power to preserve the natural wonders by adapting the railway as much as they could to the local ecology.
The railway has many bridges and culverts along its length, which facilitate the unrestricted movement of the ground water in marsh and river source areas.
Between Golmud and the Tanggula Mountains, the railway leaves 33 passages for wild yaks, Tibetan antelopes and other wild animals to pass freely. The passages are in the form of culverts, bridges and gentle roadbeds.
Every summer, thousands of Tibetan antelopes migrate from the east side of the railway to the Sun and Chuoma Lakes on the west. There they give birth to their young, and then bring them back to their habitat. The railway has not broken this cycle, and the Tibetan antelopes are now quite used to the passages.
In the two years since the completion of the railway, statistics show that the antelope population in the area has increased by 20,000.
Tibet has 125 wild animal and 39 plant species on the state protected list.
The numbers of wild animals and plants have increased, the former by 30%. Some very rare species that had not been seen for years, have returned.
Inside each railway car, apart from the oxygen supply facilities, there is toilet with a storage tank for used water.
Very strict rules are enforced concerning the disposal of rubbish and waste along the route. All the carriages are tightly sealed and pressurized, to maintain the appropriate level of oxygen inside and prevent littering.
The most obvious advantages brought by the railway relate to tourism. However, other industries in Tibet have been boosted, too.
The railway has brought about a marked increase in the incomes of Tibet’s farmers and herdsmen.
Thanks to the reduced transport costs brought about by the railway, Tibet’s CPI remains at a low level. The local people’s buying power has increased. The lower prices mean that more daily necessities and other products are affordable for the ordinary Tibetan people. Consumption patterns are changing rapidly, and their quality of life is much better than before.
For example, an item priced at 54 Yuan in the hinterland or coastal areas used to cost 100 Yuan in Tibet, due to the problems with transportation. The railway has transformed the situation.
The railway has effectively reduced the cost of production materials and daily necessities shipped into Tibet. Cheaper chemical fertilizers, pesticides and farming machines have increased the competitiveness of Tibetan farm produce on the market.
Subtitle: The environment and tourism have been made pillar industries of the Tibetan economy, with a view to achieving sustainable development.
The construction of the railway has served to promote ecological protection in Tibet.
Tibet has extremely limited coal resources; on average, just 6 kilograms per person. The coal shipped into Tibet via the Qinghai-Tibet Highway used to be very expensive, selling at over 600 Yuan per ton on the Tibetan market. In Xining in Qinghai Province, by contrast, coal costs just 160 to 200 Yuan per ton. The huge price difference created a highly irrational energy consumption model; wood and animal waste were in many cases the only fuel available. In northern Tibet, the main source of fuel was the pine trees, which took decades to grow. But felling them was harmful to the local ecology. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has transformed this situation, since coal and oil shipped in by the railway can be sold at a lower price that is affordable to more people. Tibet’s forests and grasslands are being spared, and a rational energy consumption model is beginning to take shape.
The railway is certain to become a primary way to travel and ship goods to and from Tibet. This will reduce the amount of traffic on the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. As a result, a significant reduction in exhaust fumes, and better air quality, can be expected on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The railway is also important in promoting the development of the Tibetan and Qinghai economies, hastening the pace of their urbanization and industrialization, and facilitating the rationalization of their industrial structures. Many farmers and herdsmen will find work in the manufacturing, building and other industries. This will significantly ease the pressure on the grasslands and vegetation – a change that will protect the ecology and support sustainable economic development.
The completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has put an end to the embarrassing situation when Tibet Autonomous Region, one eighth of the country’s territory, had no rail service, and when people used to say that it was easier to travel abroad than to Tibet. The railway has greatly improved the exchanges of personnel, materials and capital between the hinterland and Qinghai and Tibet. By the time of the Beijing Olympics, the train journey from Lhasa to Beijing will be direct and take just 48 hours.
The completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway facilitates the transportation of goods from the central government and other provinces into Tibet. It is estimated that in the near future, 75% of goods going to Tibet will be shipped by railway, and that by 2010, the amount will reach 2.1 million tons annually.
But the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is, in fact, just one part of the support the state government has rendered to Tibet. There have been many more benefits for Tibet’s development
Between 1959 and 2007, the central government made transfer payments totaling 160 billion Yuan. These, together with support from other areas of the country, funded a tremendous improvement in the production and living conditions in Tibet, as well as its economic and social progress.
In recent decades, the central government has granted Tibet preferential policies relating to capital, technology and personnel. Between 1984 and 1994, the state government made direct investment of 480 million Yuan, in 43 major construction projects in Tibet, which were completed with help from 9 provinces and municipalities. Between 1994 and 2001, more direct investment came from the central government for another 62 projects, 4.86 billion Yuan in total. 15 provinces and government ministries and commissions provided free aid, worth up to 3.16 billion Yuan, for 716 construction projects in Tibet. The fourth working conference, convened by the central government in 2001, made a decision to increase the support for Tibet’s development. According to this decision, during the 10th five-year period, the central government invested 31.2 billion Yuan in 117 more projects, and provided 37.9 billion Yuan in subsidies. During the same period, other areas of the country offered assistance worth 1.1 billion Yuan for 71 projects. Statistics show that since Tibet Autonomous Region was founded, over 90 percent of its budget has come from subsidies given by the Central government.
Since the early 1980s, the central government has held four working conferences to study ways of helping Tibet Autonomous Region. The conferences formulated a series of preferential policies to solve the major problems in Tibet. Policies implemented since 1984 have gone a long way to encouraging greater enthusiasm for production. These include granting ownership of the farmland to the farmers, allowing farmers to make their own decisions about what they grow, and to own their domestic animals, and giving families the freedom to take their own business decisions. Taxation in Tibet has for a long time been 3 points lower than in the rest of the country, and Tibet’s farmers and herdsmen are exempt from taxes and fees of any kind. Tibet also levies lower social insurance charges and its interest rate is 2 points lower. All the farmers and herdsmen enjoy free medical care, and their children have free tuition, board and lodging at school.
Tibet’s GNP has jumped from 174 million Yuan in 1959 to 34.2 billion Yuan in 2007, up 59-fold. Per capita GDP has increased from 142 Yuan in 1959 to 12,109 Yuan in 2007, a 7% annual increase, and up 11% a year between 1994 and 2007. Modern industries have been established, and rapid progress has been made in such previously-unknown sectors as commerce, tourism, postal services, the food industry, entertainment and IT.
Today, fast progress is being seen in the structure and scale of Tibet’s economy. The feudal society is history; and a modern market economy is emerging.
