China is studying the possibility of a railway link between the mainland and Taiwan. The proposal for a transit link across the 180 kilometers Taiwan Strait to the self-ruled island was referred to only in passing in the draft of the 2016-20 development plan released on March 6th in Beijing. The document mentions the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, as a potential rail destination by 2030 and features a map of the train system, with a proposed rail line connecting the city with the mainland city of Fuzhou. The plan is part of a raft of proposals being considered by China’s rubber-stamp parliament for inclusion in the 13th Five-Year Plan, which would see the construction of an additional 30,000 kilometers of high-speed rail line and 50 new airports. China, which built the world’s largest high-speed rail network over the past two decades, is trying to leverage its expertise to build diplomatic clout globally and in 2014 even floated the idea of a 13,000-kilometer link to the U.S. via Siberia and Alaska. Such projects have faced political resistance from people wary of closer ties with China. The draft of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan proposed completing the rail connection between Hong Kong and Beijing by 2020. It also called for building a second link to the restive region of Tibet by the end of the next decade.
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