Highways to Lhasa ...Kathmandu ...and India?

In the recent weeks, China has been 'selling' the ‘Sichuan-Tibet’ and the ‘Qinghai-Tibet’ Highways. These road-links between Tibet and China have received a lot of media coverage.
The China Daily explained why: “In December 1954, the Qinghai-Tibet and Sichuan-Tibet highways were officially put into service, ending Tibet's reliance on men, horses and ropes to transport goods. More than 3,000 people died during their construction. The opening of the two highways has played an important role in Tibetan economic development.”
It was indeed crucial for Mao’s troops to occupy the Tibetan plateau and come closer to India’s frontiers.
The Chinese media pointed out that the Sichuan-Tibet Highway was originally called the Kangding-Tibet Highway:

[It] is a high-elevation road starting from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, on the east and ending at Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region [which was not existing in 1954], on the west. The highway has two routes. South Line has a length of 2,115 kilometers, while North Line is 2,414 kilometers long.

The China Daily further asserts:

Construction of Sichuan-Tibet Highway started in April 1950, when the road builders cleaved mountains and controlled water, and finally opened for traffic on December 25, 1954, together with Qinghai-Tibet Highway. With high elevation and harsh geographical conditions, the building of Sichuan-Tibet Highway was an unprecedented challenge to Tibet's highway construction. The Ya'an-Lhasa section covering a total length of 2,255 kilometers was completed on a high mountain range.

Ya’an is located in Sichuan province on the Tibetan marches.
Why were these roads (today, highways) so important?
As The China Daily puts it: “Before Sichuan-Tibet Highway and Qinghai-Tibet Highway opened to traffic, it took six months to a year for human or livestock to cover a round trip trudging through from Lhasa to Chengdu, or Xining, Qinghai province.”
Today, it only takes a few days by bus.
To understand better the situation, one should read the 1952 Annual Report from A.K. Sen, the India Consul-General in Lhasa. Without these roads, Tibet would have starved (like it did in 1952-53) and the Chinese occupation of the plateau impossible.
The Indian Consul informed the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi:

The inevitable economic distress in the wake of Chinese occupation was fast affecting the people’s livelihood. Food supplies became inadequate, prices soared up to astounding heights, even the poor man’s food – the tsampa (barley flour) – could not be easily procured. In short, the Tibetans, completely confused, failed to discern the various benefits that were to be derived from the liberation of their country. As a protest against the disastrous economic trends, the villagers round about Lhasa rose up as a body, probably inspired by some disgruntled monks who made an effort to oppose communist ideology, petitioned to the Kashag [Tibetan Cabinet] that the resources of the country not being enough to cope with such large concentrations of Chinese troops, they should be withdrawn from Tibet, leaving a small force as was maintained during the time of the Chinese Amban. The political implications of this appeal for the amelioration of people’s hardships, in that it demanded the reduction of troops, were seized by the Chinese to implicate the Prime Ministers as instigators of the move. Curiously enough, a day after the petition was presented an incident took place most conveniently which further helped the Chinese to assume a threatening attitude to deal with these ‘rebels’.

Tibet had never witnessed a famine before.
The only solution for Communist China was to expedite the construction of roads leading to Tibet (from Qinghai and Sichuan) in order to feed their occupying armies (to ‘liberate’ Tibet, in Communist jargon).
Sen’s report continues:

The upshot was, the Chinese denounced the Prime Ministers to be anti-national, abettors of the rebels and uttering the most truculent threats to the Kashag that liberation of Tibet would be implemented by force if they failed to restore normal conditions by rounding up the malcontents, demanded the immediate dismissal of the Ministers as well. Having displayed such wrathful temper, they reinforced the Lhasa garrison by a couple of thousand troops and pointing their guns towards the Potala awaited the compliance of their command.

Ultimately, the two courageous Prime Ministers, Lukhangwa and the monk Lobsang Tashi were forced to resign. It was the beginning of the end of ‘independent’ Tibet. Nobody had the courage to oppose the Chinese anymore in Lhasa.
Sen wrote:

The resignation of the Ministers had to be accepted by the Tibetan Government on the 27th April [1952]. Next came the turn of the villagers’ delegates. A special tribunal set up by the Chinese for trial of the six peoples’ representatives, passed judgement accusing them to be agitators, led astray by foreign agents. They and the public were warned that they had no right to submit ‘unlawful demands’ and that similar performances in future should not be repeated. The Tibetan Government issued orders to all Dzongpons to watch the activities of village assemblies. All meetings and careless political talks were banned. Thus with one adroit stroke the Chinese broke the backbone of Tibetan obstinacy.

