China has begun building a 770-kilometer rail network connecting Nepal to Tibet. The railway an extension of the world’s highest railway, which runs from Golmud in China’s Qinghai province to Lhasa will connect Tibet’s capital Lhasa with Khasa a market town on the Sino-Nepal border, Asia Times Online reported.
The Golmud-Lhasa rail integrated Tibet into China’s national rail network in 2006, with its extension up to the Nepal border, Nepal will be plugged into China’s rail network.
Landlocked Nepal has hitherto largely been dependent on India for imports. With trains from China soon reaching its border, Nepal will find importing from its northern neighbor easier. Sino-Nepal trade will expand exponentially, at India’s expense.
Besides the Lhasa-Khasa railway, China is said to be considering an extension of the Golmu-Lhasa line up to Xigaze, south of Lhasa and from there to Yatung, a trading center, barely a few kilometers from Nathu La, a mountain pass that connects Tibet with the Indian state of Sikkim. There is a proposal too to extend the line to Nyingchi, an important trading town north of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, at the tri-junction with Myanmar.
These rail lines will bring Chinese trains up to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh – two Indian states that figure prominently on the radar of Sino-Indian disputes.
The extension of the railway to the Sino-Indian border at Sikkim and Arunachal could pose a threat to India’s security and economy if New Delhi fails to build its own network here to match the Chinese, Indian analysts say.
In July 2006, Sino-Indian border trade was resumed at Nathu La in Sikkim after a gap of 44 years. Officials in the Sikkim government told Asia Times Online that compared with China’s elaborate network of roads and planned railway to Nathu La, “on this side of the border the state of infrastructure is laughable”.
India’s rail network is the world’s most extensive but it does not penetrate the border-states of Sikkim, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. The situation in the other northeastern states is only marginally better.
