China to build Xinjiang-Tibet rail link 'near' LAC with India: Report

China is set to build the most ambitious rail link connecting Xinjiang province with Tibet, part of which will “run near” the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, according to a media report.

Work is expected to get underway this year on one of the world’s most ambitious rail projects with the launch of a state-owned company to oversee the construction and operations of a line that will link Hotan in Xinjiang and Lhasa in Tibet, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company (XTRC) had been formally registered with 95 billion yuan ($13.2 billion) in capital and wholly owned by China State Railway Group to build the project, the report said, quoting the state-run Shanghai Securities News.

“This ambitious project aims to establish a 5,000-km plateau rail framework centred on Lhasa by 2035,” Hubei-based Huayuan Securities said in a research note on Friday.

The project’s registered capital represents initial funding, not total project costs. For example, the 1,800-km Sichuan-Tibet Railway required an estimated 320 billion yuan ($45 billion) to build, according to the report published on Saturday.

“Parts of the route will also run near the China-India LAC, the de facto border between the two countries, giving it defensive importance in a frontier area with less infrastructure than the rest of China,” the report said.

China’s mega infrastructure project in the route, the Xinjiang-Tibet highway, also known as G219 highway, was built through the disputed Aksai Chin area, which was a major flashpoint in the 1962 war.

India asserts Aksai Chin as an integral part of its territory based on historical claims and past treaties.

The Xinjiang-Tibet Railway is one of four lines planned to connect Tibet with the rest of the country, with the other services linking the western region to Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, the report said.

The Qinghai-Tibet line is up and running while construction continues on the other two, it said.

The Tibet region in China is well connected by air, road and rail networks. Its high-speed rail network from Lhasa stretches close to the Arunachal Pradesh border.

Significantly, China’s plans for the new Xinjiang-Tibet rail link come just after Beijing and New Delhi began a normalisation of relations after over four years of a freeze in ties due to the military standoff in the sprawling Eastern Ladakh. Aksai Chin is part of the region.

The relations began looking up after last year’s meeting in Russia between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit.

Modi is expected to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit beginning August 31.