China To Start Work On Rail Line Along India’s Border, Linking Xinjiang With Tibet’s Capital Lhasa

China is set to begin construction this year on the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway, a strategic rail line that will run largely along the disputed frontier with India, linking Hotan in Xinjiang with Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

The railway, managed by the newly registered Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company under China State Railway Group, will form a roughly 2,000-kilometre corridor connecting China’s northwestern and southwestern regions. It will link with the existing Lhasa-Shigatse line to create a key artery running along the entire India-China border area in this region.

Traversing some of the world’s highest and most challenging mountain ranges—including the Kunlun, Karakoram, Kailash, and Himalayas—the railway will average elevations above 4,500 metres. Builders will face extreme conditions such as permafrost, glaciers, frozen rivers, winter temperatures plunging to -40 degrees Celsius, and oxygen levels just 44 per cent that of lowland areas.

Parts of the route will closely follow the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the disputed boundary between China and India, underscoring the railway’s strategic and defensive significance in a region with limited infrastructure.

Registered with an initial capital of 95 billion yuan (US$13.2 billion), the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company will also oversee related operations in real estate, tourism, and international project contracting. The overall project cost is expected to be far higher, comparable to the Sichuan-Tibet Railway’s estimated 320 billion yuan.

Planning for the railway dates back to 2008 and gained momentum in recent years with surveys and design tenders launched in 2022. The Ministry of Transport confirmed construction is slated to start this year.

The railway is expected to dramatically improve China’s ability to transport goods, people, and potentially military equipment across the sensitive western frontier adjacent to India, enhancing Beijing’s control and rapid response capabilities along one of the world’s most contested borders.