Commentary: 70 years after peaceful liberation, a new socialist Tibet takes shape

BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The seven decades since the peaceful liberation of Tibet have witnessed sustained success in the region, which is embracing an even better future.

On May 23, 1951, an agreement on the peaceful liberation of Tibet was signed. The document, known as the 17-Article Agreement, opened a new chapter in Tibet's history.

China on Friday issued a white paper detailing the historical facts about the momentous event and hailing seven decades of transformative progress in the plateau region.

While offering an authoritative account on a period of Tibetan history that has often fallen victim to distortion by external anti-China forces, the white paper, meticulously documented, presented a true and panoramic picture of today's Tibet.

In the new era, a new socialist Tibet has taken shape, marked by a stable social environment, economic and cultural prosperity, a sound natural environment, and substantial improvements in people's lives.

What Tibet has achieved manifests the vitality of China's regional ethnic autonomy policy and progress in human rights protection.

The facts offer a powerful rebuttal to lies about Tibet -- baseless accusations of "repression" or "human rights abuse" that are in fact the same anti-China smear campaigns by certain forces who plot to destabilize the border region.

The peaceful liberation in 1951 and the democratic reform in 1959 threw Tibet's wretched past into the dustbin of history and shattered the wishful thinking of believers in the "Shangri-La" myth that sought to keep Tibet in a backward primitive state.

Tibet's gross regional product has grown from 129 million yuan in 1951 to more than 190 billion yuan (about 29.5 billion U.S. dollars) last year.

By the end of 2019, all the 628,000 registered poor people and 74 poor counties in the region had shaken off poverty, marking the end of absolute poverty in Tibet for the first time in history.

Notably, Tibet's development did not come at the cost of the environment. Indeed its natural environment remains among the most unspoiled anywhere on Earth.

Over the past decades, the Tibetan culture has been well preserved, freedom of religious belief fully protected, and the people's sense of national identity further heightened. The Tibetan language, both spoken and written, is widely used and the region offers 15 years of free education.

For many years, Western anti-China forces have interfered in Tibetan affairs as a means of disrupting China. The 14th Dalai Lama and his supporters have continued to try to promote "Tibetan independence" by provoking incidents to jeopardize peace and stability in the region.

All these attempts have proved futile. China will never allow anyone to sabotage the stability and prosperity of the region. Its determination to safeguard national sovereignty and ethnic unity is iron-clad.

The 70th anniversary of Tibet's peaceful liberation coincides with the year in which China embarks on a new quest to fully build a modern socialist country. With the nation's concerted efforts to realize its rejuvenation, the people of Tibet are facing an even brighter future.