Asia Times: Is China ready to bail out the US in Afghanistan? Washington needs to swallow its pride and hubris and secure Beijing’s help to get Americans safely out of Kabul 亞洲時報：中國準備好在阿富汗救助美國了嗎？ 華盛頓需要放下自負和狂妄自大，確保北京幫助美國人安全離開喀布爾. By GEORGE KOO AUGUST 20, 2021

Nine Taliban representatives meet with Chinese officials in Tianjin. In the center are Taliban co-founder Mullah Baladar and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry

The appalling images of desperate Afghans losing their grip and falling to their death as planes take off from Kabul Airport evokes the memories of the panic evacuation from the rooftop of the American embassy in Saigon some 46 years earlier.

This is yet another stain on America’s reputation. To lessen the trauma of the humiliating rush for the emergency exit as seen by world opinion, it will be crucial for President Joe Biden’s administration to arrange for the orderly departure of the Americans remaining in Afghanistan and not leave them stranded.

And, just as important, there are tens of thousands of Afghans who have provided loyal services to the Americans forces and have been promised visas to emigrate to the US, and are now waiting for safe passage out of Afghanistan.

Not all wishing to depart are gathered in Kabul or at the international airport. Many are simply caught unprepared by the sudden collapse of the US-backed government. Obviously, only with the consent and willing cooperation of the Taliban, now in control of the country, can the remaining Afghans and Americans be assembled and safely conveyed to departing planes.

It has been reported that US Secretary of State Tony Blinken contacted his counterparts in Russia and China as the debacle at the Kabul airport was unfolding. What Blinken said to Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Wang Yi, foreign minister for China, has not been made public.

But if Blinken was hoping to salvage the reputation of the Biden administration, he probably would have had to swallow some of the American hubris and ask for assistance in intervening with the Taliban on America’s behalf.

China as intermediary for the US

Both China and Russia have kept open their embassies in Afghanistan and maintained diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Just recently, the Taliban even sent a delegation to Beijing to shore up their bilateral relations. The message was that the Taliban would like Afghanistan to become a part of the Belt and Road Initiative and welcome Chinese investments.

In turn, China has expressed interest in enlarging its presence but needs to see a secured country and the assurance of the safety of Chinese nationals working in Afghanistan. And, of course, the Taliban should not permit the use of Afghanistan as a staging ground for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and allow the mostly ethnic Uighur terrorists to enter China and wreak havoc there.

It’s no small irony that the world’s mightiest military power cannot exert its will on a tribal Islamic militant group and must rely on a third party to intercede on America’s behalf. Arguably, China is in the best position to persuade the Taliban to ensure safe passage for the people wishing to leave, and thus save Uncle Sam from the lingering embarrassment of a panic-stricken retreat.

The war in Afghanistan over 20 years has cost Washington the average of US$300 million per day. Perhaps China might suggest to the Biden administration that the US transfer the savings of some of that daily expenditure to the Taliban as a form of “departure head tax” to facilitate smooth exits.

Surely, Afghanistan is merely the latest evidence that the American mission of nation-building around the world and replicating democracies after its own image is nothing more than a fool’s errand and a pipe dream.

Follies of nation building

Even if the denizens inside the Washington Beltway fail to see the folly of decades of futility, the rest of world is increasingly aware of the risks of signing on to be a US ally. When Washington’s next bumbling leads to another crisis, the American assurance that Uncle Sam has their back will be shown as meaningless.

Yet the latest US secretary of the air force, Frank Kendall, wants to refocus American weapons using advanced technology to “scare” China. Can’t even beat the Taliban but still wants to scare China. What is he smoking?

In previous commentaries in Asia Times, I have unabashedly promoted the idea that the US needs to find ways to work with China rather seeking to win the unwinnable zero-sum rivalry. Perhaps the folks in Washington are just too focused on building military might and can’t think of any other approach with China.

