Beijing: China has unveiled an ambitious plan to build a new railway line through the disputed Aksai Chin region along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The ‘medium to long term railway plan’ will help expand the TAR rail network to 4,000 km by 2025 from the current 1,400 km, according to a new railway plan revealed by the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government. The project will include new routes that will continue to China’s borders with India and Nepal, reports Railway Technology. Designed to start in Shigatse, Tibet, the proposed rail line would run northwest along the Nepal border before entering north through Aksai Chin and terminating in Hotan, Xinjiang. The planned route will pass through Rutog and around Pangong Lake on the Chinese side of the LAC. The first section from Shigatse to Pakhuktso is expected to be completed by 2025, while the remaining line section ending at Hotan is expected to be completed by 2035.
A state media report, citing the plan revealed by the TAR Development and Reform Commission, said – “by 2025, construction of several railway projects including the Yan-Nyingchi section of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, the Shigatse-Pakhuktso section of the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway , and the Bomi-Rauk section of the Yunnan-Tibet Railway will all see significant progress”.
There is now a serious concern in India that with the expansion of its railway network in and within Tibet and railway lines ready to reach the LAC soon, Beijing may use more of its military might to unilaterally change its border with India. May feel compelled to flex strongly. Even Tibetans fear that more railway lines into Tibet will encourage Beijing’s plunder of natural resources. The growing influx of Han Chinese immigrants and tourists to Tibet is expected to further impact the local demography and culture, which is already under threat from China’s decades-old “Sinicization” policy.
India is concerned about the strategic motivations that underlie China’s construction and expansion of railway lines along the border region. Chinese analysts have openly advocated that in the event of a war with India, the railway line would help transport strategic material to the disputed Sino-Indian border. Army Chief General Manoj Pandey had recently said that there has been an increase in the number of Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Apart from the build-up of troops along the border, the satellite imagery shows continued construction activity by the Chinese military consolidating its position along the LAC. The new railway line is close to the Indian borders. In the event of a border conflict between China and India in the eastern LAC, the new railway line will allow the PLA to move trainloads of troops faster.
In recent years, Beijing has devoted substantial resources to building connective infrastructure linking the border city to the rest of China. China is extending the Lhasa-Xigge railway line south to Yadong – a trading town near the strategic Nathu La mountain pass that runs between Tibet and India in the eastern sector of the LAC. Yadong is also near western Bhutan, where China has territorial claims in the Doklam Plateau.
The recent escalation of tensions along the LAC has made India more sensitive to the role of the railways in the mobilization of troops along the border by the PLA. Indian observers have not lost sight of the fact that several towns along the LAC where the Chinese trains are planned to arrive have been the site of major clashes and face-offs between the PLA and Indian security forces in the recent past.