How has over 70 years of road building changed Xizang?
From a one-kilometer-long dirt road to a network of highways
Caixiang Duojie
70 years ago, there was not a single drivable road in Xizang, except for a dirt road of less than one kilometer long from the Potala Palace to Luobulinka. By 2023, the total length of the highways in Xizang had reached 124,000 kilometers. Transportation was no longer a bottleneck to Xizang's development.
Xizang is located in southwest China, far from the country's political center. With an average altitude of over 4,000 meters, it is known as the "roof of the world." Throughout its long history, transportation has been playing an important role in the economic, political, and cultural exchanges between Xizang and the country's interior areas.
Before the peaceful liberation of Xizang in 1951, various limitations caused transportation on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau to be a great challenge. The lack of road made it difficult for people from Xizang to travel outside and hence greatly hindered Xizang's development. The economy was stagnant and the people lived on the verge of starvation.
Developing a dense network of highways from scratch
After the Industrial Revolution, cars, trains, and airplanes replaced the traditional means of transportation, and a transportation revolution arose worldwide.
For a long time, Xizang had been under the rule of serfdom, with no access to modern technology. To maximize their interests, the rulers pocketed all the revenue of the local governments and spent almost nothing on public services and infrastructure.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, there was not a single drivable road on the regions' 1.2 million square kilometers of land, except for a dirt road in Lhasa of less than one kilometer from the Potala Palace to Luobulinka. Supplies to Lhasa from the country's interior areas were transported by man and animals, taking nearly one year to make a round trip.
After the peaceful liberation of Xizang, the central government made a great effort to build a road network in the region to accelerate its development and promote the rights of local ethnic groups in education, medical care, and health. In 1954, the Sichuan-Xizang and Qinghai-Xizang highways were opened to traffic, ending the history of no highways in Xizang. Through these passages, the central government delivered a large amount of food, seeds, fertilizer, farm tools, industrial equipment, daily necessities, medical equipment, books, paper, and cultural articles from the interior to Xizang every year. From then on, the first factory, the first school, the first farm, the first modern hospital, and the first power station were built. As the economic lifeline of Xizang, the Sichuan-Xiang and Qinghai-Xizang highways have been responsible for over 90 percent of the freight traffic in and out of the region.
Since then, the Chinese government has built 15 trunk highways, such as the Xinjiang-Xizang Highway (Yecheng county, Kashi prefecture, Xinjiang-Lhaze county, Xigaze city, Xizang), the Yunnan-Xizang Highway (Kunming city, Yunnan Province - Lhasa city, Xizang), and the China-Nepal Highways (Lhasa city, Xizang - Kathmandu city, Nepal), as well as over 300 feeder highways. By 2023, the total length of the highways in Xizang had reached 124,000 kilometers. Transportation was no longer a bottleneck to Xizang's development.
Opening up a railway transportation channel
The network of highways greatly improved the transportation in Xizang. To make up for the shortcomings of highway and adapt to Xizang's new development needs, it was imperative to open up an economical, fast, and efficient railway channel on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.
Then came the massive Qinghai-Xizang Railway project. Resembling a giant dragon atop the snowy mountains, it connects China's interior areas with its southwestern frontier and is referred to as the Sky Road. A song with the same name coveys: "It is a magical sky road that sends the warmth of the human world to the frontier. From now on, the mountains are no longer high and the road is no longer long......" This expresses the deep gratitude of the Xizang people for the railway.
After 26 years of construction from 1958 to 1984, the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway was completed and put into operation. On July 1, 2006, the 1,142-km Golmud to Lhasa section was opened to traffic, marking the completion of the 1,956 km Qinghai-Xizang Railway (Xining to Lhasa).
It was the longest plateau railway at the world's highest altitude and its construction created several world firsts. Building a railway at such high altitudes and in such cold environments posed enormous challenges, and one of the biggest ones was the melting of permafrost.
Permafrost is a phenomenon in which soil remains frozen underground at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius. The 960-kilometre section of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway was above an average altitude of 4,000 meters, and the highest point was 5,072 meters above sea level, 550 kilometers of which were permafrost areas. However, with the impact of global warming and human activities, this permafrost might gradually melt and result in the settlement of railway foundations, and hence affect the safety and stability of railway operations.
