RECENTLY announced plans to extend the Qinghai-Tibet railway to the southern Tibetan city of Xigaze, located less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the border with India, highlight the Chinese government’s continuing efforts to tighten its control over the country’s disparate and often restive borderlands. This process will likely gain momentum and significance in the coming years as Beijing grapples with potentially destabilizing social, economic and possibly political transformations in China’s ethnic Han core.

The railway extension, which authorities expect to be operational by October, is ostensibly intended to improve access for Tibetans and other Buddhist pilgrims to the Beijing-installed Panchen Lama -- the highest reincarnated lama after the Dalai Lama and the highest recognized by Beijing -- whose official seat is in Xigaze. At the same time, authorities say the rail line will open the way for increased Chinese and foreign tourism throughout Tibet, thus increasing the region’s economic integration with and reliance on the rest of China. The railway will also extend China’s infrastructural (and therefore security) footprint deep into Tibet.

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