China will soon hold a feasibility study, exploring ways and means to expand its rail network up to Pakistan's border. A senior official of the Chinese Central government told APP here on Sunday that they were actively considering, strengthening their communication links with Pakistan through rail and road.
"We welcome Pakistan's proposals in this connection, and wish to extend support for optimism use of Gwadar seaport for developing bilateral trade."
The technical and financial matters involved in the construction of the Rail link up to Kashgar and the Sust check post, would be considered at the experts' levels.
The sources hoped that the rail link would open vast opportunities for Pakistan and China to deepen their trade and business interactions both at bilateral and regional levels.
They said, the China's Xinjiang autonomous region would soon undertake necessary spadework, connecting China with Pakistan through the rail.
Xinjiang Region Governor Ismail Tiliwaldi has stated that early this year, during his meeting with a delegation of Pakistan Muslim League, it was decided that his government would soon start necessary work to find out possibilities of operating a rail network between the two brotherly countries through Kashgar.
The two sides agreed that the China's western region has rich potential to emerge as hub of Sino-Pak business activities.
Pakistan and China have already started a regular bus service between Kashgar and Gilgit.
According to experts, the proposals of expanding the China's existing rail network up to Pakistan and Central Asian States are feasible and this gigantic task could be implemented to serve their common interest.
China enjoys rich potential and technical know-how to expand its rail link to the country's mountainous regions. It proved its worth, by connection China's Qinghai province with Tibet last month.
China solved three major difficulties to rewrite the world's history of railway construction. The three difficulties are frozen tundra, high altitude and plateau environmental protection, said Zhu Zhensheng, Vice Director of the Ministry of Railways office in charge of the new line.
About 550 kilometres of the tracks run on frozen earth, the longest in the world's plateau railways, posing great challenges for designing and construction, he said. The oxygen content along the railway is only 50-60 percent of that at sea level as 960 km of tracks are located at more than 4,000 metres above the sea level, Zhu said.
The annual average temperature on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is below zero degree Celsius with the minimum temperature at 45-degree Celsius below zero.
None of the hundreds of thousands of workers died of altitude sickness in the past five years, making a medical miracle, said Professor John West, associated with the School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.
More than 600 doctors and nurses served for the construction project and there was one clinic every 10 kilometres along the line, making sure that any sick worker could get medical treatment within 30 minutes. However, when the country built a highway between Qinghai Province and Tibet in early 1950s, almost the construction of every one kilometre of the road would claim one death.
The 1,956-kilometre-long Qinghai-Tibet railway is the world's highest and longest plateau railroad and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with other parts of China.