I saw why Tibet is called the “Roof of the World” when our family crossed the 5,231 m Tangula pass into Tibet in 1994. The roiling dark clouds that had just unleashed a hailstorm were so low that I felt like ducking as I stopped to photograph Tibetan prayer flags whipping in a bone-chilling wind—and it was August, the warmest month.

I had a migraine from the lack of oxygen and I sucked air like a fish out of water. I couldn’t wait to get to Lhasa, another two days’ drive down the mountains, which at 11,995 feet is lowlands by Tibetan standards.

Clinging to Life in the Dead Zone

This area at 5,000 m above sea-level is called the “Dead Zone” because little survives—no trees, few plants, not many animals. So imagine my surprise to learn that some Tibetans actually live at such elevations—though they don’t live long.

Fiction and Hollywood have romanticized Tibet as a Shangri-La inhabited by long-lived mystics but the reality is less idyllic. Although the average Tibetan lifespan has almost doubled from 35.5 years in 1951 to 68.2 years today, that’s short of the national average of 76.4 years or Beijing’s 82.15 years. And 700 km north of Lhasa in Shuanghu County, which at 5,000 m is the world’s highest county, the average lifespan is only 58—almost 20 years less than the national average.

I was surprised that even Tibetans could cling to life in such hostile conditions, but utterly astonished that a Han Chinese, Mr. Liang Nanyu, would also choose to live in the same conditions and sacrifice his health to help lift the Tibetan nomads from poverty.

No People Left Behind

Given that locals say there are only two seasons, winter and almost-winter, it is no surprise this is China’s least populated area. “It has only 14,398 people in a place the size of South Korea,” Mr. Liang said. “One person for every eight squ. km – that’s like having only eight people within the entire second ring road of Beijing.” But even such a remote and unpopulated area as Shuanghu has not been overlooked by China’s anti-poverty campaign which for decades has stressed “no one left behind”.

In the summer of 2016, Petro China sent the 39-year-old to Shuanghu County as part of a Central Government partnership assistance program started in 1994 for cities and provinces across China to help targeted Tibetan cities and counties. And in spite of daunting challenges, Mr. Liang has brought such radical improvement to healthcare, education and environmental protection that during the October, 2019 national survey of poverty alleviation work, Shuanghu County was ranked among China’s Top 19 counties.

“Does your wife mind you being here for so long?” I asked him, “or that you asked to stay another three years?”

“She doesn’t stop me,” he said, “but she doesn’t really understand, and wants me to come home. And my parents aren’t supportive. My family worries because this altitude affects even Tibetans’ health, I have an enlarged heart, insomnia, poor memory. I took sleeping pills last night just to make sure I was wide awake when I met you. Before Tibet, I slept very well. For the first two years here, oxygen helped me sleep. After two years, nothing helps. Now I can’t sleep anywhere, even when visiting Beijing, and there is no cure.”

“So why not return to Beijing?” I asked.

“This year, 2020, is a crucial year,” Mr. Liang said. “This year China eliminates absolute poverty, but I’ve only completed about 80% of what needs to be done. If someone replaces me, they may not understand the situation as I do, or their health may fail. If they do persevere, they may not do as well as I would have. So I must stay a little longer to ensure things are finished correctly.”

As Liang shared his creative anti-poverty strategies, including urban guerrilla education and eco-nomads, I also suspected it would be hard to ever replace such a man.

Understanding the Terrain, Sun Zi’s Art of War

As soon as Mr. Liang arrived in Shuanghu in 2016, he visited every village to understand its unique problems. He quickly realized his greatest challenge problem that was insurmountable: altitude

“Most Beijing people get altitude sickness even in Lhasa,” Mr. Liang said, “but Shuanghu is so high that in Lhasa I feel like I’m back at sea-level. Just walking in Shuanghu feels like carrying 30 kg or 50 kg of rice down on the plains. When I first arrived in Shuanghu, my legs felt rubbery. I could not walk and talk at the same time and had to stop walking to answer the phone or I’d have no breath to talk. And if talking was difficult, thinking was even harder, especially when trying to lift the poorest place in China from poverty.”

I suspect Mr. Liang was being modest because he quickly came up with an ambitious and successful three-prong attack on medical care, education, and industrial development balanced with ecological protection.

Step 1: Health then Wealth

Mr. Liang began with health because, as he somberly recounted, “I saw two babies die the first time I went to the countryside. One lived one day, the other lived seven days. Death is a tragedy in the rest of China but Tibetans are used to it. The nearest good hospital was in Naqu, seven hours away on 550 km dirt road. Something had to be done. Only with good health can you prosper.”

Infant mortality was high and adults suffered from debilitating but treatable problems such as appendicitis. Petro China had sent a medical team each year since 2009 but they only treated common problems. Shuanghu County did not have one resident doctor and even midwives had little training. “A 32-year-old village doctor named Gangla admitted that her delivery technique was simply to wait and see if the child survived.”

