China's lawmakers have proposed the construction of a new highway linking southwestern Yunnan with Tibet, which would for the first time provide year-round access to a remote region which borders Arunachal Pradesh.
The new highway, which would include two 1,600-metre-tunnels, would also cut short the route between the two regional capitals of Kunming and Lhasa by more than 300 km, according to Ding Xiuhua, a representative in the National People's Congress (NPC, the Chinese Parliament) from Nujiang, a Yunnan prefecture that borders the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
She described the project as one of “strategic significance” in her proposal. The highway would run through Nyingchi, a Tibetan county that borders Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims and refers to as “south Tibet”.
The new route would also allow connectivity in the winter. The current highway, which is located at an altitude of 4,000 metres, was “almost impassable” in winter months because of hazardous conditions, she said.
“The construction of the new route will also boost economic development along the road,” Ms. Ding told the official Xinhua news agency.
The plans are part of a recent move to boost infrastructure in border regions, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang which have seen recent unrest.
Economic development
While China says the projects are aimed at economic development, Indian defence officials have expressed concern about their strategic implications and the growing asymmetry in infrastructure across the disputed border.
People's Liberation Army (PLA) Major General Luo Yuan, a scholar with the Academy of Military Sciences, told the Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper that border areas needed more attention considering the large presence of ethnic minorities, accounting for 15 per cent of the population in those areas. “An unbalanced economy” in frontier regions, he warned, “will bring unharmonious elements to these areas”.
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