The Chinese, who had come to ‘liberate’ the ‘masses’ (with the cowardly support of many in the aristocracy), began punishing the ‘masses’ which had dared protesting.
In the meantime, India started supplying rice to the PLA soldiers stationed in Tibet.
At the same time, another highway was built, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. According to The China Daily:

Starting from Xining, capital of Qinghai province, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway stretches 1,947 km (about 1,210 miles) into Tibet with an average elevation of above 4,000 meters. Winding along the Kunlun Mountain, Tanggula Mountain, Tuotuo River, and vast grassland, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway amazes travelers with its appealing landscape along the plateau. Being the world's longest asphalt road and at the highest altitude, it reaches its top point at the 5,231-meter-high Tanggula Pass. About 980 km of the road is more than 4,500 meters above sea level, and 630 km of its length is bedded on permafrost, soil that is permanently below the freezing point.”

The China Today says that since the road was opened to traffic in 1954, the central government (i.e. Beijing) spent nearly 3 billion yuan ($362 million) on three major overhauls; it was asphalted in 1985: “Freight transportation still relies on the road.”
Quoting one Sonam, director of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway Management Bureau, the daily says: “More than 80 percent of goods still go via the highway, while people mostly take the train."
For the website China Tibet Online affirms that, even today, the two highways “not only accelerate the social and economic developments in Tibet but is of great significance to link the plateau with the rest of the world.”
The publication quotes Ma Jiali, a researcher of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, (Ma is also a well-known ‘India expert’ in Beijing); for Ma Jiali, the two highways are crucial for the national unity: "I think it's safe to liken the two highways to blood as they hold Tibet and the inland cities together. So, the running of the two highways, in a sense, has held the central government and Tibet together."
But there is another aspect to it: these 2 highways (and a few years later, the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway cutting across the Aksai Chin), helped China consolidate its military position on the Tibetan plateau and by the end of the 1950s, Beijing was ready to take on India which had dared to give asylum to the Dalai Lama.
Highways on the Plateau, let us not forget it, always have a strategic importance, though there are today extensively used for tourism development (but this too has perhaps strategic implications).

More on the West, China Tibet Online reports that China is planning to open the Kyierong (Chinese: Gyirong) landport to the outside world in October.
The website asserts: “At that time, Kyierong will present a feature with multiple elements including ‘ancient path culture, port culture, and folk culture’ on the basis of its unique geographical advantages and become an important channel for international tourists to China.”
In clear, China will pour millions of tourists in Nepal, which has a mostly unguarded border with India. No need to explain the danger for India’s security.
China Tibet Online says:

The Kyirong Port is 78 kilometers away from the south of Kyirong County in the Shigatse Prefecture and 24 kilometers away from the Rasog Village located in the border of China and Nepal. In the history of China, the Kyirong Port is one of the biggest overland trading ports between China and Nepal, and is renowned as the ‘commercial road’, ‘official road’ and ‘war road’ because of its long history of foreign trade. In October of 1961, the State Council of China decided to set up Kyirong Customs as well as gave permission to the port's opening.”

‘War road’ refers to the Manchu invasion of 1792.
The Master Plan of Kyirong Port will make of Kyirong County a great montain resort, ideal for tourism.Therefore, tourists could have multiple travelling experiences in Kyirong”, says the website which emphasizes:

the Kyirong Ditch was the only way which must be passed in the ‘ancient road connecting Tubo [Tibet] Kingdom and Nepal when the pedestrians headed for Nepal from Lhasa. The ancient road an important channel for the culture and trade exchange of central plains and South Asia. In history, this ancient road had welcomed Princess Bhrikuti from Nepal who married Songtsen Gampo …as well as Shantarakshita and Padma Sambhava who both went to Tibet for preaching Buddhism.

Further Kyirong, is the backyard garden for Mt. Everest, it ‘integrates the elements of snow-mountains, pastoral forests, lakes, canyons, rivers and pastures.”
It sounds great ...for the Chinese tourists.
It is indeed a very dangerous development for the security of Nepal ...and India, because once millions of Han ‘tourists’ arrive in Kathmandu, they will be only one step away from India.
Who will monitor the whereabouts?
Certainly not the Nepali government, which is only too happy to harvest a few Yuan more from the Chinese tourists.

