LHASA, China -- In a tidy, spacious factory that looks out to jagged Himalayan peaks, folk remedies from Tibet's distant past are being packed up and shipped out by uniformed workers who are building China's tomorrows.

The 270 employees of Tibet Pharmacy Joint Stock Co. Ltd. are part of Beijing's multibillion-dollar effort to energize the isolated region and turn Tibet into a working part of modern China.

"This is part of the future of Tibet's economy," Paba Samden, the company's deputy general manager and Communist Party secretary, said during a rare visit to Tibet by a group of foreign reporters.

It's a version of Tibet that China is eager to show the world -- a region throwing off poverty under what state media call the "loving care" of the Communist Party that nurtures Tibetan tradition and a distinctive identity as integral part of China.

Portrayed as Tibet's oppressor since communist troops marched into the region in 1950, Beijing is in the midst of a charm offensive aimed at promoting a more benign image.

Foreign experts say Beijing also is keen to defuse Tibet as an irritant in relations with Washington and an obstacle to financing from the World Bank and other international agencies.

At least six Tibetan political prisoners -- all of them the subject of Western lobbying -- have been released this year. State media are filled with reports of official spending to preserve temples and other cultural sites. The government is appealing to tourists and investors to come visit.

This week, the government pushed its campaign a step further by taking more than 20 Western and Asian reporters -- a group usually barred from Tibet -- on a tour of factories, monasteries and the homes of selected Tibetans.

"We hope to show the true face of Tibet," Guo Jinlong, the Communist Party secretary for the region, said Thursday. "Frankly speaking, we have not done enough in our publicity work."

Activists abroad say they welcome increased access to Tibet, but they complain that Beijing is offering a distorted view by taking journalists on a carefully scripted -- and carefully supervised -- visit.

Chinese officials chose the itinerary and the reporters traveled in a group, but were sometimes allowed to wander freely in public places. It was unclear how closely the reporters were watched or whether they were followed by plainclothes police. There was no indication of a covert police presence, however.

Activists say that while Beijing has indeed invested in building roads and other facilities, most benefits go to migrants from elsewhere in China. They contend development is aimed at binding Tibet more closely to the rest of China and exploiting its oil, gas and other resources.

At least 100 Tibetan monks, nuns and others are in prison or some other form of confinement, activists say. They say monasteries -- for centuries the heart of Tibetans' deeply spiritual existence -- operate under strict government control. Anger over official interference in religious affairs prompted riots in the early 1990s.

"We are deeply concerned that a short visit to anecdotal places will not be a true reflection of larger ground realities and might in fact serve to undermine major human rights concerns," said a statement by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy. It is based in Dharmsala, the Indian town where Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has lived in exile since fleeing in 1959 during a failed uprising against communist rule.

A second batch of foreign reporters is invited to Tibet in September.

Beijing's campaign could be fueled by its need for foreign financing for multibillion-dollar plans to develop Tibet and other western regions, said Kate Saunders, a researcher for the Tibet Information Network in London.

Beijing is trying to raise incomes in western regions -- many of them populated by Tibetans, Muslims and other minorities -- that lag behind the booming east.

China's leadership was "really rattled" by the uproar abroad over its attempt in the late 1990s to resettle farmers from its ethnic Han majority in traditionally Tibetan areas, Saunders said.

The World Bank approved a $40 million loan, but Beijing withdrew its application after the bank announced a review because of criticism the effort would dilute the local Tibetan population. Beijing accused the United States and others of sabotaging its loan.

"They know they have a strong Tibet lobby to contend with, and some senior American politicians, and they clearly see they have to work hard if they want to change public views," Saunders said.

Chinese officials this week emphasized Chinese investment in Tibet and what they call the benefits to Tibetans, who make up 95 percent of its population of 2.6 million.

Beijing supplies 90 percent of Tibet's investment and operating budget, according to Jin Shixun, an economic planning official. Last year, he said, the government approved $3.5 billion in new projects.

In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, the results are striking. The streets are new and wide. Gleaming new buildings have sprung up, though at the cost of demolishing swathes of the city, including centuries-old buildings listed by the United Nations as cultural treasures.

One of the biggest projects is the first rail line linking Tibet to the rest of China.

Officials say construction will create as many as 30,000 jobs a year, and that once the railway opens in 2006 it will lead to a tourism and export boom. Activists complain it will bring a torrent of new settlers: Already, Jin acknowledged, non-Tibetan migrants make up half of Lhasa's population of 200,000.

That makes officials all the more eager to deflect accusations that Tibetans have no voice in running their region. They say some 70 percent of official posts are held by ethnic Tibetans.

The chairman of the Tibet government is an ethnic Tibetan, though party boss Guo, the region's most powerful figure, is from the Han majority -- as were all his predecessors.

Guo, speaking to reporters, stopped to count on his fingers as he described what he said was a major Tibetan presence in the ruling party -- eight of 15 members of the region's party committee and five of its eight county secretaries.

"I have no intention of changing your opinion overnight," he said. "But we should have more exchanges."