Lack of assistance hampers development

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet autonomous region and the beginning of the modern age for people from the Tibetan ethnic group in China's western highlands.

Recently, on two separate journeys, we visited the source areas of two important rivers in the highlands traditionally populated by Tibetans. The first was the Bailongjiang River, a main tributary of the Jianglingjiang River, which cuts through Sichuan province and Chongqing before joining the Yangtze River.

The other was the Lancang River, which runs through Yunnan province before entering the Indochina Peninsula, where it becomes the Mekong River.