First, it’s important to recognize that China does not want to compete with the US, especially in the development of weapons. Each advance the US makes, China is obliged to match and develop an effective counter. Each effective counter gives the US justification to invest in the next state-of-the-art weapon to kill and destroy. This is an endless march to disaster.

Rather than sending soldiers, China sends construction engineers to help countries on the Belt and Road build their infrastructure. The US does not have the resources to compete and should not. China makes friends with its BRI but not at the expense of America. Economic development in the countries that China assist is good for everybody.

Afghanistan is just one situation where collaboration with China is beneficial. There are many other global challenges on which the US needs to work with China such as climate change, stopping the Covid epidemic, cyber hacking, counterterrorism, drug and human trafficking and many others. Without mutual trust, the two countries cannot work effectively together.

Steps to collaboration with China

I would like to propose some sensible steps in the direction of getting along with China.

American business leaders have been clamoring for the Biden administration to restart trade negotiations with Beijing and remove the tariffs on imports from China. Biden should begin in all due haste and stop the open wound to American farmers and consumers caused by the tariff war.

The detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver has been an embarrassment for Canada and an unwarranted source of tension between China and the US along with Canada. Biden should take the initiative and promptly remove the request for extradition before the presiding Canadian judge dismisses the case. This good-faith gesture would do wonders for the relations among the three countries.

Basically, former president Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster to America’s credibility and prestige. Rather than blindly following the policies of his predecessor, Biden needs to order a thorough review and think deeply on what’s really good for America.

Rather than trying to persuade the rest of the world to be more like us Americans, we badly need to fix our seriously flawed democracy. We allow politicians to turn vaccinations and wearing a facial mask, which should be a public health issue, into a political issue. Some politicians, including ex-president Trump, treat the US constitution as nothing more than a doormat for their muddy shoes.

Are these characteristics of a model democracy worthy of worldwide adoration and respect?

George Koo recently retired from a global advisory services firm where he advised clients on their China strategies and business operations. Educated at MIT, Stevens Institute and Santa Clara University, he is the founder and former managing director of International Strategic Alliances. He is currently a board member of Freschfield’s, a novel green building platform.

Is China ready to bail out the US in Afghanistan?

Video: Malaysian Chinese benefited from China’s rise faced LESS discrimination, not so in Western Empires Countries especially in US. 馬來西亞華人親身體驗中國掘起讓他們得到從來沒有得到的尊重! 可惜呀, 但在美國和加拿大有不少華人天天唱衰中國, 老是把陳年舊事拿出來說三道四. 醒來吧! 活人是要往前看的. 要翻舊帳, 先找美國和日本人去算才是. 這兩個殺人如麻的國家你為何不敢發聲, 你的正義何在?
https://vimeo.com/590244699
https://youtube.com/shorts/w4SGHG7H3RQ
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/551658759390787/?d=n

Video: The US’s NED/CIA supported riots and COVID19 have revealed the face of Hong Kong people. Recently I have read a few sets of figures, which reflect how the quality of the people in this city has fallen off a cliff. 被捉去隔離營是一件幸福的事 屈穎妍2021-07-21
https://vimeo.com/590231378
https://youtu.be/isl36BUCfHk
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/551632106060119/?d=n
從前，香港讓人稱譽的特質，除了蓬勃的經濟金融，還有井然的社會秩序和市民素質。

