Beijing – China has added two more rail links to the Himalayan region of Tibet, with trains now also running from the economic hubs of Shanghai and Guangzhou, state press has reported.
The first direct train from Shanghai to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, departed on Sunday, with the 4,373-kilometer (2,711-mile) journey scheduled to take just over 51 hours, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The service from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong in the far south of the country, to Lhasa began on Monday morning, Xinhua said.
At 4,980 kilometers and taking just over 57 hours, the Guangzhou-Lhasa train ride is one of the longest in the country, according to Xinhua.
President Hu Jintao opened the railway to Lhasa on July 1, calling it a magnificent engineering feat and a miracle for the world.
The new connection was a 1,142-kilometers track from the desert outpost of Golmud in China’s far northwestern Qinghai province to Lhasa.
Climbing a peak of 5,072 meters (16,737 feet) above sea level, it is the highest railway in the world.
Services linking Beijing to Qinghai and on to Lhasa also began on July 1.
Since then, services have been added from the two southwestern cities of Chongqing and Chengdu.
The government sees the rail line as an important tool in modernizing and developing Tibet, which has been part of China since Chinese troops “liberated” the region in 1950.
However critics argue the line will allow the national majority Han Chinese to flood in to Tibet, leading to the devastation of the local Tibetan culture, as well as accelerate environmental degradation of the pristine region.
China’s railways ministry was quoted in the state press on September 19 as saying 450,000 passengers had traveled to Tibet by rail since the train services began.