Although Gangla was illiterate and spoke little standard Chinese, she was desperate to learn, so Mr. Liang sent her as part of a team to a Lanzhou hospital for training. Six months later, the hospital’s director of gynecology praised Gangla, whom he said was always on call day and night, and even slept in the hospital rather than her hotel room because she wanted to observe all she could. When Mr. Liang visited her, Gangla showed him a small sheet of paper on which she’d summarized her work. “I was so touched,” he said, “because in just six months she’d taught herself Chinese characters! I asked why she was so desperate to learn, and she said, ‘Because I’ve seen this really saves lives.’”

After forming a medical team, Mr. Liang needed equipment. Petro China donated 1.125 million Yuan for a ventilator, laparoscope and other equipment but Mr. Liang also discovered that the hospital warehouse had unused equipment such as an anesthesia machine manufactured in 2009. The factory demanded 45,000 Yuan to install the 200,000 Yuan machine, “so I pored over the manual and I installed it myself,” Mr. Liang said. “Now we had medical workers and equipment, but no patients because no one wanted to be first! Death from natural childbirth is acceptable; it is natural. Death under a scalpel is not natural.”

On August 23, 2017, a pregnant Tibetan showed up at the hospital, desperate because the baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck. They finally had a chance to prove the value of modern medicine—but the medical team got cold feet and argued for hours. “We had no blood bank, our hands shook from oxygen deprivation and even the equipment had altitude sickness. Machines would not turn on or gave faulty readings. Voltage fluctuated, and some equipment had never been inspected – including the machine I’d installed myself. But I felt we had no choice. It had just rained and snowed and the 220 km dirt road to the city hospital was a quagmire. The bumpy seven hour ride would probably kill both mother and child, and Lhasa was over twice as far.”

“Send her anyway,’ one person said. ‘If she dies on the way, it isn’t our fault, but if she dies on the operating table, the people will blame us.” But just then a nurse dashed in. “She’s having contractions!”

“I was relieved,” Mr. Liang said, “because if we sent her out now, she’d certainly die. They had to operate.”

This was not only Shuanghu County’s very first medical operation but also the world’s first emergency cesarean section at such an altitude. News spread like wildfire that doctors would remove a baby from its mother’s stomach and people crowded the operating room’s doorway to watch. Mr. Liang squeezed in with the crowd, waiting worriedly. “I felt more anxious than when my own child had been born eight years earlier!” he said. “One doctor said to me, ‘Don’t worry. It’s not a big problem.’ But later, he admitted to me that he’d been very nervous! The doctor’s hands shook so badly from lack of oxygen that he inhaled oxygen as he operated. But at 8:33 we heard a baby’s cry. I will remember that voice all of my life.”

The six-pound baby’s excited grandparents placed a long white Tibetan scarf around each doctor’s neck and thanked them and would have named the baby after Mr. Liang but he told them that was inappropriate—that they should name it after the doctor. So little Pasang Norbu was also given another name, Huo Dangsheng, Huo being the doctor’s surname and Dangsheng, “Party kid”, as thanks to the Party’s saving the mother and child.

“Actually, two babies were born that day,” Mr. Liang said. “Today, they are 2 and a half years old and those doctors still look after them! They are doing great!”

The babies’ birth was a turning point in Mr. Liang’s relationship with Tibetans. “Before that, we felt some ethnic distance, but now we are indescribably close. When I return from trips, they grin and say, ‘You’re back!’”

Step 2: Guerrilla Warfare Education Strategy

After health, Mr. Liang’s second priority was education. Tibet had free compulsory education but enrolment was low. “Shuanghu people are nomadic and don’t see the benefit in education,” Mr. Liang said. “In most of China, people may measure worth by houses or cars, but herders count sheep, and their big goal is to enlarge the flock. Families stay together, young and old, to keep flocks large, and the purpose of children is to tend the flock – but a child with an education is a ‘sandwich’ trapped between two worlds.

“If a young student tests into high school or college and leaves Shuanghu, he has a future, but if he fails, he won’t herd sheep, so he is a burden on both family and society. So telling parents that education was good didn’t help. We had to show them, so I used guerrilla warfare education.

“I used two tactics. The first was ‘Borrow chicken to lay eggs.’ Our teachers were not that good so we sent twelve children to Lhasa Beijing Elementary School. We were deeply moved when, within only half a year, one child was already in the top ten. This proved their problem was not motivation but environment. Photos taken of these children six months after moving to Lhasa show their bright, smiling faces. Their studies improved, their mental outlook changed, and when they returned home they had a very positive influence on their hometown.”

