For centuries, Dimaluo’s villagers sought shelter from subjugation and religious persecution among the valley’s 13,000-foot-high mountain peaks. A decade ago, it was still hard to reach by car and was without power. Today, a road cuts the town in half, Chinese flags fly over every house, and living rooms are occupied by the sermons of a distant, foreign president for life.[...]
“The reason why … some people didn’t ‘develop,’ may not be a question of them not having the talent, or being backward and so on, but may be historically produced by their desire to avoid what they saw as the inconveniences of states,” he told the Boston Globe in 2009.[...]
In October 2017, Xi announced a “new era” of socialism that could provide “a new option for other countries and nations that want to speed up their development.” By 2035, Xi proclaimed, China would have transitioned from developing to developed, proving the infallibility of the Chinese model.[...]
Less common are ID checks when entering individual towns or villages. Dimaluo bucks that trend, with well-manned, well-armed, gated checkpoints not far from each of its ends. Other state propaganda is more subtle in Dimaluo. I saw many calendars in town, all carrying photos of Xi, standing tall above the leaders of each of Nujiang’s minority communities, during his 2014 visit to the valley. Chinese flags fly prominently over every building—even Tenzin’s.
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