Nyingtri (China) (AFP)

With the help of the State, she transformed her humble residence into a rural lodging.

On top of the world, Baima, a 27-year-old Tibetan, has embarked on the hotel business, encouraged by Beijing ... and millions of Chinese tourists.

In his village wedged at 3,000 m between peaks covered with clouds, Baima receives around a wood stove in his renovated house in bright colors, which cover the walls as well as the furniture.

About 500 km east of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, his village of Tashigang converted to tourism ten years ago.

Baima like her neighbors are now hoteliers.

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"We lived on livestock and crops. And then the State encouraged us to open a lodging", she explains to AFP, under the gaze of Chinese officials who accompany journalists for a rare supervised visit to the Tibet, a highly sensitive region for the communist regime.

"Keeping a lodge is less hard than keeping the herds," she admits.

Helped financially to transform their house, the inhabitants of the village, Tibetans, also received Mandarin lessons to be able to communicate with their visitors from the rest of the country.

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"At present, 80% of the villagers can speak Mandarin," said Chen Tiantian, a local Communist Party official, adding that the authorities have also offered cooking classes to better welcome tourists.

All of these training programs are optional, she says.

- Cultural 'commodification' -

But the arrival of these travelers from afar is also changing the traditional way of life, fear experts, who see it as a way for Beijing to ease the resistance of Tibetan culture.

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Robert Barnett, of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, says he is "very worried about the cultural degradation brought by this hyper-organized mass tourism", even if he recognizes that the local population in profit financially.

According to official figures, the autonomous region receives no less than 35 million tourists per year - the vast majority Chinese - ten times its population.

Visitors are drawn to the breathtaking landscapes and a guaranteed change of scenery from the rest of China.

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Some do not hesitate to wear traditional Tibetan attire to have their picture taken in front of the most famous sites of Lhasa, such as the Potala, the palace of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader exiled since 1959.

"With the arrival of distant visitors, we are exposed to new things," comments a neighbor of Baima, Cangjie, who has also opened guest rooms, like fifty families from Tashigang.

Dressed in a traditional tunic with embroidered sleeves, she poses for photographers in her home under portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mao Tse-tung, the founder of the communist regime.

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It was under Mao, in 1951, that the Chinese army seized Tibet, or rather "liberated it peacefully" as the regime's phraseology requires.

While financing the fight against poverty, Beijing hopes that economic development will eradicate separatist inclinations in Tibet.

This is accompanied by a "commodification of Tibetan culture", alarmed Mr Barnett, explaining that Beijing expects "the Party to collect gratitude (from the inhabitants) for its generosity".

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"Our next goal is to bring in foreign tourists," said Hu Xiongying, a district official who administers the village.

But for now, most foreign visitors can only enter Tibet with a special permit and with a duly inserted guide.

In 2019, only 270,000 non-Chinese tourists visited the region.

© 2021 AFP