By Qi zhala, municipal party secretary of Lhasa

On March 9, 2013, the general secretary Xi Jinping shared with us his profound interpretation of the strategic position of Tibet in the deliberation process with the representatives from Tibet of the first session of the 12th National People’s Congress. General Secretary Xi pointed out that “Tibet is the important national and ecological security defense” and that “the foremost strategy to govern the country starts with the border, whereas the border matters about stabilizing Tibet in the first place”. It is hence of utmost importance to guarantee stability in Tibet in safeguarding the border, and to regard the stable development of the Tibetan regions as the core national interest. The General Secretary has definitely put the stability and development of Tibet into the blueprint of the Chinese dream as the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

As the capital city of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Lhasa is the forefront region that safeguards the southwestern part of China and connects south Asia. During the long realization of the Chinese dream, people from various ethnicities of Lhasa will be jointly guided by the spirits of the third plenary session of the 18th People’s Congress and ride with the great ship of our country, in order to push forward the construction development the beautiful homeland of Tibet, and to inscribe the Lhasa poem of the Chinese dream more brighter and gorgeous.

Guide the “sacred religious city” to establish a more harmonious social environment

Lhasa has its own significant place in the long historical development of Tibetan Buddhism. There are about 286 monasteries of various scales inside the region. Each year, millions of worshippers from various parts of the country come here to pay pilgrimage to the Buddha. As a region that is basically made up of believers, the special religious place of Lhasa determines the fact that it confronts more difficult tasks than other regions in terms of the innovation of the governance. Besides, the group of Dalai Lama has always been trying to take the monasteries as a base where he can realize the “independence of Tibet”, and usually correlates the “independence of Tibet” with “religious freedom”. He has also tried to indoctrinate the Tibetan people extreme religious ideals, while attempting to instigate religious conflicts, racial hatred, and social chaos. Therefore, to safeguard the harmony and stability of the religious society has become the key to resolve the anti-separatism struggle in Tibet.

In order to better guide the “religious city” of Lhasa on its road forward to stability and unity, we will perform the basic guidelines of the communist party on the religious work with utmost seriousness, implement the national laws and regulations related to religious affairs in an all round way, and intensify the “six establishments”, “six in one” activities, and the “9+5” projects targeted at the monasteries, continue implementing the beneficiary policies for the monasteries and the monks, and to push forward the legal campaign and educational activities, in order to achieve religious harmony, unity of Buddhism, and harmony among the monasteries at large.

Cherish the title of “cultural city” to stimulate the cultural environment with vigor

As one of the first 24 cities that have been authorized as the historical and cultural cities by the State Council, the region of Lhasa not only boasts such world renowned Tibetan cultural relics as the Potala Palace, the Jokhang Temple and the Ramoche Temple, but is also home to many ancient yards and historical relics of extremely high historical and cultural values, which are the important windows that present the Tibetan ethnic culture and the regional culture.

For Lhasa, to establish sound cultural construction is to provide a sound atmosphere for the citizens amid which they love the land, love the party, and cherish harmony. In order to achieve that, we will continue to carry out the education of the core values, featured by patriotism and ethnic solidarity, while pushing forward a series of culturally beneficiary projects in the agricultural and pastoral regions, as well as the monasteries. We will utilize the success of the live opera Princess Wencheng as an opportunity to broadcast the integrated development of the cultural and tourist innovation gardens. Meanwhile, we will strengthen traditional cultural protection, establish and ameliorate cultural heritage protection and inheritance mechanism, and conscientiously implement Rules of Protecting the Old Neighborhood of Lhasa, in order to bring love and beauty to the people of the city with sound cultural construction, so that people of various ethnicities will enjoy the fruits of modern civilization to the fullest.

Safeguard the “pure city on the plateau” to establish a more beautiful and livable homeland

For ordinary people, Lhasa has remained an enchanted land of purity. It is regarded as the purest and most sacred city in the world. The 18th congress came with the calls to build a beautiful China, for which the General Secretary emphasized during the third plenary session of the 18th congress that “sound ecological environment is the most beneficiary for people’s livelihood” and that we need to bear in mind the concept that “to protect ecological environment is to protect the production capability and to improve ecological environment is to develop production capability.” Based on that, we will continue to prioritize environmental building as the top strategy in pushing the leapfrog development and long-term stability and prosperity of Lhasa. We will also continue to implement the integrated ecological governance strategies of “planting trees on the mountains, turning rivers into lakes and bringing central heating to the households,” greatly establish healthy biological industries based on pure soil, in order to build Lhasa into one of China’s most naturally beautiful urban hubs, so that the general public will be able to enjoy the “ecological benefits” by living better.

Reinforce “reform of the new city” to establish a happier pearl on the plateau

Reform and opening up is the necessary road to establishing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is also the road to wealth and strength for the economic and social development of Tibet. The peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951 has provided a new life for Tibet. The reform and opening up in 1978 has also instilled new force for development for Tibet.

Currently, Tibet is dedicated to give its prior position as the capital city into full play. It is at the critical juncture of uplifting its urbanization touch, market transformation, and international expansion. We will perform our work as General Secretary Xi Jinping has prescribed: “to stick to the right direction of the reform, while making new breakthroughs on the current system and mechanism of the development of Tibet.” We will be determined to break ideological and personal interest barriers, keep up with the spirit of being enterprising, taking opportunities, and undertaking great responsibilities. We will develop the distinctively advantageous industries of Tibet, while improving our own capabilities and facilitating the prior combination of different economic elements. Meanwhile, we would also open ourselves more to the inner land while uplifting the quality and standard of the opening up, so as to fulfill the tasks of “going out” and “bringing in”. In this way, we will be able to attract more fund, technologies, and talents to Tibet to bring Lhasa to the economic and developmental consensus and combination with the inner land.

While promoting fast economic development, we will take into accountant the improvement of people’s livelihood. The most important part is to deal with the educational, employment and housing issues related to people’s livelihood. We will take educational development as a priority, facilitating the construction pace of the Lhasa educational center; we will also intensify the “four industrial projects” that utilize the industry as a method to improve education, housing status, governance, and people’s livelihood; we will strengthen the construction of the social security system in order to make sure that the elderly and the physically disable children be taken good care of together; we will finally speed up the construction of the socialist new villages with an emphasis on the Comfortable Housing Projects of the farmers and herdsmen. Through practical procedures that benefit the people, we will provide people of various ethnicities in Lhasa with better education, more stable employment, more satisfactory income, more reliable social security, higher standard of medical services, more comfortable housing environment, and more beautiful environment, so that the people will live a better life.

Through the implementation of a series of people-oriented policies, citizens of Lhasa are happier than before. The 2013 Public Service Blueprint published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show that the ratings of basic public service in Lhasa ranks on top of 38 major Chinese cities, with ratings of the public transportation, public security, social security and employment, urban environment, culture and sports, and the GDP leverage indicator all ranking on top of the list. Among the indicators, the satisfaction leverage indicator of GDP towards public services ranks the highest among all 38 cities, while the public security index has remained the highest three years in a row, and the public transportation, social security and employment, and urban environment indicators rank the 1st two years in a row.

People of different ethnicities in Lhasa will bear in mind the entrustment of General Secretary Xi Jinping that “The Chinese people, living in our great country and great time, will share the opportunities to make our life glamorous, the opportunities to realize our dreams, and the opportunities to grow and make progress with the country and the time” during our construction of “the beautiful homeland of the happy Lhasa” in order to inscribe the Lhasa poem of the Chinese dream.