China launches bullet train near Arunachal border

China launches bullet train near Arunachal border

China on Friday unveiled its first fully electrified bullet train in the remote Himalayan region of Tibet. The bullet train connects the provincial capital Lhasa and Nyingchi, which is a strategically located Tibetan border town close to Arunachal Pradesh.

The 435-5km-long corridor has been integrated ahead of the centenary celebrations of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1.

Over 90% of the track is 3000 metres above sea level and It has 47 tunnels and 120 bridges.

The Lhasa-Nyingchi section is a part of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway.

The Sichuan-Tibet Railway starts from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, goes through Ya'an and enters Tibet via Qamdo.

The journey from Chengdu to Lhasa is reduced from 48 hours to 13 hours.

This is the first electrified railway to be made operational in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be the second railway into Tibet following the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which will travel through the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, reported to be one of the world's most active geolocation.

Through the train, which has a speed of 160km per hour, the travel time between Lhasa and Nyingchi has reduced from five hours to approximately 3.5 hours.

"If a scenario of a crisis happens at the China-India border, the railway will provide a great convenience for China's delivery of strategic materials,"

Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University told the official daily Global Times

SHOULD INDIA WORRIED 

While the rail line, along with several other rail and road-building projects, is being touted as part of plans to build Tibet's economic infrastructure, strategic thinkers in India have been seeing red. The line, some of them believe, can bring in troops and military equipment rapidly from mainland China to Indian borders. Roads and rail lines are being built all across Tibet -- the rail lines from the mainland have already reached the Chumbi Valley bordering Sikkim and in Nyingchi across Arunachal.

WHAT INDIA IS DOING 

Unable to build a road for road and track for track, India has been building military infrastructure that could neutralise the threat. Squadrons of Sukhoi-30MKI have been moved to Hashimara, Chabua and Tezpur, and Brahmos cruise missile to an unknown spot. They are now being joined by a Rafale squadron, initially with five jets. The remaining 13 planes will arrive early next year.

If Indian strategic thinkers had been apprehensive that the train could bring in several rapid-induction PLA brigades from mainland China for deployment on the Arunachal border, Chinese analysts believe that India could disrupt any such troop movement by simply bombing out the track.