Phurbu Thinley
Beijing: The project to pave the 108km (67 mile) road in Tibet is being done to ease the Olympic torch’s journey to the summit next year, China’s state media agency reports.
The four-month-long project will start next week and will cost 150m yuan ($20m), according to the report.
The construction would turn the rough road stretching from the foot of the mountain to a base camp at 17,060 feet, into a paved “highway fenced by undulating guardrails.”
Olympic torch will pass through Tibet en route to Beijing for the 2008 summer games. The report also stated that the new highway would become a major route for tourists and mountaineers.
Organisers for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in April announced their ambitious plans for the longest torch relay in Olympic history – an 85,000-mile route starting from Athens and that would cross five continents and scale Mount Everest making its way to Beijing.
Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, is 29,035 feet tall and straddles the border between Tibet and Nepal.
Taking Olympic torch to the top of Everest as one of the relay’s highlights is seen by critics as a way for Beijing to underscore its claims to Tibet.
With Tibetan activists and their supporters staging regular protests worldwide calling for boycott of 2008 Beijing Olympics, the torch’s path through Tibet may trigger unprecedented protests from Tibetans and critics of Beijing’s rule.
Four activists from US were arrested on Everest base camp in April after unfurling a banner calling for Tibet’s independence.
Chinese Communist troops occupied Tibet in 1950. The Dalai Lama, revered by Tibetans as their undisputed spiritual and political leader now lives in India after escaping Tibet in 1959.
