One of the most important strategic developments in recent decades has been the arrival of the train on the Tibetan plateau in July 2006. Ten years later, the event has been largely ignored by the Indian media. The train has not brought radical changes for the Tibetans alone, but for India’s defence preparedness too. For Beijing, it has been a historic date. An article on the China Tibet Online remarks: ‘Foreigners only know that the Great Wall is the seventh wonder of the world, actually, modern Chinese construction is even more amazing.’ ‘For example, there are the 130,000 railroad workers working in the “forbidden zone of life” on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, with no past references, they have solved many technical problems such as building a railway through frozen soil, and achieved a miracle in human railway construction, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.’ The train is termed the ‘pride of the Chinese people.’ Ten years ago, Beijing hoped to solve several issues with the t
