Long rows of Chinese shopfronts dominate even the so-called "genuine" eastern end of Lhasa where pilgrims gather, while traffic woes and drab new malls are as prevalent as in the rest of modern China.

Tibet is no longer the Buddhist paradise envisioned by the Himalayan region's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, when he fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 -- and China's chiefs make no apologies for that.

"The Dalai clique has been talking about the environment and culture of Tibet being destroyed," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last week in response to a familiar Dalai Lama lament about his homeland.

"If something has been undermined or destroyed, it is not the culture of Tibet but rather the black, feudal serf system (of Buddhist rule). It has been destroyed for good."

But activists say frustration and anger about the increasing domination of China's dominant Han population in all spheres of Tibetan life helped lead to the latest deadly demonstrations in Lhasa.

Tibetans protesters targeted Chinese businesses in Friday's riots, according to the official version from Beijing as well as pro-Tibet campaign groups.

"China's policies and ideologies in Tibet have built up resentment and despair and have led to what we have seen in the past week," International Campaign for Tibet spokeswoman Kate Saunders told AFP.

Historically, opponents of Chinese rule have not forgotten the purges in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution that led to many monasteries being destroyed.

Tibetans have also seen the use of their language diminish, nomads forced to live in settled villages and pronouncements against the right to reincarnation, a deliberate attempt to control the Dalai Lama's successor, rights groups say.

China announced last year that Tibetan living Buddhas needed permission from the government, officially atheist, to be reincarnated, prompting the Dalai Lama to say his successor may come from outside Tibet.

One of the big symbols of what critics say is the increasing domination of Han Chinese over Tibetans is the 1,100-kilometre (700-mile) railway that links China's densely populated east to the once remote mountainous region.

Opened in 2006, the railway has hastened the dramatic change in the ethnic landscape that began after China's troops invaded the region in 1950 and annexed it a year later, many Tibetans say.

"It is a source of deep concern that ever since the railway line became operational, Tibet has seen a further increase in Chinese population transfer," the Dalai Lama said last year.

For the Han Chinese, they are lured to relatively sparsely populated Tibet with the prospect of a better life than back home in the east, where 1.3 billion people compete to keep up in the nation's ruthless modernisation drive.

They are offered preferential treatment for jobs, easy access to loans and other incentives to lure them there, with the ever-increasing population consolidating China's political control, according to Tibetan activists.

China bristles at such suggestions and points to many improvements for Tibet, including a doubling of the life expectancy since the 1950s and billions of dollars in spending on infrastructure and development projects.

While many Tibetans say they are marginalised economically, they are also forced to cope with many of the other darker sides of China's modernisation push -- such as pollution and prostitution.

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