Exploration of the difficulties of economic development and modernization of pastoral areas of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, China

Abstract Gaize County, located in Ngari Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and known as the “roof of the roof of the world,” is an area with the toughest production, living and working conditions in the country. During the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, leading farmers and herdsmen in pastoral areas to build a well-off society and to realize socialist modernization has always been the top priority for the work of party committees and government at all levels. In the new era, Gaize County has explored a “Six-pronged Unification” Model for collective economic cooperatives aimed at realizing the modernization of animal husbandry in the context of the prominent contradiction between human and land resources, the inefficiency of traditional nomadic production and the herdsmen’s weak awareness of market-orientation and market participation. The “Six-pronged Unification” Model has improved the risk resistance mechanism for production in animal husbandry, improved the income of herdsmen and their ability to participate in marketization, and enhanced the social governance capacity and governance system in pastoral areas. The “Six-pronged Unification” Model is not only a vivid practice of poverty alleviation in poverty-stricken pastoral areas in China, but also an organic part of the building of a comprehensive well-off society and realizing the modernization of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era