不過，一場由美國民主基金會支持的黑暴再加一股瘟疫，讓香港人的底牌都現形了。最近看了幾組數字，多少反映這城市人民素質已是斷崖式滑落。

為幫補疫情下的低迷經濟，財爺宣佈每人派5000元消費劵。登記只開始了兩星期，全港700多萬人口，就已有超過610萬人登記。

有錢派香港人從來不執輸，身份證號碼、電話號碼忽然間都不是私隱，「掃」個「安心出行」都怕被人監控的香港人，有著數就什麼也不怕了。

反觀另一個數字：免費打疫苗，就顯得拉牛上樹了。2月開始政府提供免費疫苗接種至今，打了半年，才得133萬人打齊兩針，還是靠商家送樓送金送錢等誘因才成事。

在香港打疫苗是優越得無話可說的，免費、方便，注射站梗有一間喺左近，還有得揀科興還是復必泰，外加抽獎，這種待遇，全世界，哪裡找？

朋友Paul哥移民泰國幾十年，生活優哉悠哉，打Golf、養狗、湊孫、嚐美食，一直是我們羨慕的對象，但今天，卻輪到他羨慕我們。

Paul哥說，要在泰國打疫苗，私人診所兩針盛惠100美元。好彩他有先見之明，全家上下加工人司機一早去付費打針，因為在泰國政府登記6月打疫苗的市民，到現在7月下旬仍未有針打，主要因為疫苗不夠，疫苗接種由延期變了無了期。

泰國朱拉隆功大學主任醫生席拉瓦(Thiravat Hemachudha)日前在臉書貼出他任職醫院門外的照片，數十名戴著口罩的民眾坐在醫院外漏夜等床位。原來，染疫進院，並不是必然的事，當香港人怕被捉去隔離營的時候，其實好多國家醫療系統的崩潰已去到市民染疫就只能躲在家自生自滅的地步。

想想，有機會被捉去隔離營、方艙醫院，原來是一件幸福的事。

7月2日，泰國就有一名84歲老翁從曼谷拉差裡威區(Ratchathewi)一棟樓房上一躍而下，結束生命，原來這老翁有個57歲確診女兒，因等不到病床，已死在家中床上。

還有一名確診者陳屍家中沙發旁，身邊遺下一包食物。家人說，從死狀看，他是從床上爬起來取食物時猝死的。

泰國曾經是香港人趨之若鶩的後花園，但一場瘟疫，把所有美好破滅，截至昨天，泰國確診個案已突破42萬，每日病例過萬，但接種兩針疫苗的人口僅4.9%，接種率落後於鄰近國家。內閣高官紛紛確診，包括泰國交通部長、公共關係廳廳長、鐵路局局長，一半內閣成員在家居家辦公，政府幾近癱瘓。

不必看太遠，就看看我們最熟悉的泰國吧，如果身處香港的你仍未有身在福中的感覺，仍在自私地觀望，不檢測也不打針，只怕有日悲劇襲來，大家搶得多多消費劵都冇命享。

More than 20 Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations called on President Joe Biden to further protect the community ahead of next week’s release of the findings of an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. 20 多個亞裔美國人和太平洋島民組織呼籲喬·拜登總統在下周公布冠狀病毒起源調查結果之前進一步保護社區.

Click to access Joint-NCAPA-Stop-AAPI-Hate-Letter-to-President-Biden-FINAL.pdf

https://news.yahoo.com/over-20-organizations-demand-biden-232138825.html

I am glad that the letter to Biden has jumped out in front of the impending US intelligence apparatus’ Lab Leak report. I am encouraged that API leadership is addressing the connection between the demonization of China and domestic anti-Asian Hate.

The letter rightfully confronts the issues of the Lab Leak narrative and DOJ/FBI/Christopher Wray China Initiative. Thank you for that!

The letter to Biden says: “And we need you to forcefully and repeatedly condemn anti-China and anti-AAPI rhetoric each and every time this topic comes up…”

The objective reality is that Biden’s neo-con foreign policy team of Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Kurt Campbell, Avril Haynes, Victoria Nuland is the SOURCE of “anti-China rhetoric”.

At some point AA leadership will have to address the uncomfortable reality that Biden and Dems have intensified the baseless China-bashing narrative. It was easy and politically-correct to blame Trump, but it may be difficult and unpalatable to objectively assign responsibility by those who are invested in Biden, Pelosi and the Dems.

The Biden letter constitutes progress in AAPI discourse in that it addresses collateral damage from the Lab Leak narrative.

