Secrecy, Paranoia and the First Train to Lhasa

It should have been a historic moment. I boarded the first train to run from Beijing to Lhasa along the highest railway in the world. The air at Beijing West Station hummed with the piped muzack of Auld Lang Syne. The most modern train in China pulled out of the station to begin its 48-hour journey to the Tibetan capital.

I should have been thrilled. But the excitement was tempered. The Chinese authorities had omitted to mention that this wasn’t really the first train to Lhasa. That train pulled out early in the day from the station at Golmud that had for decades marked the end of the line.

My heart sank as I watched Chinese President Hu Jintao wave off the inaugural passenger service. Dancers twirled, drums rolled and history was made. But the first I knew was when I turned on the television – and that was mere chance. Why the secrecy? Why had we been made to believe that this train was the first? Well, I suppose, technically, it is the first train from Beijing to Lhasa and that’s quite something on a journey not short of superlatives. Highest railway line, first train, newest locomotive, smartest carriages – and possibly the longest journey in China.

But all the more reason to ensure blanket publicity, I would have thought. But no. About 1,000 Chinese journalists covered the red-carpet ceremony in Lhasa. But not a foreign reporter in sight. Most countries would want to trumpet this achievement – for such it undoubtedly is – to the world. But not China. No. Keep the foreigners at bay.

Trying to fathom the thinking behind the exclusion of the foreign media, a few possibilities sprang to mind. What if some disobedient foreigner tried to throw out a question to the president? That would never do, but then we never get to see him, let alone approach close enough to speak to him. So it couldn’t be that. Perhaps officials are nervous that even a small, carefully selected group of foreign reporters would prove too difficult to control in restive Tibet, so best to confine us to the train right from the start. But then we will, I am assured, have plenty of access in Lhasa. So only partly that then. Maybe it’s just a simple turf war. Too much trouble for officials in Golmud to agree to allow in foreigners, too risky for the railway ministry to encourage our presence.

And so I find myself starting the third hour of a journey through the heart of China, crowded with scarcely space to swing a mouse inside a brand new, spanking clean, comfortably equipped hard-sleeper carriage. It’s almost like being in a plane (and will become more so, but more of that later) with an electronic screen announcing that we are moving at 114 kilometres per hour. It’s smooth and the conductor has announced lights out.

I just hope I can sleep, undisturbed by the knowledge that the first train to Lhasa - the one I thought was this one until I saw that other, the secret train, departing live on Chinese television - will arrive even before I join a queue of 900 passengers for breakfast.

Comments

[twas88]

Tibet; once visited, never forgotten. A pious, hardy, colourful and fun-loving people in total contrast to their hitherto dour and isolationist occupiers.
Independent feelings about this project range from very guarded optimism to outright dismay at its potential impact on a unique culture and environment. Lets just say that if it is a further example of history repeating then the omens are not good for either.
Already Han outnumber Tibetans in the capital, Lhasa. They didn't in 1988 but the influence was already great. The state of the environment, particularly in the wetter, forested east is little short of tragic and points to the real reason the Chinese are there. A railway has a dramatic effect on the places it touches; at accelerates change like only an airport can, but adds the potential for a conversion of landuse like like nothing else.
Like the changes wrought by pioneers in the old west on the Plains Indian, I can only predict the days of the enigmatic, proud people of the Plateau are numbered. Isolation is no longer a defence. But we must still hope - the wall came down after all and with time maybe China can also change. This will happen more certainly if succour does not filter from the west in the form of megalomaniacal billionaires who seek to weaken the position of the Dalai Lama but instead only make themselves look like economic brown-nosers to a culturally revolting Beijing. I do believe the DL's shoes are made by Clarkes and not Gucci as alleged in the character assassination by the way.
I was asked by an elderly monk whilst in Lhasa, posted as a guide in the Norbulinka or summer palace but forbidden to wear his maroon robes, not to forget Tibet. Sir, how could I ever?

Dear Jane Macartney:
I learned from your profile above that you have been in China for nearly 20 years as a correnspondant.
I am sorry to remind you that things are different in China concerning publicity and leaders?It doesn't make any sense to complain about it all the time .Some westerners always focus on the bad points of China,why not change your position and think in the perspective of we Chinese?!After the reform and opening,great changes have taken place across the whole China,we people have got rather sufficient freedom and right ,we are proud of that! Maybe you didn't mean any harm ,but it always make me sick to read articles written by some foreiners ,which contain severe prejudice and hypothesis.I want you to remamber we Chinese have our way of handling things,please report us as objective as possible with the least personal feeling!please!
looking forward to your reply
sincerely yours
zhaoruicctv@sina.com.cn

[Boler Guo]

火车这样子已经很不错了～

[Anonymous]

.... and the common reply to such criticism that it is the "Chinese way" of doing things has often become a blanket excuse for continued complacency, which in the end will only slow reform and the continued advancement of China as a global player.

[Dominic Sword]

And common criticism from foreigners is that China is opening up as fast as they want it to. Seems a little unfair that people expect it to be on level with the rest of the free world as soon as it opened its doors. Be fair, the present government seems to be trying. It's a huge country with a huge population. Everything they do has far-reaching consequences for the country and its people.

[Boler Guo]

"Chinese way" is not all wrong, "global player" is not all right~~

[Robin Bather]

Auld Lang Syne in Beijing seems as impossible as my experience of hearing Land of Hope and Glory on the radio in a little Mexican village restaurant.
My Mexican wife wondered why I had tears in my eyes--she thought it was the spicy chile in the food, whereas I had suddenly been transported thousands of miles back to the Royal Albert Hall and the Last Night of the Proms in 1967.

[Victoria Roote]

I liked the comment I heard from D. Sword. China is Big and gradually will become bigger. Their Government is trying and if their huge population let them, they will become big. It's going to be a long journey "for China" We need to join God to help.

[Ralph in NW Sichuan]

The comment that the Han outnumber the Tibetans in Lhasa is so wrong. Officially it is about 87% Tibetan. Even if that is very wrong it is still a minor %. Wandering around Lhas and in many off-tourist ways it seemed almost all are tibetans. Xigatse is apparently 98% Tibetan and that is even easier to believe.Many of the non-locals are actually Sichuanese Tibetans.
Shoes....weren't the coments about Gucci shoes referring to the new Pontif's?That makes sense as he does live in Italy. Perhaps they are copies made in Guondong.