In the first of an occasional series, UNPO publishes excerpts from the International Campaign for Tibet’s report on China’s ‘Sky Train’ to Tibet.

Below is an excerpt of the International Campaign For Tibet’s report, ‘Tracking the Steel Dragon’:

The construction of the highest railroad in the world across the Tibetan plateau, completed in July 2006, has had a dramatic impact on the lives of Tibetans and on the land itself. As the ‘centerpiece’ and most visible symbol of Beijing’s plan to develop the western regions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the railroad is accelerating the influx of Chinese people to the plateau, exacerbating the economic marginalization of Tibetans, and threatening Tibet’s fragile high-altitude environment.

The railroad is an indispensable element of Beijing’s ‘transportation revolution’, aimed at expanding the Party’s influence and consolidating its control through the construction of new and modern transportation links on the plateau and beyond. The ‘opening up’ of the western regions of the PRC is regarded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as crucial to China’s successful rise in the 21st century.

The railroad will enable the large-scale exploitation of Tibet’s mineral and natural resources, and has triggered the involvement of foreign corporations in the Tibetan economy for the first time. Together with strengthening the state’s command and control over Tibetan areas, extraction of these resources is a primary motive for building the railroad.

The construction of the 1142km railroad from Golmud (Chinese: Ge’ermu) in Qinghai Province to Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) — completed despite immense technological challenges and a several billion dollar price tag—is a key indicator of Beijing’s political and strategic objectives in Tibet.

The US $4.1 billion rail link connects Lhasa with Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou via Xining, bringing Beijing much closer to achieving the goal set by Mao Zedong over 40 years ago to integrate Tibet with China. The line also has the potential to increase China’s economic presence in South Asia by linking Tibet’s economy more closely to China’s east coast industrial and population centers, and strengthening Chinese transport links with the southern Himalayas, as well as opening the possibility of rail connections between China and South Asia. It has been described as a “quantum leap in China’s western-oriented transportation infrastructure”. TAR Party Secretary Zhang Qingli noted the significance of the railroad to the highest levels of the Chinese leadership when he said: “In particular, the railway was built with the concern of the central Party with Hu Jintao as the General [Party] Secretary.”

Official discourse emphasizes the heroic conquest of nature, making the construction of the railroad a feat comparable to China’s conquest of space, China’s stake in Antarctica, and the staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In documentaries, books, stamps and calligraphic inscriptions by central leaders, the conquest of the Tibetan plateau by rail has been promoted as one of China’s proofs of greatness. The celebration recalls the 1950s when the first roads penetrating the Tibetan ‘wasteland’ were first cut through the mountains. In an assertion typical of the official coverage of the railroad’s opening, Chinese commentator Zong Gang enthused: “This railroad has been the dream of the Chinese nation for a hundred years. [Its construction]was China’s landmark decision for the new century and it definitely excited all ethnic peoples in China including the ethnic Tibetans.”

Despite official rhetoric, the sustainability of the railroad on the shifting ground of the high plateau is uncertain. The geological and geographical conditions of the high plateau have not only made the railroad very expensive to build but could bring it to a halt within 10 years. Approximately half of the railroad had to be built on permafrost, or frozen earth, using pioneering new engineering methods to do so, and as early as August 2006—just a month after the line had gone into operation—the authorities made a rare admission that fractures had started to appear in some railroad bridges because of permafrost movements under the rail bed. Statements in the English language Chinese media have warned that rising temperatures on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau are likely to melt the permafrost enough to render the ground unstable, threatening the viability of the railroad in just a decade’s time. It was reported in July 2007 that the Tibetan plateau is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and therefore offers a critical barometer for climate change on earth. (See ‘The world’s ‘third pole’ - climate change and development in Tibet’, p. 231)

Even so, the CCP’s breathless prose on the railroad — described variously as the ‘Sky Train’, ‘the line of unity’, and ‘the line to wealth’—continues unabated. To convince Tibetans of the positive benefits of the railroad, the authorities even brought in ‘artistic troupes’, and in areas close to key stations, organized lectures that local people are required to attend that “raise the masses’ awareness of participating in the railroad’s safety and of their responsibilities, and creating with all of one’s strength a good atmosphere of ‘praising the railroad, protecting the railroad, loving the railroad.’”

