Another worrying piece of news is the fact that Nepal is quickly becoming a Chinese colony.
When the railway line to Lhasa was inaugurated in July 2006, many in India expressed some concern. Since then, rumours have been circulating that a parallel line was being constructed to allow the movement of troops and military equipment. Added to the extensive network of good roads and airports in Nyingchi (north of Arunachal Pradesh), Ngari (north of Uttarkhand/Himachal) as well as the improvement of the present airport facilities in Lhasa and Chamdo in eastern Tibet, this should be a reason to worry for India.
Wang Mengshu, a railway tunnel expert and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering told The China Daily that half of the line to Shigatse (some 115 km) will be laid in tunnels or on bridges. Officially it is to protect the environment, but it is undoubtedly easier to hide train loads in tunnels.
In a few years’ time, the next extension of the railway will reach Nepal and Nyingchi with all the consequences one can imagine for the defence of the Arunachal Pradesh border.
All this does not augur well for India which has a tendency to think and act at elephants pace, while Beijing is moving its cards more and more swiftly.
Today Sino-Nepal relations flourish as never before. The website China Tibet Information Center, a subsidiary of the official Xinhua news agency, announced on 13 July that the land port between Nepal and Tibet located at Gyirong (Shigatse Prefecture) will be fully operational in 2011. The website affirmed: “Since the end of 2009, TAR has made great efforts to build the Gyirong Port and speed up its construction in 2010.”
The Economic Times affirmed: “China is expanding its engagement with Nepal by building what is being billed as the biggest land port connecting it with the South Asian region as a whole”, adding: “The idea is to apparently build it as a border post larger than Nathu-la (in Sikkim).”
The message is clear, even if there is nobody to read it in Delhi. Kathmandu is interested to import petroleum products from China once the secluded ex-Kingdom is connected by rail to TAR.
Another worrying piece of news is the fact that Nepal is quickly becoming a Chinese colony. A Nepali newspaper reported last week: “Nepal government has lately vowed to check ‘anti-China activities’ to strengthen friendly ties with China, a major donor for the impoverished country.”
When the Tibetan diaspora recently voted for their Kalon Tripa (prime minister-in-exile), it was an ‘anti-China activity’. While the elections were held smoothly everywhere else in the world, Kathmandu decided to confiscate the ballot boxes. The Ministry of Home Affairs of Nepal issued a statement that the internal vote of the Tibetans was “against Nepal’s foreign policy which regards Tibet as an integral part of China”.
The Kathmandu police chief explained that the action was taken to prevent an ‘illegal vote’. He told AFP: “The Tibetans are living in exile in Nepal. It is illegal for them to carry out elections here.”
Many observers see a connection between the Nepal government’s reaction and the visit a few weeks earlier of a Chinese high-level delegation led by He Yong, Secretary of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He is reported to have shown his satisfaction over “Nepal’s ‘one China’ policy and the alertness adopted by the country over the Tibet issue”.
Earlier, the Chinese and Nepal governments had agreed to set up a joint mechanism to share intelligence on ‘anti-China activities’ in Nepal.
All this does not augur well for India which has a tendency to think and act at elephant’s pace, while Beijing is moving its cards more and more swiftly.
Courtesy: The Statesman
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