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New 'railway of the skies' tightens Bejing's grip on Tibet
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by Willy Lam*, East-Asia-Intel.com [June 21]
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, July 3, 2006
President Hu Jintao officiated at the July 1 opening of the high-altitude “Railway of the Skies” — a 2,000-km high-tech rail link between Xining in Qinghai Province and Lhassa, capital of Tibet.
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Track-laying on the Qinghai-Tibet railway near the west Lhasa Railway Station in a photo taken on Sept. 18, 2005.
Xinhuanet.com
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First conceived by Chairman Mao Zedong in the late 1950s, the super-ambitious “Celestial Rail-link” never got beyond the 815 km-section from the Qinghai capital of Xining to the Qinghai city of Golmud at the foot of the Himalayas, where the gradient starts to become inhibiting.
Work to extend the Xining-Golmud line for 1,140 km to reach Lhassa did not begin until 2001. Much of this section was built over permafrost terrain. Special airtight car compartments with adequate oxygen supplies have to be installed to accommodate passengers who cannot stand highland climate.
Hu should know. The rising star fell sick in 1990, from which point he often had to run Tibet by remote control from Beijing.
On July 1, which also happens to be the CCP’s birthday, Hu and a huge contingent of senior cadres are expected to be in Golmud to star at the inauguration of the new link. The Qinghai town is already elaborately festooned for the occasion. Apart from dwelling on the economic benefits the railway will bring to Qinghai and Tibet, Hu is expected to play up the “cohesive force” of patriotism and national unity.
After July, tens of thousands of tourists from such populous cities as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou are expected to take the line, which conveniently feeds into the national network. With the influx into Tibet of tourists — and particularly business people as well as those looking for work — Beijing will find it much easier to achieve what is often described as the “terminal solution” to the Tibetan problem. This means Tibetans will be reduced to a minority in their own land. Moreover, the arrival of a market economy following the large-scale settlement of Han Chinese will significantly secularize Tibet, and reduce the power and spiritual heft of the lamas, many of whom still profess allegiance to the Dalai Lama.
Political sources in Beijing say the opening of the Xining-Lhassa line has already made cadres specializing in Tibet more confident if not arrogant in their on-again, off-again negotiation with representatives of the Dalai Lama.
The sources say the Hu leadership is convinced that “time is on the side of the central authorities” and it is unlikely that Beijing would allow the Dalai Lama to return to China even for a brief visit unless the latter were to make major concessions.
Copyright © 2006 East West
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