Beijing, Aug 11: China is set to build the most ambitious rail link connecting Xinjiang province with Tibet, with part of it running near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India.
The Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company (XTRC) has been formally registered with 95 billion yuan (USD 13.2 billion) in capital and is wholly owned by China State Railway Group. The project aims to establish a 5,000 km plateau rail framework centred on Lhasa by 2035.
The XTRC’s registered capital represents initial funding, not total project costs. For example, the 1,800km Sichuan-Tibet Railway required an estimated 320 billion yuan (USD 45 billion) to build. Parts of the route will also run near the China-India Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between the two countries, giving it defensive importance in a frontier area with less infrastructure than the rest of China.
China’s mega infrastructure project in the route, the Xinjiang-Tibet highway, was built through the disputed Aksai Chin area, which was a major flashpoint in the 1962 war. India asserts Aksai Chin as an integral part of its territory based on historical claims and past treaties. The Xinjiang-Tibet Railway is one of four lines planned to connect Tibet with the rest of the country, with the other services linking the western region to Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces.
Tibet continues to be the focus of China’s mega constructions, with China recently starting the construction of the world’s biggest dam over the Brahmaputra River in ecologically fragile Tibet, close to Arunachal Pradesh. The dam, costing about USD 170 billion, is considered the world’s biggest infrastructure project.
The train route will join the existing Lhasa-Shigatse line with a new one from Hotan to Shigatse, forming a roughly 2,000km strategic artery linking northwestern and southwestern China. The project posed challenges such as winter temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau can plunge to -40 degrees Celsius, with oxygen levels at just 44% of inland regions. (PTI)
