China-Tibet Railway Raises Concerns
Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Staff Writer Beijing, China (AHN) - As China prepares to open the world's highest railway on Saturday, the conservationists and Tibetan exiles have raised their concerns over the issue. The 710-mile track will link Golmud in Qinghai province in China to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. The conservationists have argued that project, which has cost 33.09 billion yuan ($4.14 billion), will lead to an influx of ethnic Chinese migrants that will replace Tibetans in their homeland. Also some environmentalists fear that the line, which the project leaders view as a major draw for tourists, will threaten fragile highlands, and cause global warming that may defrost the permafrost and destabilize the rail line. But Project Deputy Director Zhu Zhensheng dismissed those concerns, saying Beijing had gone to unprecedented lengths to protect the environment, and had also taken into account the possible effects of global warming. He said the line used special pipes and materials to insulate the permafrost from damage. Earlier on Monday, Tibetan exiles living in India, blazed the Chinese flags in front of China's embassy in New Delhi, denouncing the railway link as a "death knell" for Tibet. The Tibetan Youth Congress said that building the railway was an act of "demographic aggression", and that Beijing planned to use it to relocate 20 million Chinese in Tibet over the coming decade. But Zhu |
