This chap no longer has a monopoly on transport in the Qinghai/Tibet region.
The news about the opening of Qinghai- Lhasa railway has been constant around here. One TV channel has dedicated all of its programming to the story, around the clock, since yesterday. Meanwhile, newspapers and magazines are full of it (the story, that is).
Why such a big deal? Well, first off, it is quite an achievement, and indeed a very expensive one. The Communist Party has always liked to take on this kind of massive project (the 3 Gorges Dam is another example) to mobilize the multitudes and show that it can manage huge achievements. Construction of the railway started 5 years ago, to the day, and everything seemed to go to schedule. The CPC likes to remind us of its achievements. (Btw, today is the 85th anniversary of the founding of the CPC.)
There has been a lot of debate about how the rail link could affect the culture and environment of the Qinghai -Tibetan region. I don’t know enough about the environmental issues concerned, but I heard a party official explain about how Tibet cannot be preserved as a cultural ‘museum’ whose main exhibit is people (and poor people at that). I think there is a logic to this. In a sense, Tibet entered the 21st century today. Until now it hasn’t had a raiulway – think about that. Culturally speaking, things will never be the same after this, but then again, the Tibetans have the right to seek economic the development that we all take for granted.
I imagine we’re talking a lot of mixed feelings, though.
One other thing. I guess a lot of you (who live outside China) may never have even heard of Qinghai until today. It’s a huge province (720,000 square km) for the most part as sparsely populated and perhaps beautiful as Tibet itself. This migtht be one more for the list that Aric and Jenny talked about in the Saturday show this weekend.
Ken Carroll
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I can’t help think that the train is more about propaganda than bringing economic development to Tibetans. Considering the relatively short amount of time it will take to get from Beijing to Lhasa, I imagine that there aren’t too many stops along the way, and one of the great economic benefits of having a train is stopping in places without access to, say, airports. Also considering the oygen-filled railcars, I imagine the tickets aren’t cheap. This translates into the train being a very nice mode of transport for middle- to upper-class tourists, but not for the people who need to feel economic development most, the average Tibetan. To take but one aspect of the train, the oxygen-enriched cabins, one might ask “who are these for?” Tibetans don’t need to acclimatize to high altitudes. The train is not really for their benefit. In a propaganda sense, the train is very important indeed. Tibet will be integrated more fully into the Chinese state. From one corner of China to the other, there will be one time zone and one railway.
From the Tibetans I have talked to, most will either 1) still take the train to Golmud, then the bus from Golmud to Lhasa, or 2) take the bus to whatever part of Tibet they are going, just as they always have, because the train is just too expensive. Also consider that Lhasa is one of the only places in China where the airline prices are fixed. No discount fares. Transit in and out of Tibet is being managed by price-fixing, and the train will not change this much. It seems that tourists and military personnel will be the ones to benefit most directly from the train.
While places like Lhasa have already become quite Sinicized, to the extent that there is now a “Tibetan Quarter” in Lhasa (where Tibetans are outnumbered roughly 100-1 by Han), the train will accelerate this process. Its too bad that places like Lhasa, Zhigatse, Kashgar and other areas of unique cultural import are damaged in this way. The excuse that Tibet can no longer be preserved as a cultural “museum” doesn’t ring true. It seems the whole reason Tibet was opened up for tourism was to profit from marketing it as a museum. Train-ticket sales will no doubt continue to depend on viewing Tibet as a museum or a Shangri-la. Tibet will profit from the completion of the train, but how much profit will be realized by actual Tibetans remains to be seen.