Charles Onunaiju, scholar from the Peoples Daily of Nigeria dances with the local Tibetans in Gongzhong Village located in Bayi Township of Nyingchi Prefecture, Tibet on August 15, 2014. [Photo/China Tibet Online] 

Charles Onunaiju, a special correspondent and member of Peoples Daily in Nigeria, attended the 2014·Forum on the Development of Tibet, China. He had visited Tibet's Lhasa City and Nyingchi Prefecture for one week and made an on-the-spot investigation on the local family inns, museums, and etc. He thought it was a rewarding trip. Before the trip, he presented the forum with a paper titled "The Road to Sustainable Development of Tibet" to state his opinions about Tibet's development.

Speaking of Tibet's traffic construction, Charles took the Qinghai-Tibet railway which he thought deserves enormous credit as an example. He said: "The completion and operation of the Qinghai-Tibet railway has optimized Tibet's economic growth structure, rationalized its industrial structure and increased the proportion of its secondary and tertiary industries." Only the government investment could support the project which goes beyond human limits.

To build the world's longest and highest plateau railway, the workers must overcome the bad natural conditions such as altitude stress, low temperature, oxygen deficit, and frozen soil, as well as protecting the extremely fragile ecological environment of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Therefore, as soon as the Qinghai-Tibet railway completed, it has brought a huge benefit for the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Charles illustrates in his paper with examples, "in the first-five months from the operation of the railway, to the end of the 2006, Tibet received 1.86 million tourists from both China and abroad, an increase of 48% over the same period of the previous year," thus, what followed are the immeasurable tourism economic benefits and the promotion and perfection of other industries. "In two years after the opening of the railway, the number of self-employed and private enterprises increased to 77,900 by the end of June 2008." Such a developed economic momentum was unimaginable in the past serfdom society in Tibet.

Take the Baima Family Inn located in the Trashigang Village of the Lulang Township, Nyingchi Prefecture for example, the family inn brings the Baima family an average annual income of about 200,000 yuan (about 32528 U.S. dollars). The Baimas receive visitors during the slack farming season and breed herds during the busy season. Therefore, the family's income is quite considerable over the course of a year. If there were no Qinghai-Tibet railway, there won't be so many tourists to Tibet with such an enormous economic benefit for Tibetans.

In the meantime, the tourists also bring the external culture, which frees the Tibetan minds from primordial superstitions and prejudices. Tibet is no longer a rigid concept in the textbook of mysterious and backward. While preserving the traditional culture, Tibet also needs development and progress.