A senior Tibetan legislator said the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a
"road to heaven" that brings Tibetans harmony, happiness and
economic prosperity.
"It is a railway that people of various ethnic groups in Tibet
have expected for more than half a century," said Raidi, Vice
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress (NPC).
"It is bound to have a profound and far-reaching historical
significance," he said.
Opened on July 1, the 1,956-km-long railway is the first to
reach the Tibet Autonomous Region, on a route that averages more
than 4,000 meters above sea level. Slow mail to Beijing
"There was not even a single highway in old Tibet, not to
mention air transport or railway transport," said Raidi, a native
Tibetan who has been a leading provincial official for many
years.
In the distant past, he said, Tibetans relied totally on people
and livestock to transport materials to and from other parts of
China. A round trip usually took seven to eight months.
"The transport capacity was extremely limited. This seriously
influenced exchanges between Tibet and other areas, restricted
economic and social development and hampered social progress in
Tibet," said Raidi.
He said it took a central government official more than a month
to make a trip from Beijing to Tibet in June 1951.
He also recalled that during his four years of study in Beijing
more than 40 years ago, he received only one letter from his
mother, which arrived six months after it was sent.
"After the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the Communist Party of
China Central Committee made the construction of transport
facilities in Tibet a top priority," said Raidi.
In the half century since the liberation, communications in
Tibet had taken great strides forward.
The train trip from Beijing to Lhasa takes less than 48
hours.
Nearly every year for 50 years, Tibetan deputies to the NPC
submitted motions to NPC annual sessions on building a railway to
Tibet. Leaders of Tibet kept up the call for the railway.
He said the CPC Central Committee and State Council made the
decision to build the railway at the beginning of this century.
"Building the Qinghai-Tibet railway is a great event that the
three leaderships of the CPC and the CPC Central Committee with Hu
Jintao as the General Secretary care about very much," said
Raidi.
The 1,956-km-long railway is regarded as a landmark project in
implementation of China's western development strategy, an
epoch-making event.
"The completion and opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway is of
epoch-making significance to social development in Qinghai and
Tibet," said Raidi.
He said the railway was important to improving the lives of
people in Qinghai and Tibet, lifting the level of reform and
opening up, increasing exchanges, cooperation and unity and
realizing common prosperity and development of different ethnic
groups.
The railway, linking Xining in Qinghai with Lhasa in Tibet, is
hailed as an "engineering marvel" because people used to think the
permafrost and slush along the route could never support tracks and
trains.
Builders also overcame low oxygen levels on the Qinghai-Tibet
Plateau, know as the "roof of the world", and took great care not
to damage the fragile ecosystem.
(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2006)