Under towering mountains, cranes and newly built blocks of apartments stretch up to blue skies around the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as a construction boom creates a two-tier system of property wealth between state workers and everyone else.
A huge infrastructure and building drive in Tibet has brought airports, roads, railways and new apartments, which Beijing says are improving life across the remote mountainous plateau.
However, the boom is also changing the historic Buddhist city and pushing property prices out of reach of many residents, Tibetans say, sharpening divisions in a region well-known for discontent under Chinese control.
Photo: AFP
A short distance from the Potala Palace, the former home of the exiled Dalai Lama, construction workers crawl over high-end condo towers being built by Chinese developer Country Garden. They are priced similarly to many major Chinese cities, despite average Tibetan incomes still being among the country’s lowest.
The development sits opposite billboards advertising other projects and near a modern new shopping center.
Agence France-Presse recently joined a rare and tightly controlled government-led tour of Tibet, which has heavily restricted entry for foreign journalists since deadly anti-China protests exploded across the region in 2008.
The Chinese government says development is the antidote to discontent in Tibet, where many people still revere the Dalai Lama — the region’s spiritual leader — and resent an influx of Chinese tourists and settlers.
Since 2008 it has poured investment into the region, making Tibet one of China’s fastest-growing regions economically and fueling rising average incomes.
Many residents agree such modernizations are welcome, but experts have warned that Lhasa’s 860,000 people are also increasingly polarized between haves and have-nots.
The building binge is perhaps the most visible evidence, seen as largely benefiting educated government workers, while Tibetan rural migrants struggle to keep up.
Nearly 1 million square meters of newly built housing was sold last year, up 28 percent from the previous year.
Real-estate listings show about three dozen new developments selling homes in Lhasa.
With prices rising, entering the market relies on public-sector jobs, “because there are very few options outside of that to make the big bucks,” said Andrew Fischer, a professor at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. “The property market opens up only once you’ve passed that gateway. That gateway is what controls people.”
Rural migrants are moving from other parts of Tibet to Lhasa to seek better economic and educational opportunities, but usually end up on society’s lower rungs, said Emily Yeh, professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Many have low Mandarin language abilities, a prerequisite for many urban jobs.
Even at the higher end, competition for top jobs is fierce as employment growth lags the numbers of new graduates.
Interviewing locals was difficult under the watchful eyes of government minders, but overseas Tibetans who are in close touch with those on the ground say a toxic social brew is developing.
“Most people who are educated work for the government, [but] you have increasing numbers of young Tibetans who are well-educated ... and didn’t get a government job,” said an overseas Tibetan who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He says this is creating a pool of educated youths unable to earn enough to buy homes.
Tibetans also told reporters that government workers face extra controls and pressure to shun their Buddhist faith, which they fear endangers their religious and cultural heritage.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
RSS