China’s draft “five-year plan” for the upcoming period includes the objective of expanding road infrastructure in occupied East Turkistan and Tibet, the South China Morning Post observed on Tuesday, to “better project power” there.
For years, and with increasing severity under dictator Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has aggressively persecuted the indigenous people of East Turkistan, the Uyghurs, and Tibetans. In East Turkistan, Xi escalated the persecution to full-scale genocide including widespread forced sterilization campaigns, slavery, and organ harvesting. In Tibet, cultural eradication via mass abduction of children as well as campaigns to eliminate the Tibetan language and the local religion, Tibetan Buddhism, remain a constant threat to the population.
The Chinese Communist Party drafts a “five-year plan,” as the name suggests, every half-decade, which it then uses to annually develop both domestic and international goals and impose policies to reach them. Much of this work is conducted during the “two sessions” meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC), a rubber-stamp legislature for the Party, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an “advisory” body that helps generate ideas for the Politburo and NPC. The “two sessions” this year began on March 4, shortly after the Lunar New Year.
In addition to ambitious plans for technology, artificial intelligence, expanding China’s influence globally, and raising the fertility rate, the Morning Post noticed specific plans in the first draft to expand the Communist Party’s access to communities in the oppressed regions of East Turkistan, which China refers to with the colonialist name “Xinjiang,” and Tibet, which the regime similarly refers to as “Xizang.”
“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,” the newspaper observed. “[The plan] also proposes upgrading the three existing highways running into Tibet.”
These plans are in addition to ambitious road and railway plans in both regions, including a plan to establish rail travel between Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and Hotan, one of the largest Uyghur cities. The proposed railway would span over 1,200 miles and greatly facilitate the flow of Communist Party personnel and assets between the two regions.
The Morning Post observed that, in addition to more easily exercising authoritarian power in the regions, Hotan is close to the Indian border.
“Sitting on the Karakoram plateau, Hotan administers the Galwan Valley, the hotly contested area at the center of the bloody war in 1962 and a deadly clash in 2020 that resulted in a months-long military standoff with India and a diplomatic chill between the two Asian powers that only began to thaw last year,” the newspaper recalled. Relations between India and China, two of the most powerful members of the anti-American BRICS coalition, have yet to fully recover from the 2020 Galwan Valley brawl in which soldiers from both nations reportedly used rudimentary weapons such as rocks and sticks to kill each other.
Chinese state media touted the “five-year plan” as a major action item on the agenda of the NPC, the more powerful of the two lawmaking bodies. On March 5, the Global Times reported that the “two sessions” opened with a review of the latest draft of the plan.
“At the meeting, lawmakers examined a draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for national economic and social development,” the Times noted. “They examined the report on the implementation of the 2025 plan for national economic and social development and on the 2026 draft plan, and the draft plan for national economic and social development in 2026.”
One lawmaker told the newspaper that the NPC is prioritizing development through technology.
“As a researcher in finance, I paid special attention to the emphasis on ‘technology finance,’” the legislator, Tian Xuan, was quoted as saying, “which is intended to support entrepreneurship and innovation, promote technological advancement, and provide financial services across the entire industrial chain and throughout the full lifecycle of technological innovation.”
The newspaper also highlighted an “AI+ action plan” and plans for “global technological supremacy.”
These nationwide plans are coupled with regional objectives. In September, the Communist Party published “Guidelines for Governing Xinjiang in the New Era,” intended to deeply repress Uyghur-identified and make the communist stranglehold on the region more efficient.
“Xinjiang, known as the Western Regions in ancient times, has long been an inseparable part of China and an important gateway of the Chinese civilization to the outside world,” the guidelines declared, calling to “build Xinjiang into a core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt.”
In reality, East Turkistan has long been a separate civilization from China and existed as a republic twice in the 20th century before being invaded and colonized by Mao Zedong in 1946.
The Xinjiang guidelines also included commentary on infrastructure.
“The infrastructure in areas that have escaped poverty has been significantly improved. All towns and townships, as well as administrative villages where conditions permit, now have access to paved roads, bus services, and three-phase power,” it observed. “Dilapidated houses in rural areas have become a thing of the past and the days of drinking bitter and saline water are forever gone.”
Xi has also elevated the importance of a robust communist presence in Tibet. The dictator visited Tibet for only the second time since taking power in 2013 in August, marking the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover of the region.
“To govern, stabilize, and develop Tibet, the first thing is to maintain political stability, social stability, ethnic unity, and religious harmony,” Xi declared during his visit.
That “unity” and “harmony” has come at a high price for the Tibetan people. The State Department, in its most recent human rights report on China released in 2025, listed among the violations present in the region:
disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest or detention; transnational repression against individuals located in another country; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including censorship; and restrictions of religious freedom.
The United Nations had previously accused China of effectively enslaving thousands of people in Tibet through “an extensive labour transfer programme” that has “shifted mainly farmers, herders and other rural workers into low-skilled and low-paid employment.”
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