Mr. Liang’s second strategy was cultivating self-reliance. He said, “We could only send out a few students so we had to cultivate self-reliance, but we needed to improve the teaching. Our 215 teachers, mostly young Tibetans right out of college, have one thing in common: their level is not very high. If they were of high level, other schools would have grabbed them. They continue to teach in Shuanghu only because they get a livable income, but after teaching day in and day out, knowing they’ll never see the rest of the world, they lose hope. Education has no hope unless teachers have hope.

“Compulsory nine-year compulsory education for all children is good, but this is a flood strategy. To really change things, we had to concentrate our attack like guerrilla warfare, focusing our strengths to break through one point with a ‘surprise education attack’. We put good students with good teachers – but how could we improve the teachers? So we held a meeting and asked the teachers, ‘What exactly do you want?’

“To motivate people, you must first know what they want. I thought they’d want money, bonuses, special recognition. But they desired only one thing: to leave Shuanghu. So in 2017 we set a policy that if a child was admitted to a Tibet class in another province, the teacher would receive 30,000 Yuan and we’d help the teacher transfer out. By 2018, we already had three students pass the entrance exam for college – a small number but it had a powerful impact. Many came to the ceremony and saw the proud parents wearing their red ceremonial flower. From that time on, education has improved!”

Hopefully, those teachers who had initially planned on leaving are now encouraged by their students’ success to continue on in Shuanghu.

Step 3: Industrial Development (Eco-Nomads)

Mr. Liang’s third tactic was to develop industries according to local conditions. Shuanghu was still one of China’s most impoverished counties, with 21.9% still below the poverty line—far higher than the national average of 1.7%. “If quality of life is considered,” Mr. Liang said, “these would be the poorest people in all China.”

Sustainable poverty alleviation requires a shift from aid to self-reliance, so after careful research, Mr. Liang focused on three pillar industries: brine shrimp eggs, tourism and livestock.

Since the 1990s, Shuanghu County’s Xiangcuo Lake’s brine shrimp eggs have been one of the county’s main sources of income, but local workers’ and officials’ ignorance of the market allowed unscrupulous buyers to create de facto monopolies and force unfairly low prices. To break the monopoly, Mr. Liang proposed transparent and fair bidding. But from 2017 to 2018, not only the bidders and buyers but Mr. Liang himself received anonymous threats. Mr. Liang pressed on.

In 2019, Mr. Liang e-mailed each bidder to explain the strict requirements to keep the process open and fair, and if worst came to worst, promised that the government itself would buy the brine shrimp eggs at a fair price. His hard work, attention to detail and absolute refusal to be intimidated paid off. The eggs earned an unprecedented price.

In September, 2018, Mr. Liang used a 13.8 million Yuan donation from Petro China to build a 10-acre brine shrimp egg processing plant in Naqu. Processing the eggs locally helped the community recover profits formerly taken by many middlemen, and over twenty formerly impoverished herders now each have salaries exceeding 6,000 Yuan per month.

Mr. Liang also helped create brands of local health foods and specialties after researchers found that Shuanghu brine shrimp eggs are rich in unsaturated fatty acids such as EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) which play an important role in human health. “Highland Hailing Brine Shrimp” health food has now completed the pilot test and will soon be available nationwide

Eco Nomads

One of Mr. Liang’s greatest challenges was protecting the environment without uprooting Tibetans from their traditional herding lifestyle. “Ecological protection is even more important here than other parts of the world,” Mr. Liang explained. “The Dead Zone has no trees and few plants. Our grass is nothing like yours in Xiamen, which is lush and must be cut often. If we remove one shovel of grass here, it will take decades to grow back. Desertification would be a disaster for the great rivers that start in Tibet. But Tibetans cannot understand how grass is far more valuable than their herds. Their cattle and sheep are worth some 510 million Yuan but the grassland’s value is incalculable – even more than 51 billion Yuan. If it were just economics, we would simply kill the cattle and sheep and relocate everyone. That would be easiest, but it would not be right. To protect the ecology while still respecting Tibetan’s ancient traditions we sought a middle ground.”

Mr. Liang hit on the idea of “collective herds”, with families pooling their herds together and receiving shares for each animal. Now they knew exactly how many animals they had (before they were never quite sure), grazing all of them together helped avoid overgrazing the fragile meadows, and it solved a deeply rooted cultural issue. “Many would not sell for slaughter an animal they had raised themselves, but in a collective, it’s not clear whose animals belong to whom, so they’re fine with selling them! Last year, our herdsmen’s per capita income exceeded 9,000 Yuan, with about 8,000 of it from the dividends on cattle and sheep that were sold.”

For the first time, these Tibetans now have money for a more varied and nutritious diet than just mutton, beef, tsampa (roasted barley) and buttered tea. But, ironically, the improved environment has created new problems. The number of wild donkeys has grown, and since they’re a nationally protected animal, Mr. Liang is searching for ways to scientifically balance the population.

