China’s President Xi Jinping has made his first visit to Tibet this week. He has become the first Chinese leader to visit Tibet and its southeastern border region with India. He has visited to inspect a newly opened and strategically important railway line.
As per the reports of the official Xinhua news agency on Friday, "the president arrived Tibet on Wednesday. He landed at the airport in Nyingchi, a town near the border with India’s Arunachal Pradesh." The Xinhua report said "Mr. Xi drove to the Nyang river bridge to inspect the Yarlung Zangbo river, or Brahmaputra river — the Nyang is its second largest tributary. He also visited Nyingchi town and its railway station to inspect the newly built Sichuan-Tibet railway."
“Xi’s visit to Lhasa in 2011 was on July 21 that year, supposedly to mark the ‘60th Anniversary of the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’, although no one’s sure why that date was chosen — it’s usually May 23. So yesterday could have been considered by the PRC as the 70th Anniversary,” Posted by Tibetologist Robbie Barnett on Twitter.
It is assumed that his visit to the border region and Nyingchi holds particular significance. China started its operation of the first bullet train line in Tibet a month back, linking Lhasa to Nyingchi near the border with Arunachal Pradesh.
The China State Railway Group stated, "the 435-km line, on which construction began in 2014, has a designed speed of 160 kilometres per hour and would connect the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region to the border city of Nyingchi with a travel time of three-and-a-half hours."
Among several major infrastructure projects the Lhasa-Nyingchi rail is a recently completed one in Tibet’s southern and southeastern counties near the Arunachal border. Last month, the construction of a strategically significant highway is completed by China through the Grand Canyon of the Yarlung Zangbo river, the “second significant passageway” to Medog county that borders Arunachal.
Connecting the two provincial capitals the Lhasa-Nyingchi rail is one section of the Sichuan-Tibet railway line. A strategic project deemed important enough for President Xi to officially launch it. Moreover, as described by the Chinese leader as “a major step in safeguarding national unity and a significant move in promoting economic and social development of the western region.” This will be the second railway line connecting Tibet to the hinterland, following the already open Qinghai-Tibet rail.
Tenzin Lekshay, a spokesman for the Tibet government in exile in northern India, tweeted, “understand the true aspiration of Tibetan people and resume the dialogue to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict."