Beijing-based Tibetan activist Tsering Woeser commented in a tweet that she discovered that most Tibetan hawkers belonged to the Qiang ethnic minority from Aba prefecture in Sichuan province.

Around 10,000 Tibetans lived in the capital, a 2011 study estimated. They make up a tiny minority in the megacity of 19.7 million people. According to the 2010 census, about 4 per cent of Beijing's population, or 800,000 people, belonged to ethnic minorities, most of whom were Mongolian or Manchurian.