As an employee within Chinese state media, I have seen countless articles on the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The stereotypical image of Tibet for many non-Chinese observers is one filled with mysticism. But it‘s also a foggy image, one that I myself am still unsure of. Due to the spiritual nature of the region as well as the reports that foreign readers are often presented with via mainstream outlets, it‘s easy to forget that Tibet is a rapidly developing region; a region which is prone to the same kinds of problems facing many other provinces, regions and cities across China. A recent report by Reuters raised the issue of shadow banking within Tibet; a practice that would be furthest from my mind when thinking about the region. Nonetheless, news like this highlights the fact that Tibet is not some far off land detached from China‘s economic and social development. Instead, it is subject to all the forces of the country‘s national development and is in fact central to this development as a result of Tibet‘s significance to the Chinese nation.

Sometimes, it is easy to think that the world‘s rooftop is far away. But as recent reports have explained, it‘s much closer to the rest of the world than some of us might think. Thanks to the development of the internet alongside cost reduction programs for Tibet‘s communication industries, as necessitated by the state, the level of interconnectivity with the rest of China and beyond has surged; so much so that internet usage in Tibet has reached 60 percent in terms of coverage. Of course, in today‘s modern era this should not be overly celebrated. China has the capacity and the means to increase coverage to 100 percent and this is something that the state should and is actively pursuing. Not only would this increase the level of openness for Tibet to the outside world, it also provides numerous opportunities for innovation across a region where innovation is sorely required.

Domestic media in China has a responsibility to report Tibet‘s issues to the wider world and should do so with the utmost sincerity and openness. But it must also make a point of stressing that Tibet is now truly part of modern China. It is easy to dwell on the spiritual nature of the region in order to attract eyes to a story, but news concerning Tibet‘s increasing interconnectivity, and the lengths that local and national government is going to in order to help the region innovate whilst at the same time maintaining the local environment must be championed. As the Tibetan Autonomous Region successfully innovates, so too must the style of reporting that journalists carry out on the region in order to provide observers with an updated image of what they only perceive to be a mystical land.

(Stuart Thomas Wiggin, Journalist, English Center of China Radio International)