Here are some recent photos of Chinese tourists on the Qinghai-Tibet highways.
Tomorrow, we will have the same on the Lhasa-Kathmandu road and then...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Chinese tourists are arriving in Bhutan

Chinese couple getting married in Bhutan

During the last few weeks, I wrote about the Chinese tourists in Tibet and in Nepal, but the Kingdom of the Dragon has also started receiving large groups of tourists from the Middle Kingdom.
It is now the third most important contingent after the Japanese (6,967 visitors last year, an increase of 77 % from the previous year) and the US 6,007.
In 2012, the Tourism Council of Bhutan (TCB) recorded the highest ever number Chinese tourists (3,766), an increase of about 30 % from the previous year.
In 2012, tourist arrivals in Bhutan stood at 105,407 or 54,685 were dollar-paying tourists, and 50,722 regional visitors from the neighbouring countries such as India and Bangladesh.
Kuensel, the Bhutanese publication reported that according to local tour operators, the wedding Tony Leung, a Hong Kong actor with Carina Lau was a great boost. On 21 July 2008, the couple got married in Bhutan in royal fashion; the wedding created a media frenzy in Hong Kong, with hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent to cover the party.
This greatly helped promote Bhutan as a tourist destination in the Mainland.
A tour operator told Kuensel: “Bhutanese culture isn’t the main attraction for Chinese tourists. It’s to do with the happiness factor. Most Chinese tourists say they come to experience happiness in Bhutan.”
In 2010, about 21 Bhutanese travel companies visited China for marketing and promotion.
Chinese tourists like to visit Bhutan in October, but Drukair, the official Bhutanese airline says that Chinese tourists also fly from Kathmandu in February, during their Lunar New Year, which coincides more or less with the Bhutanese Losar; this year there were apparently demand for chartered flights.

Chart: Kuensel

A Chinese website dedicated to tourism, reports: “With the rise of personal incomes and living standards, the outbound tourism of China grows by leaps and bounds. Chinese people are eager to go sightseeing overseas which creates an immense market for some nearby countries. The popular outbound destinations include USA, Russia, France, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Maldives, etc. In 2012, the number of outbound tourists totals 83,182,700, up 18.41 % comparing with 2011. At present, China has increased the number of permitted overseas destinations for her citizens to 114 countries and regions. A further and sustained growth of outbound tourism is expected.”
It further explains: “Among the outbound tourists, 58.9 % went abroad for the first time, down 4.66 % over the same period of 2011, while the percent of multiple-exit travelers increased. …The rate of travelers spending over 5,000 US $ came down obviously, saying the outbound tourism became more popular among common people. Travel purposes include sightseeing, business trips, and holiday tours, etc. The travel methods were not only joining large tour groups any more, but also organizing small family groups and private tours.”
In the year of 2013, China’s outbound tourism will still grow exponentially, the travel agents expect that it will reach 94,300,000, close to 100 million, can you believe it, up 15 % over 2012; the outbound consumption will reach 117.6 billion US $.
According to Li Shihong, a senior official of China's National Tourism Administration (CNTA), Chinese tourists have emerged as the third-biggest spenders in outbound tourism worldwide.

The number of Chinese tourists in Bhutan remains modest compared to these figures, but it has shown a remarkable increase.
According to the Bhutan Tourism Monitor (BTM), in 2012m Chinese tourists visited Bhutan for a short period.
Chinese tourists are usually highly educated, most of them holding university degrees. Some 64% of the total visitors in Bhutan came for the first time, while about 27 % of them came for the third time.
About 34 % of Chinese tourists came to visit only Bhutan, while others combined their trips with neighbouring countries.
BTM says that most of the Chinese tourists came to Bhutan in groups: “About 49 percent of the visitors came in as ‘group of friends’, followed by about 21 percent as couples, and about 20 percent as part of organised tour groups,”.
While the American tourists stayed an average of eight days, the Chinese and Japanese tourists spent 4.96 and 4.88 days respectively. “Asian tourists staying for shorter duration is a stable trend and does not seem to change with the years,”
The security factor is never mentioned.
It is not the case in India.
The New Indian Express recently wrote about the ‘fears of Chinese indoctrination and recruitment’ which make the top levels of the Indian intelligence establishment panicky.
The newspaper’s source pointed out “more than 200 strategic institutions in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, including monasteries, are witnessing a flood of visitors from China and Tibet, an autonomous hill province virtually ruled by China. It is suspected that many young students from the Tibetan Autonomous Region are planted in monasteries to gather information about the activities of the Tibetan diaspora fighting for an independent nation.”
It is not necessary to comment on the ‘virtually’ ruled but China, but the Tibetan Administration of the Dalai Lama and the Indian intelligence are facing a serious challenge.
In 2012, Liangki Jiancen, a Chinese spy posing as a trader, was caught by Indian agencies from Sikkim. Liangki had collected information on the strategic infrastructures and key installations in the area.
Apparently some 650 Chinese nationals, who entered India on valid tourist visas, are still roaming free in the country without valid papers.
The New Indian Express quotes the some intelligence agency’s source, saying that “it is impossible to examine the antecedents of each and every tourist or pilgrim unless they have assets on the ground, which understand the language and dialects of the visitors. Hence a Mandarin language expert unit will filter information collected from various dialects through technical intercepts in the border areas.”
Well, it may take some time to have officials speaking Mandarin.
In the meantime, the security angle does not seem to bother much the Bhutanese? Though it is true that tourism is better monitored in the Dragon Kingdom than in India, it could nevertheless become a serious issue in the years to come.

