E-Paper
Sichuan-Tibet railway route key to protecting China’s borders: Xi
Southwest China’s Sichuan-Tibet Railway’s Ya’an-Nyingchi section will be 1,011 kilometers in length and include 26 stations when completed --- taking Chinese railway right up to the disputed boundary with India.
A new 1,000 km railway route that will link Sichuan province to a Tibetan city close to the border with Arunachal Pradesh will be key to safeguarding China’s national unity and consolidating border stability, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday.
Southwest China’s Sichuan-Tibet Railway’s Ya’an-Nyingchi section will be 1,011 kilometers in length and include 26 stations when completed --- taking Chinese railway right up to the disputed boundary with India.
Nyingchi is prefecture in the southeast part of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and borders Arunachal Pradesh.
China claims the entire Indian state as part of south Tibet and has been rapidly developing infrastructure in the remote area of Nyingchi, which like the rest of TAR is not accessible to foreign journalists and diplomats.
The construction of the new railway route will begin in the backdrop of the ongoing Sino-Indian border faceoff in eastern Ladakh with both countries rapidly building border infrastructure.
Xi sent out the message on Sunday ahead of the beginning of the construction of the Ya’an-Nyingchi section via video, the official news agency, Xinhua reported.
“Xi identified the project as a major measure in facilitating the (Communist Party of China” Party’s general plan for governing Tibet in the new era, and stressed the project’s important role in safeguarding national unity, promoting ethnic solidarity and consolidating stability in border areas,” the Xinhua report quoted Xi as saying.
“The project would significantly contribute to the economic and social development of the western region, especially in Sichuan province and TAR,” said Xi.
Calling the building of the railway a “historic task”, Xi said the Chinese system’s way of “concentrating resources to get things done” should be leveraged to complete the construction.
The Sichuan-Tibet railway starts from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, travels through Ya’an and enters Tibet via Qamdo, shortening the journey from Chengdu to Lhasa from 48 hours to 13 hours.
Earlier this month, the government announced the bidding results for the construction of two tunnels and one bridge, as well as the power supply project for the Ya’an-Nyingchi section of the Sichuan-Tibet railway, indicating that construction of the project is about to begin.
In June, state media had announced that the construction of a major bridge over the Yarlung Zangbo river in TAR had concluded, part of Beijing’s long-term plan to improve infrastructure in remote regions near the Arunachal Pradesh border.
The new bridge – the world’s highest steel tube arch railway bridge -- is a critical component of the 435-km railway linking regional capital Lhasa and the town of Nyingchi. All 120 bridges on the new railway link have been completed.
Part of the Sichuan-Tibet railway project, the 435-km Lhasa-Nyingchi railway, 75 percent of which is bridges and tunnels, has a designed speed of 160 km/h, and is expected to be completed and put into operation in 2021, state media reports say.
