From Spero News:
The Qinghai-Lhasa railway line, much vaunted by Beijing as a tool to develop the territory’s economy, will be used to strip the area of its vast mineral riches to the benefit of far-away industries. Recent finds show Tibet is a mining company’s dream, but many fear that development won’t bring much prosperity to Tibetans.
State-run China Tibet Information website reported early this month that since 1999 more than 1000 researchers divided into 24 separate regiments fanned out across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, to geologically map the area. They found 16 major new deposits of copper, iron, lead, zinc and other minerals worth an estimated US $128 billion in about half of the territory. That leaves the other half of the region’s 2.6 million km2 area still unexplored. If the findings are confirmed that would make Tibet one of the richest areas of China.[Full Text]
