(TibetanReview.net, Jan06’26) – China said Jan 6 that its local government in Tibet autonomous region’s efforts to build a modern transportation network had brought the total length of highways in it open to traffic to 125,200 kilometres by the end of 2025. China’s road building in Tibet is more than anything else strategic – for strengthening control over a restive region, border militarisation, opening up mines located in remote hitherto inaccessible areas, and for furthering its Sinicization drive.
While China’s official chinadaily.com.cn cited this as improvement in safety and public transport, road building in Tibet is much more than that. It is highly strategic, opening up the region’s vast and often critically important mineral resources for exploitation and transport to China, for maintaining iron-fist control over a restive region, and asserting dominance over Tibet by engaging in territorial disputes with its neighbouring countries.
Citing data released by the regional transport authority on Jan 1, the report said the region carried out 167 rural road construction projects in 2025. These projects provide hard-surfaced road access to 14 towns and 231 administrative villages, raising the road accessibility rate to 100% and 92.48%, respectively.
Much of China’s recently discovered rare earth minerals are located in remote, hitherto inaccessible parts of Tibet, so it makes for it to open these up for road and railway transport.
The report further said that more than 170 dilapidated rural bridges were renovated during the year, while bus services were extended to 28 additional villages. As a result, bus connectivity is now in place in 623 towns and 3,902 administrative villages across the region.
While this may seem to be designed especially to benefit the local Tibetans, let’s not forget that China is encouraging ethnic Chinese to settle in Tibet in large numbers across its length and breadth, including in the newly established border towns, so as to Sinicize the region and thereby strengthen security.
Given this context, the report said that in total, 6,595 kilometres of rural roads were built or upgraded in 2025, bringing the region’s overall rural road network to 94,400 kilometres.
Road buildings were the first major projects undertaken by China even as it was in the process of launching its armed invasion of Tibet, beginning with the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, whose construction it began in 1950 and completed in Dec 1954. It connected Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, to Tibet’s capital Lhasa, marking the end of Tibet’s isolation from modern highways and facilitating China’s control.
The construction effort involved around 110,000 people and became one of the world’s most challenging roads due to extreme terrain, permafrost, and landslide zones.
Alongside it, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway was also built, formally linking up in Lhasa in May 1954.