The McCarthy Red Scare hysteria of the Fifties saw the persecution of Chinese-Americans. Given this historical precedent, the current New Red Scare needs to be challenged by API leadership.

Thank you for the progress in API leadership discourse. I hope for continued progress. I hope for even more courage from API leaders to acknowledge and challenge the McCarthyite New Red Scare hysteria.

Please speak out loudly against the China-bashing hysteria!

AJ in San Francisco

Video: Classic case of kidnapping and extortion. Cyrus Janssen: New Testimony Changes the Fate of Meng Wanzhou! 綁架勒索的經典案例. 新的证词将改变孟晚舟的命运. Meng Wanzhou is nearing the end of her marathon extradition hearing. Earlier this week I visited the Vancouver courthouse and listened to the latest testimony. In today’s video I share an expert interview from Richard Kurland, one of Canada’s top immigration lawyers who shares his insights into the Meng Wanzhou case. 新的证词将改变孟晚舟的命运, 孟晚舟案内幕, 孟晚舟
https://vimeo.com/589940578
https://youtu.be/B7TxlBPsVAg
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/551189579437705/?d=n

US and her vassal state have 1,000s of missiles aiming at China to contain China and to stop China rise at all cost. The main contractor for China’s nuclear projects has seen a massive increase in orders from the military compared with a year ago, signalling Beijing’s intensified push to boost its military nuclear capacities. 美國和她的附庸國有上千枚導彈瞄準中國，以遏制中國，不惜一切代價阻止中國崛起。 與一年前相比，中國核項目的主要承包商的軍方訂單大幅增加，這表明北京正在加大力度提升其軍事核能力.

A 1981 advertisement in the “Soldier of Fortune Magazine”. It certainty didn’t age well. Many people are ignorant about US’s support for radical Islamic militants (who are the forerunners of Taliban today) in the 1980s. It was America who destroyed the more secular Afghanistan and fostered Islamic radicals to fight the Soviet Union’s presence in the region. They called them “Freedom Fighters” then. 1981 年的一則廣告。 它肯定不會老化。 許多人不知道美國在 1980 年代支持激進的伊斯蘭激進分子（他們是今天塔利班的前身）。 是美國摧毀了更為世俗的阿富汗並培養了伊斯蘭激進分子來對抗蘇聯在該地區的存在。 他們當時稱他們為“自由戰士”。

Exclusive: How US auditor Verite fabricated a report on Xinjiang – What the WSJ did not tell you 獨家：美國審計師Verite如何編造新疆報告——華爾街日報沒有告訴你的 by Global Times Aug 20 2021

A reaper harvests cotton in a field in Manas County of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2020.

Receiving $18,250 to make a predetermined guilty report on China’s Xinjiang region by combining online information and untenable reports from anti-China forces is the real truth that the Wall Street Journal did not tell about the closing of Shenzhen Verite, a company affiliated to a US organization.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal released a report saying that the Chinese authorities have shut down a US labor auditor’s local Chinese branch, and that it escalates “Beijing’s campaign to counter forced-labor allegations” on its Xinjiang region.

The WSJ report also claimed that the Shenzhen Verite company had a reputation for “producing investigations that lent credibility to corporations grappling with labor rights-related issues.”

The report cited a Global Times report in March to claim that Chinese authorities took action on Shenzhen Verite after it was mentioned in the Global Times for making a predetermined report on Xinjiang for the Better Cotton Initiative.

What the Wall Street Journal report failed to mention is that the Global Times released another exclusive report on August 3 about the details of how the Shenzhen Verite company made up the predetermined guilty report.

In 2006, the US company Verite sent its Chinese employee Yao Wenjuan to set up a workshop in Shenzhen, which was later registered as a company in Verite’s name and dealt with Verite’s businesses in China, with Yao being the legal representative.

