This photo taken on June 21, 2024 shows watermelons growing in a greenhouse in Bainang County of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

Li Dong (R) talks with local farmers in a greenhouse in Bainang County of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, June 21, 2024. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

This photo taken on June 21, 2024 shows a vegetable and fruit planting cooperative in Bainang County of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. (Photo: Xinhua)

Li Jiqian had kept a series of documents about a county thousands of kilometers away in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region for almost 30 years before delivering them to the hands of his son, Li Dong.

Having packed in these documents, including a 10-year development plan and the profile of Bainang County, Li Dong left his home province of Shandong in east China for Bainang in 2022, following his father's footsteps in aiding the development of the plateau region in China's southwest.

"I hope the documents about Bainang will be helpful for your work there," said the senior Li.

Thirty years ago, China's central government decided to rally national support for Xizang. Under a paired-up assistance policy, some central state organs, provincial-level regions and centrally administered state-owned enterprises were designated to assist in specific areas in Xizang. Since then, cadres like Li Jiqian and Li Dong from government and enterprise units in more developed areas have taken turns being stationed in Xizang, greatly contributing to its development.

As one of the first cadres assigned to work there from 1995 to 1998, Li Jiqian can still remember the scene in Bainang when he first arrived there.

"The county seat only had one street with adobe houses along the roadside," he recalled, adding that the crank-style telephone used there at that time had often failed to stay connected.

As one of the projects aiding the county's development, the city of Jinan in Shandong donated 50 telephones with program-controlled digital switches the following year.

Located on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, or "the roof of the world," Xizang has a tradition of consuming yak beef, mutton and highland barley, with vegetables hardly grown there because of the harsh natural conditions.

As a result of the rapid economic and social development in the region over the past decades, people there have attached increasing importance to food diversity and nutrition on dining tables, leading to a huge demand for fruit and vegetables.

Given this demand, Bainang was given support by Shandong, a renowned vegetable production base in China, with the eastern province supplying talent, funds and technology to Bainang, allowing the county to develop vegetable and fruit plantation industries -- thereby turning itself into a "vegetable basket" on the plateau.

More than 2,200 greenhouses produce over 60,000 tonnes of vegetables and fruits every year in Bainang, with the sector's annual output reaching nearly 300 million yuan (about 43 million U.S. dollars).

Kelsang Wangmo, a local university graduate, returned home in 2018 to participate in greenhouse vegetable plantation work. With the help of cadres from Shandong, she learned more about agricultural technology and even spent two months in Jinan in 2021 as part of her efforts to gain increased knowledge. Armed with new skills, she established a cooperative back home, which now generates annual revenue of more than 400,000 yuan.

"The bright prospect of greenhouse agriculture development is a major reason why I chose to return home and set up the cooperative," the Tibetan said.

Li Dong, meanwhile, visited his father in Bainang during summer vacation in 1997. As part of the trip, Li Dong paid visits to several historic sites, such as an ancient fortress where Tibetans united to resist the invasion of the British army in 1904, and Palha Manor, a former aristocratic manor in Gyangze County, serving as a museum highlighting the cruel serfdom that once existed in this region.

"The history and the culture in Xizang that I learned about during that trip and the stories told by my father lingered in my memory, pushing me to come and work here just like my father," said the junior Li, who is deputy head of the county now.

Li Dong, also in charge of the county's vegetable-related affairs, often visits villages to check on the growing conditions of fruits and vegetables in greenhouses, as well as the logistics and sales of agricultural products.

In 2022, through an in-depth investigation, the Jinan cadres stationed in Xizang decided to emphasize both the production and sales ends, eyeing the high-end market in other Chinese cities.

"The plateau is clean and pollution-free, which gives it an advantage in developing high-end organic vegetables. In the future, Bainang County will not only meet the local market demand but also target demand elsewhere in China," he said.

Boosted by its fruit and vegetable plantation sector, the county saw its economy expand to 1.8 billion yuan in 2023. The per capita disposable income of the county's rural residents reached 23,520 yuan -- more than 20 times the net income level back in 1995.

Next year, Li Dong's three-year working term in Bainang will come to an end, and he hopes the next batch of cadres from Shandong will continue to carry on their project and complete the production and sales chains for Bainang's vegetable plantation industry.

"Bainang is my second hometown. Wherever I go, I will continue to be concerned about the county's further development, just like my father," Li Dong added.