Michael Andre ZarateUrbano (Peru)

By:
update:July 23,2019

Tibet in the Belt & Road Initiative:

Opportunities to Increase International Cooperation
and Enhance a New Vision of Development

(Peru) Michael Andre ZarateUrbano

Since ancient times, Westerners have had a fascination for China, and in particular for Tibet. Its ancestral culture, its mysticism, its geography and the fact of being called “the Roof of the World” make us feel that it is there where we can certainly be closer to heaven.

For almost six years, the international community has been learning more about the Belt & Road Initiative, a proposal made by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 to not only promote sustainable infrastructure and free trade among all the countries of the world, but also to contribute to the harmonious encounter between diverse cultures and civilizations, in search of what the Chinese Government has denominated a “community of shared future for mankind”.

The “2019-Forum On The Development of Tibet, China” will be a great opportunity to deeply know what is the role of the Tibet Autonomous Region within the Belt & Road Initiative. Certainly, having an area of 1.22-million- square-km and appreciable natural resources, it is undoubted that Tibet plays and will play a preponderant role in infrastructure connectivity and in global trade, but we know that Tibet’s role will not be reduced simply to that.

The development achieved in recent years by Tibet and the several victories achieved in the fight against poverty are examples that could be taken into consideration by other countries’ governments around the world. An example of this is “rural tourism”. According to official figures, a total of 32,000 Tibetans came out of poverty in 2018 by developing rural tourism. In fact, only last year more than 200 rural tourism scenic spots were developed in rural Tibetan areas. The number of tourists who visited Tibet in 2018 was 33,7 million, an impressive year-on- year increase of 31.5%.

For this reason, the articles that I intend to write for China Today Magazine will be related to the participation of Tibet in the Belt & Road Initiative, and also to the successful development strategy that Tibet has followed in recent years, in the midst of this policy of openness and integration that China promotes in today's world.

While much of our imagination about Tibet is due to the British novelist James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon”, there is no doubt that the only way to know and love Tibet is traveling and getting to know its people, who has developed rapidly in recent years.

For all that, this trip will be a great opportunity to make known to readers of the China Today Magazine not only the cultural and ancestral Tibetan wealth, but also the prosperity and bright future of this mysterious paradise in China.

Michael Andre ZarateUrbano, Peru

Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Spanish

Department of “China Today” Magazine