fast lane to prosperity

With the Qinghai-Tibet railway line opened last year, China hopes to daze the Tibetan population into affluence in the hope that they abandon their dream of an independent country

Sanjay Kapoor Lhasa

As China's technological marvel, the Qinghai-Tibet railway chugs through one of the most picturesque landscapes a modern traveler could hope to see, one can be lulled into ignoring the political implications that this train has on the future of Tibet and China's desperate attempts to integrate it with the mainland. The Qinghai-Lhasa is not just a railway line, but a serious political hand dealt out by the Chinese leadership.

In sheer audacity, the Qinghai-Tibet line is comparable to the Great Wall of China. And by the looks of it, the $3.2 billion train seems to be paying interesting political and financial dividends. In the short term, it is likely to help in showcasing the government's ability to execute gigantic projects just when the Beijing Olympics take place in 2008.

But it is the long term spin-offs that China would really await. Beijing would hope that the development that the train would bring to these economically depressed regions would help in curbing the simmering dissidence among the Tibetan population and enable them to join the Chinese in their long march to become the world's foremost superpower.

Just a year since the train was flagged off and Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and other towns, have seen a surge in tourism and affluence. Tibetans are seemingly making more money, and they are loving it. “The Chinese leadership has been able to convey the message to Tibetans that their salvation lies in making money rather than hanging on to old anxieties about religion and culture,” claimed a young Tibetan employed in the government.

I boarded the train from Xining, the capital of Qinghai, headed towards Lhasa. This stretch was completed only last year and it involved some of the most sophisticated understanding of high altitude environments. Of the 1,142km journey to Lhasa, 980km is at the height of 4,000m or more. The line reaches its highest point of 5,072m at the Dangulla Mountains. Here, oxygen is scarce and it gets difficult for many passengers to breathe. An interpreter accompanying me fainted as she stepped out at a high altitude railway station. 

Scarce oxygen is just one of the few problems the Chinese builders faced. Another problem was the frozen soil and how to build a railway line on that. Therefore, engineers and scientists decided to build the line on bridges. This took care of landslides, permafrost and other attendant hassles that would normally have made the line not navigable.

The train passes through every conceivable ecological system. Passengers forget the discomfort of a long journey and cramped coaches when passing through picturesque wetlands, cold deserts, snow-covered mountains, meadows where goats and antelopes graze and big lakes.

While many Tibetan groups have ran an international campaign against the railway line based on how it can hurt the fragile eco-system, the Chinese are using the railway project to show the world that they do not just mindlessly go about big projects. Zhang Luxin, head of an environmental team that had to clear the project, said in a report, “The Qinghai-Tibet project was different from other previously developed projects as it requires the protection of frozen soil and the ecology based on it, the protection and restoration of vegetation, grassland and water system, and the protection of wild animals, rather than simply trash and sewage disposal.”