China sparks controversy with Tweet on Mount Everest

State-run CGTN retracts its controversial tweet from May 2 and uploads a new tweet on the world’s highest peak to be located on the Nepal-China border

New Delhi: Pandemic or no pandemic, China is back to its old ways – flexing territorial aggression on neighboring countries. This time around the subject of Beijing’s self-assertion over its geographical footprint was Nepal and the region of Mount Everest.

The controversy erupted over a May 2 tweet from Beijing’s state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN) showing the glaciers of Mount Everest and claiming it to be part of China’s autonomous region.

The CGTN tweet (copy available with TheNews21) read ‘In picture: An extraordinary sun halo was spotted Friday (May 1) in the skies over Mount #Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak located in China’s #Tibet Autonomous Region.’

No sooner than the tweet was published it was subjected to massive criticism and trolling. Social media users while rubbishing China’s ‘autonomous claim’ on Mount Everest, asserted that the mountain range was in Nepal. People also attacked China for calling Mount Everest as Mount Qomolangma – meaning ‘Goddess Mother of the Snows’ or ‘Mother of the Universe.’

From satellite imagery to photographic mockery and memes were bombed on the CGTN tweet, which was retracted on Beijing’s command. A new tweet was posted on May 10 using the same photographs of the Mount Everest glaciers, however with diplomatic wording reading ‘In pictures: An extraordinary sun halo was spotted on May 1 in the skies over Mount #Qomolangma, the world’s highest peak located on the China-Nepal border.’

While the new tweet corrected the geographical position of the mountain range, it refused to address the peak as Mount Everest and continued to name it in the Chinese Tibetan pinyin title. 

The first published and later retracted tweet came on the heels of China sending a 53-member team from the Ministry of National Resources to conduct preliminary scientific work on Mount Everest.

According to reports, the team has been conducting ‘scientific research’ since early March and the ‘survey’ of the mountain was to start from May. The team will use Beijing’s network of Beidou satellites, a rival to Global Positioning System, in the survey to determine Mount Everest’s current height and natural resources. 

While the online reports provide no exact date of return of the expedition team from the northern approach. It claimed that the team has started sharing data on snow depth, weather, and wind speed which is vital to ‘facilitate glacier monitoring and ecological protection.’

Beijing claims that it has conducted six major surveys of the mountain. Teams have registered its height at 8,848.13 meters (29,029 feet) in 1975 and 8,844.43 meters (29,017 feet) in 2005.

Train Tunnel Under Mt.Everest as Part of BRI

Foreign policy analyst and experts on China via social media have claimed that the ‘scientific research’ initiated by Beijing on Mount Everest also includes the sub-terrain surveys for its trans-Himalayan train tunnel connecting to Nepal.

Chinese media in the past has reported that the trans-Himalayan line would connect the Tibetan city of Xigaze with Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu. It is also one of the several strategic moves made by Beijing to counter New Delhi’s growing influence over Kathmandu.

The Qinghai-Tibet railway already links the rest of China with the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and beyond, and an extension running as far as the international border is already being planned as per the diplomatic agreements between Kathmandu and Beijing. 

The Chinese state media had quoted railway expert Wang Mengshu on the tunnel project wherein he had said that the line will probably have to go through Mount Everest, which would require the workers to dig some ‘very long tunnels.’

‘Owing to the challenging Himalayan terrain, with its remarkable changes in elevation, trains on any freight line to Kathmandu would probably have a maximum speed of 75mph (120km/h). Thus long tunnels would be part of the project,’ Mengshu was quoted.

In May 2017, China signed a memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative with Nepal for roads, railways, ports, and aviation, as well as hydropower and energy projects. The trans-Himalayan railway line lies as the center of the Beijing-Kathmandu infrastructure deal.