The opening of a new, inexpensive rail link from East China to Tibet is apparently going to speed up the process of "sinification" of the sometime Hermit Kingdom. Apparently many Han immigrants have already invaded the country, making the native Tibetans a minority in their own land. The Dalai Lama's Lhasa of 20,000 people now houses a population of more than 300,000, according to some figures.
This has happened before. Several years ago I read an article about the Manchu language in the Esperanto monthly with the appropriate name Monato ("Monthly"). The Manchus, as you may remember, ruled China clear up until 1911. Do you know how many people can speak the ancestral Manchu language today? You can apparently count them on the fingers of two hands.
I suspect that the result of Chinese policy toward Tibet (including the opening of the new rail link) is that the Tibetans will, in a couple more generations, like the Manchus be absorbed into the Han majority and will effectively disappear as a separate people and culture.
I surely would like to criticize the Chinese for implementing policies that not only permit but encourage this. But there's a minor problem for us Americans. Chinese policy toward Tibet, it seems, is not much different, historically speaking, from American policy towards the entire continent. Andrew Jackson would have had no problem identifying with the current leadership in Beijing, at least on this topic. The main difference is that in the 19th century we tended to exterminate those who got in our way; the Chinese are simply absorbing them. So for Americans to criticize Chinese policy toward Tibet would be almost the ultimate in hypocrisy.