Shuanghu Person, but “Three Fears, Three Sames”

Mr. Liang now says that he is not a visitor or passing through but a Shuanghu Person, but even so he admits to still sharing the same “three fears” and “three sames” that beleaguer other anti-poverty officials.

The “three fears” are loneliness, nights and estrangement. Mr. Liang fears the loneliness of weekends on the vast, sparsely populated land; he fears nights because the lack of oxygen keeps him awake; and he fears estrangement from his family – especially his daughter, who is growing up without him.

The “three sames” are “sleep”, “eating” and “appearance”. Sleep deprivation leaves him lying in bed with eyes closed but not asleep, or drifting off by day with eyes wide open. Mr. Liang also tires of eating the same simple food day in and day out. “I have no appetite.” And the lack of sleep and appetite has affected his appearance, his face haggard, clothes rumpled.

“So why not flee the Dead Zone?” I asked. “You’ve already done so much.”

“This is a critical period,” he said. “We must grit our teeth and stick it out for the sake of those who’ve put their trust in us – the Party, Petro China (which since 2016 has donated some 390 million Yuan for 113 projects), and the people of Shuanghu.”

Although Mr. Liang has been recognized for his work, he knows that the remaining work, such as improving tourism or preventing people from sliding back into poverty, may be even harder.

“This is a long-term process that requires perseverance,” he said. “Tibet is far more complicated than I imagined. For many people, Lhasa is Tibet, but most of Tibet is far different. Tibet is vast, and varies greatly. We thought we could duplicate what we did in Lhasa in Shuanghu but it was simply impossible.”

“What is left to be done?” I asked.

“The initial focus was hardware,” he said. “Infrastructure is much better, but we paid a huge price for it. We spent 930 million Yuan paving the 220 km dirt road to the Naqu hospital, and spent 320 million Yuan – some 100,000 Yuan per person – on solar power for 3,000 people. There is no economic benefit with such few people. We do it so they can have light at night. But hardware is okay now. Going forward, our focus must continue to be the software – health, education and industry.”

“And you insist on going forward?” I asked. “What drives you?”

“One of my teachers started me on this path,” Mr. Liang said. “Zhang Huan, an academician, was director of my postgraduate period, and on his 80th birthday, he gave a lecture instead of a party. He shared how, as a student in 1937, he heard the Japanese’ first bombs hitting Jinan, Shandong. The school relocated to four campuses in Sichuan, but they were often hungry and sick, and so many students died that they called the cemetery the ‘5th campus.’ Mr. Zhang visited the 5th Campus every few days to pay his respects to his departed classmates.

“The most exciting day of Prof. Zhang’s life was when he heard the Japanese had surrendered. He cried at the recollection and we students were deeply moved. Prof. Zhang then shared how China had overcome so many problems, and he said, ‘You are all well- off now, but no matter where you go, remember my words: give back to your country. Do something. This is my advice to you as a teacher.’

“Prof. Zhang Huan died in October 2019. Today, Beijing life is very comfortable, but a good life can have real value only when it is good for everyone in China. It is very easy to enjoy a blessed life in Beijing, but this is the age to do something! Maybe in the next age you’ll want to do something like this but will have no opportunity. Tibet is China’s last place to eradicate poverty, and Shuanghu County is the last place in Tibet. It makes sense for me to do this work and it is worth doing.”

Mr. Liang went silent for a few moments, and then added, “I will stay in Shuanghu until I finish my work. And if one day the Tibetans say, ‘You are no longer needed,’ that will prove my work is finally done.”

China’s 5th Great Invention at Work

After hearing Mr. Liang’s story, I’m amazed that a man who majored in economics and automation would have the creativity, versatility, and sheer commitment to effectively tackle such disparate problems – health, education, development and ecology. The more people like Mr. Liang that I meet, the more I’m reminded of the classical Confucian scholar-bureaucrats who for over 2,000 years met the needs of China’s vast population by tackling every problem from farming (bio-pesticides 2,000 years ago), medicine (smallpox inoculation 1,000 years ago) to weaponry that could have subdued the world 1,000 years ago had the Chinese such ambition.

I’ve researched ancient Chinese inventions for years and I suspect the list is endless. But I increasingly agree with the English politician Eustace Budgell who, in 1731, said that the whole world agreed that of all Chinese inventions, the greatest was the “Art of Government”.

Mr. Liang and many like him are living proof that modern Chinese are just as capable and committed as their polymath predecessors, and that China’s “5th Great Invention” is still at work.

And that work is bearing fruit in the lives of people like Yixi Danzeng. Xiamen University’s first Tibetan student and now a professor at Tibet University in Lhasa, Yixi Danzeng shared with me a Tibetan man’s Chinese Dream.