New highway to Tibetan area near India a boon for military

Connecting the remote and forbidding Metok county in southern Tibet to the rest of the country not only ends the isolation of a small population of residents but also provides enormous military value, military and diplomatic experts say.

When finished by the end of next year, the Metok highway will be a key piece of infrastructure that doubles as an important channel for the People's Liberation Army to defend the border near India, said Anthony Wong Dong, president of the International Military Association, an independent group based in Macau.

'The PLA has spared no effort in perfecting its logistics, especially its ability to project conventional military power by infrastructure on land, sea and air. The Metok highway is its last project on land,' Wong said.

On Wednesday the armed police construction team of the PLA broke through the last obstacle in the 3.3-kilometre Galongla Tunnel - the key to the 117-kilometre Metok highway located close to the disputed border with India, the PLA Daily reported. Shanghai-based military expert Ni Lexiong said the project enhanced China's military deterrence, as it helped the PLA narrow the infrastructural gap on the Indian border.

'The PLA's fighting capability in southern Tibet is very weak because we failed to overcome countless fatal natural barriers there over the past near five decades,' Ni said.

Metok county borders the Indian-controlled state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its territory, calling it South Tibet. China lost nearly 90,000 square kilometres of territory after the 1962 war with India.