The propaganda is accompanied by warnings to Tibetans which are not publicized in the state media. Tibetans in some areas were presented with an official handbook giving a code of conduct for treatment of the railway line, and informed that by local officials that there would be punishments as severe as execution for those who violated the code if caught tampering with the tracks. These warnings, and the support for the railroad at the highest levels of the Party, have intensified the climate of fear with regard to speaking openly about such issues in Tibetan areas. On the ground, research into the railroad’s impact is either forbidden or tightly constrained, and genuine debate on the impact of China’s economic policies is not possible in Tibet. Even the concerns of Chinese scientists who question the sustainability and safety of a railroad built on shifting permafrost have failed to influence China’s leaders, whose overriding concerns continue to be economic development and political stability.

A Tibetan who now lives in exile in America and who visited Lhasa at the time of the opening of the railway told ICT: “There is a realization that to speak out on this issue would be seen as expressing ‘separatist’ thoughts, and it is therefore very dangerous to talk about this issue with people one does not know and trust.”

China has also stepped up its promotion of the railroad to Western governments and the international media as a marker of progress in Tibet. The official press is already describing development in Tibet as a ‘rail economy’, emphasizing the possibilities created by this connection to the Chinese hinterland.

In reality, the massive investment being poured into Tibet is focused, at the state’s command, on the construction of long-haul infrastructure. This infrastructure is of benefit chiefly to extractive industries and the administrative and military apparatus of the Chinese state in Tibet

The impact of the railroad on Tibet can only be understood in the context of the (CCP’s) ambitious and transformative campaign of Xibu da kaifa, the strategy to develop the western regions of the PRC. The Chinese term kaifa in this context is often rendered into English as ‘development’; however, standard dictionaries define kaifa as ‘develop’, ‘open up’ and ‘exploit’, which reflects how the Party perceives the western areas of the PRC—essentially as providers of resources in order to facilitate development in the central and eastern regions.13 China’s leaders hope that the PRC’s western region’s resources can help to satisfy the nation’s rising demand for water, minerals and energy.

Xibu da kaifa is a high-profile political campaign, initiated by the then Chinese President and CCP Chairman Jiang Zemin in 1999–2000, and intended to address economic, regional, ecological, and security concerns. As one of the major dynamics of contemporary China, it is an enormous undertaking, affecting more than 70% of the PRC’s land area and almost a quarter of its vast population, including Tibetans, Uyghur Muslims and other ‘national minorities’. The drive is not restricted to the 10western provinces of the PRC but includes underdeveloped provinces with large ethnic populations in other regions, especially Inner Mongolia and Guangxi.

The integration of Tibetan areas into China and exploitation of the natural resources of the Tibetan plateau have been priorities since the foundation of the PRC, and the Western Development Strategy represents an acceleration of this process. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union helped China build state factories in the region, and in the 1960sMao Zedong announced plans to develop heavy industry in the PRC’s central and western regions. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping focused his market reform policy on the east coast—and urged the western regions to be patient, saying their time would come.

Jiang Zemin, perhaps concerned to secure his place in history alongside his influential predecessors, launched the campaign to develop the west with great fanfare in June 1999. The Western Development Strategy has been heralded by the Chinese leadership variously as ‘epoch-making’, ‘a chance in a lifetime’ and a ‘once-in-a millennium opportunity’.

The Western Development Strategy bears analogy with the opening of the North American west in the second half of the 19th century. “China’s ability to apply modern transportation technology [...] is one important and little studied aspect of its much remarked ‘rise’,” says noted Asia scholar John W. Garver. “First China now has the fiscal wherewithal to invest heavily in the technological subjugation of these distances [...] In this sense, these networks are a manifestation of China’s economic rise. A second dimension is that these new lines of transportation will be bearers of China’s influence. Railways and better roads will bring Chinese goods, businessmen and businesses, investment, and cultural influences. Trade flows and inter-dependencies will develop. Chinese manufactured goods will occupy a growing market share, while distant natural resources will increasingly be plugged into China’s industry [...]. China’s influence will increase, in regions where it was historically limited by the tyranny of distance and terrain.”

Note:

The full report can be accessed via the International Campaign For Tibet’s website by clicking on the link below:

Tracking The Steel Dragon