Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

    KATHMANDU, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Great changes have taken place in Tibet since the abolition of feudal serfdom in the 1950s, and China's sovereignty over Tibet is indisputable, according to an article published by Nepal's official English language daily The Rising Nepal on Sunday.

    "After the fleeing of the Dalai Lama and his groups from Tibet in 1959, great changes have taken place in the city of Lhasa. Tibet, with no highway at all in the past, now has a highway network of thousands of kilometers with Lhasa at its center," said the article entitled "Tibet on the way to prosperity."

    However, some people have long looked at Tibetans' development through tainted glasses, commented the article. "They intentionally distorted facts and denied that Tibet is experiencing its best era of development and stability and Tibetans are enjoying the broadest human rights ever."

    "Under centuries-long feudal serfdom, Tibetan serfs were politically oppressed, economically exploited and frequently persecuted," it read.

    "Today's Tibet, however, has achieved unprecedented progress. Economic output has exceeded 30 billion Chinese yuan (about 4.3 billion U.S. dollars) and maintained an annual growth rate of more than 12 percent for seven consecutive years," it said.

    "The per capita net income of farmers and nomads has been growing at a double-digit rate for five consecutive years," it said, adding that the Chinese government has also given great importance to cultural preservation and religious freedom.

    "Monasteries and religious sites can be seen virtually everywhere, there are more monks, and even computers and mobile phones have been equipped with input software in Tibetan."

    "The new change in Tibet does make one feel that the current policy of the Chinese government is really based on the interests of the Tibetan people, confirms to the will of the people and promotes the development and prosperity of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China," said the author.

    Adding that "Tibet is the land of progress, going forward in an effort to keep pace with other more developed minority areas," the article noted that, however, "for a long time some Westerners have been observing Tibet through tainted glasses and applying double standards in assessing the so-called human rights issue in Tibet, "and "the March 14 incident was deliberately misinterpreted."

    The article said ample facts showed that the March 14 Lhasa riots were violent crimes of beating, smashing, looting and burning, which "seriously infringed on human rights, endangered life and property and sabotaged the social order."

    The Dalai Lama clique, which is "still seeking to restore the old theocracy in Tibet, featured by the dictatorship by monks and the nobles," has plotted and incited the Lhasa violence which was "an unabashed challenge to the world's human rights cause, as well as to the peace-loving people around the world," it said.

    After the Lhasa riots, the Dalai Lama clique spread violence even further by organizing rioters to attack Chinese embassies and consulates in the United States, Canada, India, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia, the article said.

    On China's sovereignty over Tibet, the author regarded it as "indisputable" by citing a series of historical events.

    "It would be appropriate to recall the statement made by George Hamilton, then British Secretary of State for India in 1903, who said 'Tibet must still be regarded as a province of China.'"

    Likewise, then Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also said while addressing the House of Representatives (Lok Sabha) on May 15, 1954, that "over the last few hundred years, as far as I know, at no time has any foreign country denied China's sovereignty over Tibet."

    "Thus, China's sovereignty over Tibet is indisputable. This is history's verdict," the author said.

    The article said that as the Tibetan affair is China's internal affair, Westerners should follow the UN Charter and refrain from interfering in any country's internal affairs.