China’s state media reports that the country’s authorities are building 30 airports in Tibet and Xinjiang provinces to improve the infrastructure of the country. Lhasa and Nyingchi, a Tibetan border town in Arunachal Pradesh, are already connected by a bullet train. According to China’s state-run Chinamil website, ’30 civil airports’ have been completed or are being developed in Xinjiang and Tibet.
According to a Chinese media outlet, the rapid development of civil aviation in the border areas will provide recruits with air transportation. A chartered flight with 115 veteran soldiers took off from Shigatse Heping airport in Tibet. The activists were reportedly marking the official opening of 23 air routes for transporting new recruits and veterans into and out of Xinjiang and Tibet.
After months of fighting with Indian soldiers in eastern Ladakh, Chinese troops have de-escalated. Last year, Indian and Chinese troops fought in the Galwan Valley, killing 20 Indian soldiers and five Chinese soldiers. According to the source, China has ‘temporarily opened three routes from Yinchuan, Jiayuguan, and Zhangye to Ngari’ and that recruits entering Tibet’s Ngari region will be carried by plane, with Chinese airlines enabling military troops to be transferred ‘particularly during an emergency’.
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According to reports, at least three airports in Tibet would be built at Burang, Lhunze and Tingri, with more than 20 new air routes linking Tibet and Xinjiang to Chinese cities. The Tibet military leadership of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently held large-scale joint exercises called ‘Snowfield Duty-2021’ on the Tibet plateau region at a height of 4,500 metres. The PLA employed anti-aircraft batteries and Type 15 light tanks in the exercise, which included live ammunition exercises and training in the dark.
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