BEIJING – China has begun large-scale mining operations on its side of theborder with Arunachal Pradesh where a huge trove of gold, silver and otherprecious minerals valued at about US 60 billion has been found, a mediareport said today. The mine project is being undertaken in Lhunze countyunder Chinese control adjacent to the Indian border, the Hong Kong-basedSouth China Morning Post reported. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as partof southern Tibet.
Projecting the mining operations as part of China’s move to take overArunachal Pradesh, the report said “people familiar with the project saythe mines are part of an ambitious plan by Beijing to reclaim South Tibet”.”China’s moves to lay claim to the region’s natural resources while rapidlybuilding up infrastructure could turn it into ‘another South China Sea’they said,” it said. The Post report with inputs from local officials,Chinese geologists as well as strategic experts comes less than a monthafter the first ever informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modiand President Xi Jinping that was aimed at cooling tensions to avertincidents like the Dokalam military standoff last year.
The 73-day standoff marked a new low in bilateral ties. Lhunze was in thenews last October, just about two months after Dokalam, when Xi in a raregesture replied to correspondence from a herding family in Lhunze Countyunderscoring Beijing’s claim to the area. The family is based in Yumai,China’s smallest town in terms of population located close to ArunachalPradesh. Xi thanked the father and his two daughters for their loyalty andcontributions to China, and also urged the people of Lhunze to “set downroots” to develop the area for the national interest. The Post report saidalthough mining has been going on in the world’s highest mountain range forthousands of years, the challenge of accessing the remote terrain andconcerns about environmental damage had until now limited the extent of theactivities.
But the unprecedented heavy investment by the Chinese government to buildroads and other infrastructure in the area has made travel easy. Most ofthe precious minerals which include rare earths used to make hi-techproducts are hidden under Lhunze county, the report said. By the end oflast year, the scale of mining activity in Lhunze had surpassed that of allother areas in Tibet, it said. People have poured into the area so fastthat even local government officials could not provide a precise count forthe current population, it said. “Enormous, deep tunnels have been dug intothe mountains along the military confrontation line, allowing thousands oftonnes of ore to be loaded and transported out by trucks daily, along roadsbuilt through every village,” it said.
Extensive power lines and communication networks have been established,while construction is under way on an airport that can handle passengerjets, it said. With more mines being dug in Lhunze and surroundings, acounty official told the Post that more than 80 per cent of the countygovernment’s tax income came from mining. The mines would also lead to asituation akin to “another South China Sea” arising out of the world’shighest mountain range, it said. Zheng Youye, a professor at the ChinaUniversity of Geosciences in Beijing and the lead scientist for aBeijing-funded northern Himalayan minerals survey, confirmed to the Postthat a series of discoveries in recent years put the potential value ofores under Lhunze and the nearby area at 370 billion yuan (USD 58 billion).
“This is just a preliminary estimate. More surveys are underway,” he said.There could be more big discoveries as Chinese researchers learn more aboutthe area. With strong financial backing from the government, they havealready amassed extensive data on the region. According to Zheng, thenew-found ores could tip the balance of power between China and India inthe Himalayas. He said Chinese troops withdrew in the 1962 war from theareas in Arunachal Pradesh as they had no people to hold the territory. Thenew mining activities would lead to a rapid and significant increase in theChinese population in the Himalayas, Zheng said, which would providestable, long-term support for any diplomatic or military operations aimedat gradually driving Indian forces out of territory claimed by China.
“This is similar to what has happened in the South China Sea” where Beijinghas asserted its claim to much of the contested waters by buildingartificial islands and increasing its naval activity, he said. HaoXiaoguang, a researcher with the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics at theChinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, Hubei who specialises in India-Chinaissues said Beijing was likely to take the same approach to the Himalayasas in the South China Sea.As China’s economic, geopolitical and militarystrength continues to increase, “it is only a matter of time before SouthTibet returns to Chinese control,” Hao claimed. “What China (has) achievedtoday in the South China Sea was almost unthinkable a decade ago. I amoptimistic (about) what will happen in the Himalayas in the coming yearsbecause President Xi has made it clear that ‘not a single inch of our landwill be or can be ceded from China’, which definitely includes SouthTibet,” he said.
But Hao said the Lhunze mining boom would not be expanded to other areasdue to environmental reasons. In Lhunze, some of the newcomers are stillacclimatising. The area is already teeming with people from different partsof China. Weng Qingzhen, who owns a Sichuan restaurant in the county, saidshe moved there less than two months ago after friends and relatives toldher about the mining boom.