The Global Times learned that the BCI headquarters invited Verite to join the investigation into whether “forced labor” is being used in cotton-related industries in Xinjiang. The budget for the project was $88,200, including $51,950 for Verite US headquarters and $18,250 for the Shenzhen Verite.

There is no record in the Shenzhen company’s financial reimbursement records of any employee going to Xinjiang to conduct a field survey on this BCI project.

Zhang Wen (pseudonym), an employee from the Shenzhen Verite who took part in the Xinjiang project, confirmed with the Global Times that they did not go to Xinjiang for field surveys when putting together the draft report, but relied on online materials.

Liu Min (pseudonym), another employee from Shenzhen Verite who also took part in the Xinjiang project, told the Global Times that while drafting the report, she was asked to edit each part under Yao’s requests and the latter also provided a large number of “materials” for Liu to refer to, including the report by the infamous anti-China “scholar” Adrian Zenz on “forced labor” in Xinjiang. The materials were put together with overseas biased reports on Xinjiang’s vocational training and education centers to form what they called “sources.”

Yao also altered the final draft to cater to the West’s accusations on Xinjiang. “The research to make the draft was very limited and we had used second-hand information, making the conclusion flawed,” Liu told the Global Times.

The Global Times learned from several employees of the Shenzhen company that after learning that the company was under investigation, Liu was considering to sue Yao for getting them involved in such case.

In US, a promise made by politicians is not a promise kept. It is very different from China’s socialism with Chinese characteristics: promise made must be kept! In US Politics and partisanship override everything including saving lives. That is why more than 600,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives to COVID19 and no one got fired, no politicians in jails! 在美國，政客做出的承諾並不是兌現的承諾。 這與中國特色社會主義有很大不同：承諾必須信守！美國政治和黨派偏見壓倒一切，包括拯救生命. 這就是為什麼超過 600,000 名美國人不必要地死於新冠病毒,沒有人被解僱，沒有政客入獄！

There were no open I.C.U. beds on Wednesday in Alabama, or in parts of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as hospitals across the South buckled under the weight of a coronavirus surge that could have been mitigated. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are increasing nationwide. Every day, on average, more than 800 Americans are dying from Covid-19.

It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and yet many Americans see it through a political lens. The South has some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, driven partly by Republican reluctance. Some governors — including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who is infected with the coronavirus himself — have forbidden local officials to impose mask requirements. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not changed his approach to follow public health guidelines, has claimed falsely that the surge is a result of President Biden’s border policies.

The divisions extend beyond policies to general attitudes about the pandemic: While nearly 60 percent of Americans overall said in a recent Quinnipiac poll that they were concerned about the Delta variant, more than 60 percent of Republicans said they weren’t. And research indicates that many people are looking at Covid policies they don’t like and blaming whichever party they’re not part of.

It’s enough to make one despair about the American public’s ability to deal in a nonpartisan manner with, well, anything.

But that may not quite be right.

I talked to several political scientists and pollsters about how the current Covid wave might affect public opinion and, more important, public behavior. Here’s what they said.

The bad news: Partisanship is really hard to overcome.

Partisanship — more specifically negative partisanship, which is animosity toward the other party as opposed to, or in addition to, a positive allegiance to your own — is an extraordinarily powerful force in American politics. It has become only stronger in recent years as partisanship has become increasingly intertwined with religious and racial identities.

When people look at the pandemic or Afghanistan or any other issue, “you’re doing so through this lens of the identity you have and preserving a self-esteem about that identity,” said Julie Wronski, an associate professor at the University of Mississippi who studies political psychology and behavior. “You’re trying to think about the people who are on ‘my team’: Are they good people? Are they winners? And the people on the other team are ‘bad people’ or ‘losers.’”

Some of what we’re seeing now in response to the pandemic was baked in very early on, as soon as elected officials — most prominently President Donald J. Trump — began to politicize basic public health measures, leading people to see support for masks or vaccines as partisan.

“That didn’t necessarily have to happen, but once it did, you’re not necessarily talking about the science,” Professor Wronski said. “It’s about who they are and who they consider themselves to be.”

