(TibetanReview.net, Oct12’25) – China is to begin building next month a highly costly but strategically vital railway line linking Hotan in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) with Tibet’s capital Lhasa, reported scmp.com Oct 12. The report described it as one of China’s most ambitious infrastructure projects to date.
In fact, the report said, the 1,980km (1,230 miles) line has been dubbed one of the “projects of the century” for the extreme engineering challenges it presents and the massive investment required. Traversing mountain ranges, glaciers and permafrost zones at altitudes averaging above 4,500 metres (14,764 feet), it will connect the two so-called autonomous regions in northwestern and southwestern People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The railway will be built and operated by the state-owned Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company, established in August with capital of 95 billion yuan. However, total investment could reach 400 billion yuan (US$56.2 billion) – or about 200 million yuan (US$28.1 million) per kilometre – the report cited analysts at Citic Securities as saying.
This will make the new railway one of China’s most expensive rail projects ever, surpassing the estimated 320 billion yuan cost of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, which is still under construction, the report pointed out.
The new railway holds strategic value for Beijing that far exceeds commercial considerations such as passenger and freight revenue. It is a pillar of China’s western development strategy which aims to accelerate economic integration and narrow the long-standing disparities between coastal and western regions.
Known for their globally ranking recently discovered rich resources, infrastructure is crucial for these two fastest growing regions in the PRC, with each having achieved over 6% economic growth in 2024 even as national fixed asset investment slowed in recent months, the report noted.
For Xinjiang the new line is urgently needed as its annual coal exports have nearly reached the region’s total railway capacity of 96 million tonnes, the Citic Securities report has said.
For Tibet, historically one of the PRC’s least connected regions, the railway will improve access to the national economy and strengthen connections to South Asia and the Belt and Road Initiative’s trade corridors, the report added.
But the much more important consideration underlying this highly ambitious and costly project is its strategic value. Sections of this railway will run near the Line of Actual Control – the de facto border between Chinese occupied Tibet and India – granting the project defensive value in a frontier region with far less infrastructure than many other parts of the PRC.
The construction itself is expected to provide a significant boost to local economies through job creation as well as stimulating regional manufacturing and logistics. The vast majority of the budget – about 93% – will be allocated to static investments, including 240 billion yuan slated for civil engineering and 44 billion yuan for equipment, Citic Securities has said.
The Xinjiang-Tibet Railway is one of four planned lines connecting Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the rest of PRC, alongside services linking it to Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which entered service in 2006, connected TAR to China’s national rail network for the first time, while parts of the Sichuan-Tibet and Yunnan-Tibet railways are already open, with other sections still under construction, the report noted.