Ray: China has targeted Xinjiang and Tibet for massive economic development for decades. This went into overdrive especially in the past 8 years or so, when development of "interior" provinces became a major priority. Per capita, Tibet receives more subsidies from the central government than any other province. Infrastructure and construction investment in the TAR and Qinghai is at roughly 2x the level as in southeastern provinces. It is this massive government spending that has led to the enormous increase in urbanization in Tibet in the past decade, as well as the correspondingly huge increase in the Han population.
Of course this spending has to be seen in the context of China's program of "modernization" of the TAR and the western regions, where modernization brings both economic development but also greater control from the center. As with most "modernization" programs, the indigenous population is marginalized as it doesn't possess the requisite social or economic skills necessary to compete.
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