Railway Bridge Completed at Lhasa; Tibetan Farmers Object to Compensation Amount

Chinese authorities announced on May 13 that construction of the railroad bridge across the "Lhasa River" at Lhasa is complete, according to a Xinhua report. Tibetans know the river as the Kyichu. Many Tibetans speaking privately have expressed grave concern that the completion of the railroad could result in a transformation of the population mix.

Test operations of the rail link from Golmud, in Qinghai province, to Lhasa will begin in July 2006 and commercial service is scheduled for 2007. Premier Wen Jiabao visited Golmud on May 1 and hailed the railroad as "a hallmark project of the large-scale development of the western region," according to an FBIS translation of a May 2 Xinhua story. He praised "the builders fighting on the frontline of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway," and called for everyone to "unswervingly push forward the large-scale development of the western region."

In a related development, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on May 9 that some Tibetan farmers and herders along the route are appealing against the seizure of their land and the amount of compensation offered by authorities. An official in Toelung Dechen (Duilongdeqing) county, adjacent to Lhasa, told RFA, "There are a variety of situations. There are also some Tibetan farmers whose houses are not in good repair, or whose fields do not actually lie in the path of the rail track construction, but who want to move and are demanding compensation." A local resident complained to RFA that new homes for displaced farmers were incomplete. "Now when our land is taken for the construction of railways, we have nothing to live on. It is said that we will be compensated about 3,500 yuan [$422] and given a 50,000 yuan [$6,000] loan, but nothing is definite," she said.

Additional information about the railroad project is available in the CECC 2004 Annual Report.