On July 24, The Global Times run a story “Sky rail to run from Lhasa to south Tibet; further railway expansion to connect Nepal, Bhutan, India by 2020.”
It announced that the railway linking Lhasa and Shigatse (termed as the ‘closest stretch of railway to the sky’) will be open to traffic in August.
In my yesterday posting, I mentioned that the construction of the 254 kilometers line began in September 2010.
The new extension of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will have 13 stations between Lhasa and Shigatse,
According to Yang Yulin, deputy director of the railway office of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government, it is the largest infrastructure project (in Tibet) during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) with an investment of more than $1.7 billion.
Zhu Bin, a manager with a mineral company based in Lhasa told The People’s Daily that “It will accelerate transportat
ion of the mineral products, which could only be transmitted through highways that often risk being cut off during rainy seasons or see vehicle turnovers.”
That is certainly one of the objectives of the train.
A Tibetan writer based in Lhasa, told the Communist newspaper that the railway will help local Tibetans to ‘exchange with the outside world’ and
…’tourists will be attracted to the area’.
There is nothing new in this, though it is clear that China is not investing 1.7 billion US $ for the Tibetans to ‘see outside’.
The train to Shigatse has 3 basic purposes, one, to bring more tourists, the main source of revenue for the TAR; two, to take away minerals to the mainland to feed the economic machine and three, to ‘strengthen’ the borders with India by allowing quick movement of troops and armament.
Now, more surprising, Yang announced that during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, the construction of a railway connecting Shigatse with Gyirong (Kyirong) in northern Nepal and with Yatung, in the Chumbi Valley between India and Bhutan, will start.
Kyirong is a logical extension of the line as China has extensively invested in this landport to make it the main link between Tibet and Nepal, but why Yatung?[Source]
