Tibet: the CCP sighs with Emotion

Main link: Xinhua (via Enorth), July 17, 2011

The article’s main motivation would appear to be the commemoration of May 23, 1951, but it was only published this Sunday (by Enorth, anyway):

The scroll painting of history, the surge forward with great momentum,
let the people of the world sigh with emotion;
the troubles of the past testify the miracle [of today], let the world gasp in admiration.

历史画卷，波澜壮阔，让世人感慨； 岁月沧桑，见证奇迹，让世界赞叹。

Sixty years are only a short moment in the great river of history, but in Tibet, this old and mystical territory, the course of social development has strided across more than a thousand years. New and old Tibet are two different worlds. During the past sixty years, under the care of the CCP’s central committee and the hard work of the Tibetan cadres of all nationalities and masses, a united, democratic, prosperous, civilized and harmonious socialist new Tibet has emerged to a bright future of development, from the darkness to the light, from backwardness to progress, from poverty to prosperity, from isolation to openness.

60年，在人类历史长河中不过是短暂瞬间，但在西藏这片古老而神奇的土地上，社会发展进程却跨越了上千年——
新旧西藏两重天。60年来，从黑暗走向光明，从落后走向进步，从贫穷走向富裕，从封闭走向开放，在党中央关心下，西藏各族干部群众奋发努力，一个团结、民主、富裕、文明、和谐的社会主义新西藏，正在雪域高原上呈现出光明的发展前景。

After the poetic “scroll painting of history”, another appetizer (via Enorth) begins with a short collection of “oral history”, from a former “local government chief plenipotentiary” and/or his wife who witnessed the signature of an agreement which “safeguarded the dignity and reunification of the motherland”, on May 23, 1953. The plenipotentiary was Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme (ང་ཕོད་ངག་དབང་འཇིགས་མེད་, 阿沛·阿旺晋美). The history of his authorization is contested.

The rest of the article is history as authored by the CCP, including anecdotes like this one:

The people will not forget the scene of 19 years ago: early in 1992, comrade Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) inspected Wuhan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shanghai and other places. [Standing in front of the Potala Palace model at Shenhen’s “Splendid China” park,] he stood for some time, and with an emotional sigh he said: “I won’t make it to Tibet in this life – just to take a picture in front of this “Potala Palace” will have to count as a souvenir.”

The anecdote follows many paragraphs devoted to Mao Zedong’s (毛泽东) care for Tibet, and leads into the paragraphs devoted to Deng’s. After that, it’s Jiang Zemin’s (江泽民) turn, who, despite being in his sixties and despite the territory’s high altitude, immersed himself in factories, rural and pastoral areas, schools, hospitals, and “People’s Liberation Army” and police barracks and stations there.

Picture 1: party and state chairman Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) speaks on the “fifth meeting on the work of Tibet” in January 2010.

Picture 2: a Xinhua interview with Padma Choling (པདྨ་འཕྲིན་ལས་།, 白玛赤林), chairman of the government of the “Tibet Autonomous Region”, on June 8 this year, with Xinhua.

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Related

» Obama meets with Dalai Lama, The Age, July 17, 2011
» “Legal Education”, Arrests and Sentences, July 14, 2011
» NPC Tibetan Delegates visit U.S., March 20, 2009

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