China Lays Geopolitical Tracks

Apart from being a grand engineering feat, China’s new railway linking the city of Golmud in Qinghai province with Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is a major geopolitical triumph.
The line is aimed at promoting tourism and trade in the region, as well as at helping with the mining of Tibet’s rich deposits of coal, copper, gold and zinc. Tibet, which has been under the control of Beijing since the 1950s, could soon become less reliant on grants from the central government.
Geopolitically, the railway brings China closer to South Asia, a region traditionally dominated by the other Asian giant, India.
As part of an effort to bolster its growing ties with India, China has teamed up to re-open the Nathu La pass between southern Tibet and India's northeastern state of Sikkim. That pass had remained closed ever since China and India fought a brief blood bloody war in 1962.
For India, the move represents a diplomatic victory of sorts. Beijing has not recognized the incorporation of Sikkim, formerly an independent monarchy, into the Indian union in 1975. Of late, Beijing seems to have moved closer toward recognizing the merger. If anything, the reopening of Nathu La should have been the clearest signal yet of Beijing’s acquiescence.
Indian analysts, however, are more inclined to see the opening of the pass as part of China’s effort to strengthen its foothold in South Asia. And they have good reason.
Last November, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal succeeded in bringing China into the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an observer. This move caught India by surprise. New Delhi eventually acceded to Beijing’s entry as a price for Afghanistan’s inclusion as a full-fledged member of SAARC.
The following month, India found itself virtually excluded from an emerging East Asian community of nations with China at the center.
The Indian media, which for long had avoided taking up the China-as-an-adversary line, has stepped up coverage in that light. Leading commentators continue to warn the Indian government against placing too much confidence on the burgeoning ties with China. Some have drawn parallels with the months preceding the 1962 war.
Building on its close political and military ties with Pakistan and Myanmar, China is using economic and military means to draw India’s other smaller neighbors into its own sphere of influence. The People’s Liberation Army’s recent incursions and road construction in Bhutanese territory are aimed at pressuring the tiny Himalayan kingdom to end its protectorate ties with India.
Amid a downturn in India’s relations with Bangladesh, over such issues as illegal immigration, Islamist terrorism and trade, China has gained naval access to the Chittagong port. Through a road link with Bangladesh via Myanmar, China hopes to access Bangladesh’s vast natural gas reserves.
China, the major arms supplier to Bangladesh, recently offered to provide Dhaka with nuclear reactor technology, heightening Indian anxieties.
For now, India seems to have brought Nepal back into its own sphere of influence after the kingdom’s heavily pro-Chinese tilt under King Gyanendra’s 15-month direct rule. Although the monarch has lost all of his political powers following weeks of protests – driven in large part by New Delhi – that brought pro-Indian parties back in the saddle, Beijing’s influence in Nepal remain considerable.
China’s growing ties with the Nepalese military and its stated goal of extending the railway line from Lhasa all the way to the Nepalese border suggest it has the landlocked Himalayan nation close in its sights both in terms of its regional policies and the wider imperative of defeating the United States’ policy of containment.
The Qinghai-Tibet railway, built at a cost of around $4.2 billion, runs for 1,140 km at an average elevation of 4,000 meters, making it the highest railway in the world. The project has been one of the most difficult to build, with its long sections of elevated tracks and bevy of bridges and tunnels. The route crosses an active seismic zone and traverses frozen ground saturated with water that can rise or fall by meters as the temperature changes.
Against this background, experts expect a massive overhaul will be needed within a decade. Given the stakes involved, Beijing can be expected to bear both the massive physical challenge as well as the hefty financial cost of keep the trains rolling.