By Beijing Review reporter Li Nan

TIBET, China, May 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — A red ribbon-shaped hand holding a cup of tea greets visitors of the Dangqun Teahouse in Thangoche Village, Qiongjie County in Tibet Autonomous Region. The logo represents the establishment’s dual functions—serving tea and connecting villagers by engaging them in the governance of local affairs.

The teahouse began to welcome patrons on January 7, 2022, becoming the first assembly hall-style teahouse in Qiongjie, which falls under the jurisdiction of Shannan City. It has become a popular place for villagers to come have a cup of tea or a bowl of noodles and catch up with friends. It’s also an ideal place for villagers to share and comment on the latest news, solve disputes and manage local affairs. “We freely air our views here,” Baima Samzhub, a resident of Thangoche, told Lhasa-based news portal Xzxw.com.

“The teahouse is a good way to engage Tibetans in the governance of their own matters as these establishments play a key role in their daily life. It agrees with the local culture and conditions,” Xu Wenhua, Deputy Dean of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Beijing Review on May 23, when he attended the 2023 Forum on the Development of Xizang, China in Beijing. In the Chinese phonetic system, Tibet is romanized as Xizang.

The one-day forum, themed on Tibet’s high-quality development and human rights protection, featured subforums respectively on topics such as whole-process people’s democracy, high-quality development, as well as culture and ecological progress in the region.

Before Tibet’s democratic reform in 1959, the region was ruled by feudal serfdom under theocracy for centuries. With their absolute control of land, the three major types of estate-holders, including government officials, nobles and upper-ranking lamas in monasteries, held the power of life, death and marriage over their serfs. Serfs were subjected to exploitation and oppression and were denied all human rights, not to mention democracy and the right to participate in social governance.

“The ‘rule of a person’ was the system in Tibet before its democratic reform,” Roland Boer, Distinguished Professor at the School of Philosophy under Renmin University of China, said at the forum.

The turning point came in 1959. On March 28 of that year, the State Council announced that the local government of Tibet had been dissolved and through democratic reform, feudal serfdom under theocracy was abolished from that moment on, bringing fundamental changes to the region’s social system. The democratic reform led to the emancipation of about 1 million serfs. They gained personal freedom and became masters of their new society. “Since 1959, as the rule of law has developed in China, Tibet, too, has experienced the development of the rule of law and an associated legal system,” Boer said.

On December 20, 1959, the first session of the first Tibet regional committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) took place in Lhasa, marking the establishment of the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the CPC’s leadership in Tibet. This system helps ensure that all Tibetans can voice their opinions and play roles in political life.

In September 1965, the First Session of the First People’s Congress of Tibet Autonomous Region convened in Lhasa, marking the formal establishment of this system in the region. “The development of both electoral and consultative democracy in Tibet is a huge step forward,” Boer said. Tibet stepped out of the dark times of “the rule of a person” and marched into the era of the “rule of law.” “For Tibet, this is a complete contrast to its earlier system, in which one person and his coterie were masters over Tibet. Now, the people are the masters of the house,” Boer added.

Boer believes the socialist rule of law entails the development of virtuous, apt laws. These good laws have been a feature of the significant development of the socialist rule of law in the last 30 years, seeking to express the core socialist values and developing laws that meet the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.

“In a region like Tibet, the last item has been particularly important in the significant achievement of abolishing absolute poverty by late 2019,” Boer said. By that time, all 628,000 registered impoverished residents in the 74 counties and districts in Tibet had risen out of extreme poverty—a first in their history.

Tibet’s economy is also making great strides. The region’s GDP amounted to 57.587 billion yuan ($8.168 billion) in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 8.2 percent and 3.7 percentage points higher than the national average, ranking first in the country.

“All these achievements demonstrate the strength of democracy in Tibet Autonomous Region which has ultimately enabled it to achieve the full welfare of its people through their direct participation,” Giuseppe Yoffreda, Ambassador of Venezuela to China, said at the forum.

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon