Great progress has been made in various aspects of China's Tibet Autonomous Region since democratic reforms were adopted there in 1959, said Western sociologists in a recently published article.

US columnists John Naisbitt -- once assistant to the commissioner of education under US President John F. Kennedy -- and his wife Doris made the remarks in an article published last Friday in WirtschaftsBlatt, a daily Austrian financial newspaper.

"Tibet cannot and should not be excluded when talking about China's today and tomorrow," according to the article entitled "The Various Faces of Tibet," because "the Tibet Autonomous Region covers about one eighth of China's territory."

In fact, the system in Tibet till 1950 maintained by the "brutal religious police" showed "not a pretty face" for the majority of the population while "90 percent of the people lived as slaves, serfs or bonded laborers, the article said.

Those who were against the religious law or rules had to suffer such cruel medieval punishments as eyes burned with hot oil, hands cut off and body sewn in wet yak skin, dried and thrown into ravines, it said.

The "Tibet-in-exile government" led by Dali Lama was still an "undemocratic regime" with the style of a "medieval potentate," said the columnist couple, citing a report from the German Stern Magazine in 2009.

After traveling in China several times for on-the-spot investigations and interviews, the American authors, who specialize in futures study, concluded that significant progress has been made in Tibet since the introduction of democratic reforms more than 50 years ago.

The authors cited impressive statistics, which led to their conclusion: In 1959, there were no roads in the real sense in Tibet while the total length of roads now adds up to some 50,000 km.

Its gross domestic product (GDP) rocketed from 18 million euros ($22.6 million) in 1959 to 5.3 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in 2009.

Life expectancy in Tibet has extended from 35.5 to 67 years; education, once a privilege of the monks and aristocrats, is now accessible by 98 percent of the population.

They also listed facts on the change of people's living standard, economic and social development in Tibet.

Admitting problems existing in Tibet, they said "even the god-king has two faces," and ultimately, "everyone must make their own opinion" and should view the problems from an overall perspective.