Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stressed fully implementing the guidelines of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for governing Tibet in a new era and writing a new chapter of lasting stability and high-quality development for the plateau region.

Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visited the Tibet Autonomous Region from July 21 to 23 for the 70th anniversary of Tibet’s peaceful liberation, the first time in the history of the Party and the country.

On 23 May, 1951, the 17-Article Agreement on measures for the peaceful liberation of Tibet was signed between representatives of the Central People’s Government and the local government of Tibet, an event that marked the peaceful liberation of the region.

“As a Tibetan veteran, revisiting the glorious course of Tibet’s peaceful liberation makes us feel very cordial. It has both historical and practical significance. To commemorate the glorious day of Tibet’s peaceful liberation with friends!” Jambey Gyatso, a research fellow from the Institute of Ethnic Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), published this on a social media platform on May 23.

In 1950, 12-year-old Jambey Gyatso joined the People’s Liberation Army and marched into Tibet with its Eighteenth Army to liberate Tibet. As a historical witness to Tibet’s peaceful liberation, he said that the signing of the 17-Article Agreement has become the first step for the Tibetan people to move from darkness and suffering to light and happiness. The establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the implementation of the socialist system have provided an institutional guarantee for Tibet to achieve common development and progress with the whole country.

Over the past seven decades, the central government has formulated many special preferential policies for Tibet, covering various fields such as fiscal, taxation and finance, infrastructure, industrial development, education and health, cultural protection, and ecological progress. Batch after batch of cadres have been sent in aid for Tibet. From 1994 to 2020, under the partner assistance mechanism, central government offices, provinces and municipalities, and major state-owned enterprises sent nine batches to support 6,330 economic and social construction projects in Tibet, with a total investment of 52.7 billion yuan. 9,682 outstanding cadres were also selected in aid for Tibet.

Xu Wenhua, vice president of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Tibet Autonomous Region, was sent by CASS to aid Tibet. He went to Tibet in 2015 and witnessed its historical leap. He said that the CPC Central Committee has always attached great importance to Tibet’s work, giving deep care to the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet.

In 1951, Tibet’s GDP was only 129 million yuan, and in 2020, its GDP exceeded 190 billion yuan. Tibet has gradually established a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network covering multiple modes of transportation such as roads, railways, aviation, and pipelines. All of its administrative villages are connected to roads. The mileage of highways opened to traffic has reached 118,800 kilometers. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Lhasa-Shigatse Railway have been opened to traffic, and the Sichuan-Tibet Railway is under construction. In addition, Tibet’s average life expectancy increased from 35.5 years in 1951 to 71.1 years in 2019.

Tibet used to be a poverty-stricken area with the highest incidence of poverty, the deepest poverty level, and the highest poverty alleviation cost in China. It also used to be the most difficult area for achieving poverty alleviation in the country. However, by the end of 2019, all the 628,000 registered poor people in Tibet had been lifted out of poverty, and all 74 impoverished counties and districts had shaken off absolute poverty.

Jambey Gyatso said that the great changes in Tibet are an epitome of the historic changes and achievements of the undertakings of the Party and the country in the new era.

“Looking back on the past, we can see a brighter future for Tibet unfolding before us,” he said.