Beijing plans to build new highways along the LAC. The FBI is investigating Huawei for listening in to the US’s most secure government communications. Xi Jinping asked European leaders to visit China, but the foreign ministry says he didn’t. Didi Chuxing was fined $1.2 billion after a year-long investigation. Chinascope brings you top news stories and expert views from China for this week.
China has cited concerns over India’s infrastructure projects as one of the reasons behind its military buildup in Ladakh. Now, the Beijing government has announced to construction a new highway through Aksai Chin to boost economic productivity. On 1 July, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced the plan under which Beijing will build 461,000 km of highways and motorways by 2035.
Last week, Beijing released new details of areas where the national highways will be constructed. Two new planned highways will spark concerns in New Delhi – G695 and G684.
The proposed highway G695 will connect Lunzhe County in Tibet with Mazha in Xinjiang. However, we don’t have the exact route of the planned highway. But a popular science blogger claims that the G-695 will pass through Depsang plains, Galwan Valley, Kongka Pass, and Pangong Tso. The new highway will pass closer to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) than the existing G-219 highway, which connects Tibet with Xinjiang. The bridge under construction on the Pangong Tso will be part of the G695, according to the science blogger with over two million followers on Weibo.
“Priority should be given to opening up border national highways such as G219 and G331, so as to achieve the basic elimination of out-of-class and pending passages; steadily promote the construction of strategic backbone passages out of Xinjiang and into Tibet, and improve the quality of Sichuan-Tibet Highway G318,” said Beijing government’s ‘National Highway Network Planning’ document. Another new highway that will pass through the strategic region is the G684. This highway will link Mazha town in Xinjiang with Khunjerab Pass at the border of China and Pakistan.
G219 is the existing Chinese highway that passes through Aksai Chin. When completed, G219, G695 and G684 will connect the large swathes of Tibet and Xinjiang with higher reaches of the Karakoram plateau at the border with Pakistan. The proposed highways will connect the existing network with strategic locations allowing greater connectivity between those locales through a network of connecting road systems.
Beijing has always had concerns about relying on G219 as the only artery connecting Tibet with Xinjiang. China’s construction plan has major implications for India as the current stand-off is likely to continue and puts the prospects of a negotiated settlement through the ongoing talks into question. Despite 16 rounds of talks between India and China to resolve their border stand-off, there are no signs Beijing is planning to vacate the territory PLA occupied in 2020. A day after the talks concluded at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point, PLA carried out an air drill over Pangong Tso – sending a clear signal to New Delhi.
Currently, there are large-scale military exercises underway in the Tibet Military District and the Xinjiang Military Districts – across from Eastern Ladakh.
Last Monday, we learned that top European leaders were invited to China to meet President Xi Jinping, according to a report by the South China Morning Post. Invitations were sent to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, according to a source who spoke to SCMP.
The Chinese foreign ministry has denied the story, saying, “I wonder where they got the information. I can tell you that this is fake news.”
A senior diplomat described the invitation as, “He wants, I think, something like a coronation ceremony where the leaders of the world come to Beijing to pay tribute to Xi the third, like Napoleon the third,”. Xi Jinping is likely to secure the third term later this year, and the unnamed senior diplomat has suggested the Chinese side wanted European leaders to be present in Beijing when that happens.