To cope with the challenge of foundation settlement caused by thawing permafrost, the construction of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway took a series of preventive and control measures. First, routes were designed to bypass permafrost zones wherever possible. For the sections that would inevitably enter the permafrost area, strict geological survey and analysis were made to ensure the reliable design of the foundation. For example, the construction was carried out by earthwork excavation and backfill, while ground freezing technology was used to freeze the surrounding soil and maintain the stability of the foundation. Secondly, during the railway operation, the dynamic monitoring of the foundation was carried out to identify settlement in time and take remedial measures.
Additionally, more than 80% of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway construction area was ecologically fragile, and the ecological damage would be difficult to repair. The Qinghai-Xizang Railway alone invested more than 1.1 billion yuan in environmental protection, which was close to 5% of the total cost of the project, making it one of the railway projects with the largest investment in environmental protection in China.
Inside the nature reserve, the construction of the railway line followed the principle of "minimal disturbance," and the rail routes, service road, and sand and gravel yards were repeatedly surveyed and determined to avoid destroying vegetation as much as possible. To ensure the normal life, migration, and reproduction of wild animals, 33 wildlife passageways were built along the Qinghai-Xizang Railway, including passageways above tunnels and under bridges, and gentle roadbed slopes. When the railway's construction was underway in the summer of 2002 and coincided with the migration of Tibetan antelopes, the construction team simply stopped work and made way, which was widely praised by the international community.
During the construction of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway for nearly half a century, 140,000 Chinese railway workers and engineers overcame the problems of permafrost, hypoxia, and ecological fragility. On October 15, 2005, the first freight train of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway carried 12,300 tons of aid materials to Lhasa.
Paving a road to revitalization
The completion of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway greatly promoted the economic development of Xizang. In 2005, the GDP of the Xizang Autonomous Region reached 25 billion CNY, and its per capita GDP exceeded $1,000 US, bringing its economic aggregate to a new level. By the end of 2023, the region's gross domestic product was 239 billion CNY, an increase of nearly 10 times compared with 2005, and once again achieved a huge leap.
Consequently, Xizang's industrial structure was revolutionized, shifting from a predominance of the primary industry and slow development of the secondary and tertiary industries to the rapid development of the primary industry, the steady advancement of the secondary industry, and the transformation of the tertiary industry into a pillar industry.
Many agricultural produce and cultural products with local characteristics were exported to the country's interior areas and the world. Tibetan carpets, thangkas, medicine, incense, yak beef, pigs, and mineral water began to be known throughout the country and the world.
At the same time, new industries from the country's interior areas entered Xizang. The digital economy started from scratch, with the added value reaching nearly 20 billion CNY in 2022. Growing strong from weak, the clean energy industry became a pillar industry. From 2015 to 2022, nearly 14 terawatt-hours (TWh) of clean electricity was transmitted from Xizang, earning a direct income of nearly 3 billion CNY, accelerating local economic modernization.
The combination of local advantages with outside support, and traditional industries with modern ones, rapidly improved Xizang's infrastructure and public service capabilities. Coupled with the unique charm of Xizang's historical monuments, culture, art, and natural landscape, the region quickly became a world tourist destination, attracting a ceaseless stream of domestic and foreign tourists. In 2005, 1.8 million tourists visited Xizang, and by 2023, the number had increased to over 55 million, with a revenue of 65 billion CNY.
Xizang was the first region in China to establish a rural medical cooperation system and a public health service system. It has also established a comprehensive social security system comprising old-age insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance, and maternity insurance, with a coverage of 100 percent. The completion of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway brought about the unprecedented development of education in Xizang. According to the seventh national census in 2020, about 11,019 out of every 100,000 people in Xizang had a college education, and the average years of education for the newly added labor force increased to over 13 years. Decades ago, the illiteracy rate in Xizang was as high as 95 percent.
Considering Xizang's economic development had entered a fast lane and the Qinghai-Xizang Railway could no longer meet the traffic demand, the Chinese government decided in 2018 to invest 319.8 billion CNY to build the Sichuan-Xizang Railway. The investment cost was 10 times that of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway, and the construction was several times more difficult. When the whole railway is completed, the Sichuan-Xizang Railway will facilitate traffic between Xizang and the interior, shortening the journey from more than 40 hours to 13 hours, and further accelerating Xizang's modernization.
The views don't necessarily reflect those of DeepChina.
The author is Caixiang Duojie, works at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, China Tibetology Research Center.
Editor/ Liu Xian
Translator/ Wu Yongqiang
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