In the remote Himalayan area of Tibet, China has launched its first fully electric bullet train on Friday. It connects the provincial capital Lhasa with Nyingchi, a strategically located Tibetan border town near Arunachal Pradesh.
The Sichuan-Tibet Railway’s 435.5-kilometer Lhasa-Nyingchi segment has been inaugurated ahead of the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CPC) centenary celebrations on July 1. According to the Xinhua news agency, the first electrified railway in Tibet Autonomous Region opened Friday morning.
It connects Lhasa and Nyingchi, as the “Fuxing” bullet trains began their service on the plateau region. After the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be the second railway entering Tibet.
It will pass across the southeast corner of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, one of the most geologically active locations on the planet. In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered officials to speed up the construction of a new railway line connecting Sichuan Province and Nyingchi, Tibet.
He claimed that the new train line will be critical in maintaining border stability. The Sichuan-Tibet Railway begins in Chengdu, Sichuan Province’s capital, and continues through Ya’an before entering Tibet via Qamdo, cutting the distance from Chengdu to Lhasa in half. Nyingchi is a prefecture-level city, located near the Arunachal Pradesh border.
Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by China as part of South Tibet, to which India denies. The 3,488-kilometer Line of Actual Control is the focus of the India-China border dispute (LAC).
Qian Feng, director of the research department at Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute stated “If a scenario of a crisis occurs at the China-India border, the railway will give a huge convenience for China’s transportation of key supplies.”
