I believe the understatement of the year award up to this point in this blog goes to the following statement on Tibet:
"Many Tibetans, however, say they were effectively independent for most of their history and that Chinese rule — and the migration of ethnic Han Chinese to the region — are eroding their traditional Buddhist culture." (AP)
This comes from an article noting a record 4.7 million tourists in Tibet so far this year. It's an altogether weird article, it notes there have been riots and clampdowns but the whole point seems to be to praise tourism in Tibet. It almost feels to me like the author would have liked to make a stronger point on the troubles of the region, the loss of original culture and blame tourism. That or I'm projecting my own opinion on the article too strongly.
They have an official quoting how this is a high point for the area, they proceed to list the incentives the authorities / travel agents have to get people to the area and everything. Yet they can't help mentioning cultural erosion.
I can't really say it's an inexplicably bad piece of China reporting, I've seen many worse, but it's not very coherent and I can't help but wonder what the original point was.
But I would like to point out, that they have millions of yearly tourists, ten thousand homes have started taking in tourists as guests, you can fly directly and there are dozens of companies offering tours and services. No shit their culture is changing. It's not that long ago the whole area was inaccessible to foreigners, remember.
You can call it Tibet if you wish but I think Xizang, autonomous province of PRC is just as correct nowadays.
You can find the article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091014/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tibet_tourism
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