In the meantime, the disneyfication of Lhasa continues.
Have a look at the Potala Palace

 And The Inflatable Snow Lion

Has China used nuclear devices on the Brahmaputra?

Zangmu dam

A Times of India's blog has reported a strange piece of news. Citing a classified Indian intelligence source, it says that China 'surreptitiously conducted three to four 'low yield atomic explosions' in Tibet in March 2005' to clear the mountainous terrain 'to divert the Yarlung Tsangpo river'.
Though the information is certainly incorrect as the purported diversion of the Brahmaputra is planned far upstream on the Brahmaputra/Tsangpo and not in the Great Bent, it is however important to stop a minute on the information.
In the early 2000s, I look into the issue and I wrote:

The project [to divert the Brahmaputra] was reported in the Scientific American in June 1996. This article giving credence to the Chinese plans. The journal wrote: “Recently some Chinese engineers proposed diverting water into this arid area [Gobi Desert] from the mighty Brahmaputra River, which skirts China’s southern border before dipping into India and Bangladesh. Such a feat would be ‘impossible’ with conventional methods, engineers stated at a meeting held last December at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in Beijing. But they added that “we can certainly accomplish this project” with nuclear explosives.”
The US journal continued: “This statement is just one of the many lately in which Chinese technologists and officials have touted the potential of nuclear blasts for carrying out non-military goals.”
At that time, it was said that one of the reasons for China’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was because their desire to keep the possibility of experimenting with what is called PNE (Peaceful Nuclear Explosion). The Chinese argument was “why should promising and potentially useful technology be abandoned.” 

The diversion was first reported in the Indian Press in June 1997 when Outlook magazine wrote a piece entitled: “A river runs through it — China proposes to divert the Brahmaputra at source to green the arid Gobi desert.”
The Delhi magazine said: “The initial report — that the Chinese were planning to raise their food output in the decades ahead — was hardly stop-press material. But as details leaked out, policymakers in India and Bangladesh felt a shiver of apprehension: the Chinese proposed to divert the Brahmaputra river at source, in Tibet, even set off a peaceful nuclear explosion, to serve their purpose .”
Outlook also revealed that “the concern in Assam and Bangladesh is understandable. The Luit - as the river [Brahmaputra] is locally called - figures prominently in the folklore and culture of Assam and the Northeast; has been the theme of countless Bhupen Hazarika songs. The river is crucial to the economy of the entire region, where the concept of irrigation through groundwater sources has not really taken off.”
In the coming months, more publicity was given to the dam as well as the diversion proposals. In September 1997, Agence France Press in Beijing  reported: "Three experts propose construction of giant dam in Tibet". It stated: "After a long experience of exploration on the site, we believe that the project could begin to be included in the agenda of the concerned department”. Electricity produced was claimed to be: “available for export to Bangladesh, Burma and India and the diverted water could irrigate the northwestern deserts of the country".
The project was also mentioned in news briefs in the China Daily Business Weekly (21 September 1997) and the International Water Power & Dam Construction Monthly (November 1997).