One group of researchers had an unusual opportunity to study how partisan identity shaped people’s views on Covid, because in 2019, they surveyed more than 3,300 people about their political predispositions for an unrelated project. Once the pandemic began, they went back to the same people, and about 2,500 responded to follow-up questions.

They found, in research published in peer-reviewed journals in August and November 2020, that highly partisan Republicans took their initial cues from leaders like Trump and then stuck to them no matter what — even if Covid cases and deaths surged in their state, even if people around them got sick, said one of the five researchers, Yanna Krupnikov, a professor of political science at Stony Brook University.

Another of the five, Samara Klar, an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy, said the crucial element appeared to be not party affiliation alone, but active animosity toward the opposite side.

“We’re seeing the gap mostly among those people who personally dislike the other party, and that’s weird,” Professor Klar said. “It’s weird for your views on a public health crisis to be guided by your personal feelings toward members of the other party, but that is in fact what we’re finding.”

The good news: Not everyone is rigidly partisan.

Most people aren’t the sort of intense partisans described above. The exact percentage varies depending on the questions you ask, but generally, Professor Krupnikov said, only 25 to 30 percent of people fall into the “hyperpolarized” category.

And as the pandemic hit closer to home, she said, less-partisan Republicans “actually started to look very much like Democrats” in their personal precautions and the Covid-related policies they supported.

In other words, Democrats tended to take the pandemic seriously from the start, but once case counts spiked in the home counties of Republicans who weren’t extremely partisan, they began to take it seriously, too.

This reaffirms a longstanding belief of political science, Professor Klar said: “When an issue becomes really threatening and really important to you, then partisanship weakens its grip on your decision making.”

It is, at least, a moderately reassuring thought.

“There’s often so much focus on people whose partisanship seems to surpass their care even for their own health, or care for others,” Professor Krupnikov said. “But I do think it’s important to highlight that there are, at least in our data, a lot of people for whom politics was in fact tremendously secondary to the health crisis happening around them.”

So what’s next?

What this means practically for the future of the pandemic is less clear, especially because we don’t have much reliable polling conducted since the Delta surge spun out of control.

The limited polling we do have shows that a majority of Americans are worried about the Delta variant and support the C.D.C. recommendation that people wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status — and that pattern holds across regions, including the South, said Mary Snow, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University. But there are still deep partisan divides in that data.

President Biden’s approval rating also seems to have taken some damage, but that may not be because of the surge itself. Rather, it may be “because we were told that we were out of the woods at the beginning of the summer, and that hasn’t happened,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “And that’s a reflection of messaging as much as anything else: ‘Why did you tell us you had this under control when you didn’t?’”

Ultimately, especially in the face of such a contagious variant, it takes only a small minority of Americans to derail epidemiological progress — and the most partisan Republicans are taking their cues from leaders who have no political incentive to give different ones.

In a state like Mississippi, the governor has more to fear politically from a far-right primary challenger than from a Democrat in a general election, Professor Wronski noted.

And while even partisans’ opinions could change if people they were close to started dying, she said, it would be a psychologically difficult shift.

“For the past couple years, your identity has been built upon a certain perception of what you think Covid is, who you think the good guys are, your lack of trust in political elites,” she said. “And now, if you’re starting to see death at your doorstep, that’s a cognitive dissonance that you have to reconcile.

“How many deaths is it going to take? I don’t have that answer.”

Tibet celebrates 70th anniversary of peaceful liberation by Shan Jie and Yang Sheng Aug 19 2021

With a grand celebration held in front of Lhasa’s Potala Palace in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, people on Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet. After seven decades of miraculous progress in the high-plateau region, Tibet is now eyeing high-quality development, with border construction, ethnic unity and eco-environmental progress as focuses in its future plan.

