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Laura Zhou

China plans to further strengthen its strategic transport network in sensitive border regions over the next five years to fortify and better project power along its remote frontiers amid rising geopolitical uncertainty.
One project involves building a 394km (245-mile) highway linking the northern and southern sides of the rugged Tianshan Mountains in far-western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, according to the draft 15th five-year plan released last week.
The route will run parallel to a strategic road built in the 1970s to improve military mobility following the 1962 Sino-India border war.
Construction of the Dushanzi-Kuqa Highway in central Xinjiang began in September and is expected to finish in 2032. Once completed, it will allow year-round travel and cut journeys across the Tianshan Mountains to half or a third of the time.


Under the plan, which outlines China’s policy priorities for the rest of the decade, China aims to complete two highways spanning all nine of its land-border provinces and “advance” construction of the National Coastal Highway along its east coast that links the port city of Dandong, near North Korea, with Dongxing on the border with Vietnam.
It also proposes upgrading the three existing highways running into Tibet.
China has built the world’s largest highway network as it attempts to boost economic growth and stimulate consumer spending through infrastructure investment.
But rising geopolitical risks along its borders – fuelled by territorial disputes, conflicts between neighbouring states and Beijing’s concern that terrorism could spill over – have heightened the strategic importance of logistics in frontier regions.
In August, Beijing established the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway Company to oversee the construction of a strategic 1,980km (1,230-mile) artery between Lhasa in Tibet and Hotan in Xinjiang.
Sitting on the Karakoram plateau, Hotan administers the Galwan Valley, the hotly contested area at the centre of the bloody war in 1962 and a deadly clash in 2020 that resulted in a months-long military stand-off with India and a diplomatic chill between the two Asian powers that only began to thaw last year.
Liu Zongyi, director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said both economic development and strategic stability were driving China to expand infrastructure in border areas.
Chinese leaders have long embraced the idea that “building roads is the first step to prosperity” and see improved transport links as key to boosting economies in border regions that lag behind the more developed coastal provinces.
“Infrastructure holds significant strategic and economic value,” Liu said. “In the event of an emergency, personnel and resources could be deployed more quickly to frontier regions, which is crucial for border stability and national defence.”
Since the Galwan clashes, both Beijing and Delhi have ramped up infrastructure construction near border regions.


In 2022, China unveiled plans for a new highway between Lhunze in Tibet and Mazha in Xinjiang that will run near disputed areas, such as the Depsang Plains, the Galwan Valley and Hot Springs on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
In 2024, the Indian government approved a plan to build the 1,637km Arunachal Frontier Highway, which is expected to connect 12 districts and 1,683 villages along the LAC, according to The Times of India.
The construction pushes have sparked diplomatic tension. In January, India’s Ministry of External Affairs lodged a protest over China’s road construction in the Shaksgam Valley, which is administered by China as part of the Kashgar prefecture in Xinjiang.
India, which sees the region as part of its territory, called the Chinese construction an “illegal occupation”. The Chinese foreign ministry responded that the area “belongs to China”, adding that it was “fully justified” in conducting infrastructure construction “on its own territory”.


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China aims to finish two highways spanning all nine land-border provinces, advance a highway on east coast and upgrade three highways into Tibet


China aims to finish two highways spanning all nine land-border provinces, advance a highway on east coast and upgrade three highways into Tibet.


How China plans to project more power in Xinjiang and Tibet over the next 5 years

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China aims to finish two highways spanning all nine land-border provinces, advance a highway on east coast and upgrade three highways into Tibet

China aims to finish two highways spanning all nine land-border provinces, advance a highway on east coast and upgrade three highways into Tibet