The Metok Tunnel

In January 1998, , the German TV channel ZDF presented a feature on the Yarlung Tsangpo project, in a program entitled "Die Welt" [The World]. The Chief Planner, Professor Chen Chuanyu was interviewed. He described the plan to drill a 15 km (9.3 miles) tunnel through the Himalayas to divert the water before the U turn and direct it to the other end of the bend. This would shorten the distance of the approximately 3,000 meters altitude drop from 200 km to just 15 km. He explained that the hydropower potential of 40,000 megawatt could be used to pump water to Northwest China over 800 km away.
An interesting aspect that we have briefly mentioned is that this area known to the Tibetans as Pemakö (Metok) was considered to be a sacred area, rarely visited by outsiders. The difficulty of access to this unexplored region must have created one of the greatest obstacles for the engineers in Beijing. At the end of the 90’s, the Chinese government decided to permit foreigners to explore the Grand Canyon. The well-known National Geographic expedition, with ultra sophisticated materials and highly professional rafters made the first discoveries. Though it resulted in the death of an American kayaker, Doug Gordou in October 1998, it permitted a far greater knowledge in several previously unexplored parts of the gorges. Books and video footage of this expedition (as well as subsequent ones) certainly helped the Chinese planners to get a more accurate picture of the difficulty of the terrain (as well as the potentialities).
The opening of the area to adventure tourism was a first step to find an approach way for dam site.
In the recent years, the Chinese have been more discreet on the project, although a few reports have continued to come in.
The correspondent of The Telegraph in Beijing wrote in October 2000: “Chinese leaders are drawing up plans to use nuclear explosions, in breach of the international test-ban treaty, to blast a tunnel through the Himalayas for the world's biggest hydroelectric plant.”
The Telegraph warned: “China will have to overcome fierce opposition from neighbouring countries who fear that the scheme could endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of their people. Critics say that those living downstream would be at the mercy of Chinese dam officials who would be able to flood them or withhold their water supply.”
According to the London paper, the cost of drilling the tunnel through Mt Namcha Barwa appears likely to surpass £10 billion. The article gives further details: “At the bottom of the tunnel, the water will flow into a new reservoir and then be diverted along more than 500 miles of the Tibetan plateau to the vast, arid areas of Xinjiang region and Gansu province. Beijing wants to use large quantities of the plentiful waters of the south-west to top up the Yellow River basin and assuage mounting discontent over water shortages in 600 cities in northern China.”
Later the project to have the 'diversion' from the Great Bent was abandoned and some other plans were made to start the diversion from the Yarlung Valley, south of Lhasa. Read my article The Madness of Guo Kai.
If the 'diversion' project is still kept on the computers of a few mad people in Beijing, a tunnel (for a road) has been opened between the Valley of the Tsangpo and the Metok country.
Was it a 'symbol' that it was inaugurated the day Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Delhi in December 2010. I have often written on the Metok tunnel and more recently, Latest news on the Brahmaputra.

Xi Jinping (then vice-president) in Nyingtri

Has China used small nuclear devices to open the tunnel?
It is improbable, because the Chinese engineers have mastered the conventional tunnel technology.
They may have used it to prepare the ground for the first dam (Zangmu) on the Brahmaputra upstream the Great Bent; it is surprising, but nothing is impossible.
In the meantime, China is planning to transform the area into one of the main tourist attractions of the Middle Kingdom. Millions of visitors will drop by every year. Even President Xi Jinping visited the Nyingtri Prefecture in July 2011; he liked it very much.
Did he smell the 'explosions'?

‘China conducted nuclear explosions in Tibet to divert Yarlung Tsangpo’
(TibetanReview.net, Aug30, 2013) China surreptitiously conducted three to four “low yield atomic explosions” in occupied Tibet in Mar 2005 to aid in clearing mountainous terrain to divert the Yarlung Tsangpo river, known as the Brahmaputra in India, from north to south, reported blog.timesofindia.

indiatimes.com Aug 29, citing classified Indian intelligence documents. China’s plans to conduct such explosions were widely reported around that time, but were never officially confirmed.
The report said the blasts were held at Moutou (Tibetan: Metog/Pemakoe) County and also near the Great Bend of the Brahmaputra, both in Lingzhi (Nyingtri) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. They were conducted at significant depths to avoid detection.
Although India did not make the information public, it did actively take up the matter with the Chinese authorities, including through its embassy in Beijing. China, however, flatly denied it.
In 2008, India’s National Security Council (NSC) shared the information with the United States during the visit of the latter’s defence secretary Mr Robert Gates, a former CIA director. And the US authorities admitted the complete failure of their satellites to detect the blasts.
Two factors were reported to have confirmed the Mar 2005 atomic blasts. Firstly, there was unprecedented flooding of the Brahmaputra in Jun-Jul 2005, which resulted in the rise of the river’s level by 30 metres on the Indian side. The Chinese engineers were suspected to have diverted the river water to facilitate their work. Secondly, Indian intelligence noticed in Oct 2008 that Chinese engineers had begun work through Tibet’s Galung La mountain in Nyingchi prefecture near the Great Bend of the Brahmaputra, confirming yet again that nuclear blasts had taken place there earlier.
The report said India was skeptical about China’s steadfast claim that all the dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo were only run-of-the-river projects. In particular, India fears that its share of Brahmaputra’s waters would be reduced and that China could use it as a weapon to cause heavy damage to the Indian side by releasing water at any time it wished.