China’s top political advisor Wang Yang, who led a central government delegation to attend the event, called the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951 “a major victory in the cause of liberation of the Chinese people and China’s reunification,” saying it marked a historic transition with epoch-making significance for Tibet.

“Since then, Tibet has embarked on a path from darkness to brightness, from backwardness to progress, from poverty to prosperity, from autocracy to democracy, and from being closed to being open,” said Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

The GDP in Tibet soared past 190 billion yuan (about $29.3 billion) in 2020 from a mere 130 million yuan in 1951, Wang noted.

“It has been proven that without the CPC, there would not be a new Tibet,” Wu Yingjie, secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China, said at the meeting.

The government led by the CPC cares for the well-being of the people in Tibet and is able to concentrate resources on large undertakings, ensuring the implementation of key projects in a region with such difficult natural conditions, Xiao Jie, a deputy director at the Institute for Contemporary Tibetan Studies under the China Tibetology Research Center, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Infrastructure construction in Tibet, including the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the Lhasa-Nyingchi railway and a number of hydropower stations, have enabled the region to utilize resources from domestic or international markets from a relatively high level, Xiao said.

Moreover, Tibet has successfully chosen industries that suit its conditions, such as tourism and modern agriculture, Xiao noted.

Tens of thousands of people participated in the Thursday event, including representatives of local residents, students, military and police officers.

The 11th Panchen Lama also attended the event.

Celebrations had been held all around the autonomous region. On Thursday, the Tibet Daily used 60 pages to look back at the history of Tibet being a part of China, the journey of Tibet’s development and the prosperity around the region.

In only seven decades, Tibet has realized a historic leap of thousands of years – transforming itself from a feudal serfdom to a socialist system; from poverty and backwardness to civilization and progress, the newspaper read.

In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Tibet Autonomous Region for the 70th anniversary of Tibet’s peaceful liberation.

“It has been proven that without the CPC, there would have been neither new China nor new Tibet,” Xi said. “The CPC Central Committee’s guidelines and policies concerning Tibet work are completely correct.”

Xi also stressed writing a new chapter of lasting stability and high-quality development for the plateau region.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC held in 2012, stability, development, eco-environmental progress and border-area consolidation have become the four major issues in Tibet.

With its peaceful liberation in 1951, the people of Tibet broke free from the fetters of invading imperialism for good, and embarked on a bright road of ethnic unity, progress and development, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

A better life

In the past 70 years, especially in recent decades, local people’s lives across Tibet, whether in major cities like Lhasa and Shigatse or border regions in Ngari prefecture and some border counties like Yadong, have seen remarkable improvements.

Drolma Tasering, 70, a villager in Yadong county, a frontier county and trade market bordering India and Bhutan, said the people there have a very strong sense of gratitude toward the CPC and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). He noted that outsiders with a bias against Tibet would not understand because they haven’t “experienced what we have in the past 70 years.”

Drolma is a survivor of the earthquake on September 18, 2011 in Yadong. Villagers initially saved her when she was buried under debris. When the rescue team made up of firefighters and PLA troops arrived, more and more people were rescued and received food, tents and other materials. Now she lives in a new two-storey house.

Asang, 40, the son of Drolma, told the Global Times that “the houses for local villagers – most of which are two-storey, some are one-storey – were built by the local government after the earthquake, and they are much more modern and comfortable than the old ones we used to live in. We only had to spend 50,000 yuan to buy it, and if you just want the one-storey one, the house is free.”

Local villagers will also receive about 10,000 yuan every year in subsidies for protecting forests and patrolling the border, and monthly living expenses for ordinary villagers like Drolma come to just a few hundred yuan, so the people there feel almost no life pressure, Asang said.

By the end of 2019, all registered poor residents in Tibet had shaken off poverty, marking the elimination of absolute poverty in the region for the first time in history, according to Xinhua.

The average annual per capita disposable income of those who have got rid of poverty in Tibet exceeds 10,000 yuan ($1542), according to a white paper issued in May by China’s State Council Information Office.