China has announced it will accelerate plans to expand a railway network in Tibet to reach two towns near the border with India and will also consider building a railway line to Nepal, officials said this week.
New railway lines from Lhasa to Xigaze (Shigatse in Tibetan) and the town of Nyingchi, which lies in a prefecture bordering Arunachal Pradesh, will be built as key projects under a five-year development plan (2011-15) for the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which was announced on Wednesday.
Separately, the State-run Xinhua news agency carried a report indicating that the construction of a railway line from Tibet to Nepal was discussed during Premier Wen Jiabao's visit last week to Kathmandu.
“The railway which will join Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China will further strengthen ties between the two countries,” Xinhua quoted Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav as saying.
The projects will widen the asymmetry in infrastructure across the Himalayas. Jin Shixun, chief of the TAR development and reform commission, said in a statement the railway projects would “pay a vital role in boosting tourism and accelerating the transport of natural resources”.
Chinese officials say the projects are aimed at boosting connectivity to bring development to Tibet's frontier regions. Indian defence officials have, however, voiced concern over the strategic implications of infrastructure projects located near the border.
The statement said the extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway line, which currently ends in Lhasa, to Xigaze would be completed by 2015. Construction of another line from Lhasa to Nyingchi will also begin under the five-year plan.
By the end of last year, $538 million — or a quarter of the budget — had already been spent since construction on the Xigaze line began in September 2010.
Xinhua said the 253-km line would pass through the 90-km-long Grand Canyon of the Yarlung Zangbo — as the Brahmaputra is known in Tibet.
The line would have a capacity to carry 8.3 million tonnes of freight annually.
Keywords: Tibet, China railway
India and China should build a train railway between the two countries and streamline trade between the two countries and build a trade union to rival EU and America.
Fear and distrust keeps people when in reality every kind of human beings have good within. The west is using 'divide and rule' strategy to keep you guys apart for their benefit.
You are the world's largest arms importer with least security consciousness, wonder what would it be like if India was more security conscious.
It is a shame for an Indian to say this..but we are some of the least-security conscious people in the world..we have no oversight even over trivial things and we will not even learn through repeated failures..
Clearly the expansion of railway and road infrastructure in the TAR
along the border of India is a matter of concern for the security
management of India,moreover the announcement of the plan at the
backdrop of formation of joint mechanism for border management clearly
puts bejing's integrity towards a peaceful solution in doubt. It's definitely a wake up call for south block to re access it's border
management and infrastructure development along the LAC and waste no
time to strengthen it's diplomatic presence in kathmandu rather
wasting the taxpayer's money on lavish parties in Kathmandu.
This would show how we have been severely lagging behind, with no
well-thought out approach. A member of the parliament from Arunachal
Pradesh in exasperation has demanded that his state should have a rail
line to China as its central authorities have failed in all these
decades to get a rail line connecting it o the rest of India. Reports
have appeared in the media of some railway projects in North east
connecting towns upto our border and capable of being extended to link
to towns in Myanamr and even beyond upto Kunming in China in some
distant future. While our politicians are periodically pontificating
on our Look East Policy, there is no commensurate speed in completing
these projects. Third, when Indian Railways is in dire financial
straits with the general budget position none too rosy either, the
Indian railways announces several routes in India for high speed rail
connections with foreign assistance from Japan amusing us.
Since 1962, the Indian Govt. had ample time to inprove road and rail communications in the border areas but has failed to do so. The lack of strategic thinking in the Govt. is to be deplored.
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