Railway Planned For Tibet Will Strengthen China’s Regional Control: Experts

A new railway linking western China’s Sichuan province with central Tibet’s Nyingtri prefecture will boost tourism and trade along a previously unconnected southern route, but will also strengthen Beijing’s control over a disputed region bordering India, state media and other sources say.

Work on the proposed 1,011 km (628-mile) rail line from Chengdu in Sichuan to Nyingtri (in Chinese, Linzhi), costing an estimated U.S. $28 billion and including 26 stations, is set to begin immediately, China Railway announced on Oct. 31, according to a Nov. 2 report by Construction magazine. The project will be the second major railway to be built by China in Tibet after the northern line connecting Golmud in northwest China’s Qinghai province with Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa, the highest railway in the world, which was completed in 2006.

The new line connecting Sichuan’s capital Chengdu to Nyingtri in the Tibet Autonomous Region will shorten travel time along the route from 48 to 13 hours, Construction said, citing a report by state-run China News.

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