China has begun constructing a far wider highway (the second Karakoram Highway, or KKH-2) that will enter from a point west of the Shaksgam Valley into Gilgit via the Mintaka Pass: (36 59 36.10 N, 74 51 29.83 E), where there is already an existing PLA-BDR Garrison Base (37 9 25.71 N, 74 39 32.06 E) and a Customs CIQ facility is now being built there as well. This highway will be connected via bypass roads to the Sost Dryport (36 41 27.68 N, 74 49 30.00 E) and the projected Moqpondass SEZ (35 45 53.76 N, 74 38 27.56 E)—both in Gilgit.
It is now confirmed that the KKH-2 will be 50 metres wide and will be an all-weather transportation route. This follows the visit of a high-level delegation from China to Hunza, Gilgit and Baltistan in July 2016 to meet local stakeholders in the districts of Chilas, Skardu and Gilgit, and conferring with the administration and members of civil society to assess and determine the challenges in these regions bordering China. Initially, an alternative route to the existing Karakoram Highway (KKH-1) was proposed—this being the Yarkand to Skardu route through the Mustagh Pass. This route was then projected to be linked to the Neelum Valley through Shuntar Pass, thus bypassing Chilas and Indus-Kohistan for passage through a relatively more peaceful area. However, both China and Pakistan have now agreed that KKH-2 will now enter PoK from the Pamir Plateau inside Xinjiang via the Mintaka Pass and then proceed into Hunza. It will thus be located further to the west of the existing KKH-1.
Presently, it is physically impossible to maintain year-long connectivity between China and Pakistan through KKH-1, which links Kashghar in Xinjiang with Gilgit and Abbottabad through the Khunjerab Pass. Today, the KKH-1 is functional for five months a year at best because of adverse weather. The Kunjerab Pass through which KKH-1 traverses, is closed between November 30 and May 1 every year due to heavy snowfall. When opened, due to inhospitable terrain, the actual immigration happens 130km away at Tashkurgan in Xinjiang, China, and 75km away at Sost in Pakistan. A landslide and flooding in 2010 blocked the KKH-1 for more than one year. China and Pakistan subsequently discussed the possibility of building a parallel highway that featured extensive tunnels that cut through the Khunjerab Pass, rendering landslides irrelevant, but still making it highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Therefore, this idea of extensive tunnelling seemed fanciful-and expensive, estimated by Pakistan to cost more than US$11 billion.
The KKH-1 presently runs approximately 1,300km (915 miles) from Kashgar, following the valley of the Chez River, the Khunjerab Pass (at an elevation of 4,693 metres or 15,397 feet), Hunza (known as the original Shangri-La) for 310km along the Indus River-Valley, and along the (Gilgit and) Kunhar Rivers to Islamabad in the Chillas District of Pakistan. Roughly 494km of it lies in Chinese territory, while the remaining 806km traverse through the highest mountains in PoK. An extension of the KKH-1 meets the Grand Trunk Road at Raikot, west of Hassanabdal in Pakistan. On June 30, 2006, an MoU was signed between the Pakistan Highway Administration and China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to rebuild and upgrade the KKH-1. According to SASAC, the KKH-1’s width is being expanded from 10 metres to 30 metres (33 feet to 98 feet), and its transport capacity is being increased three times its current capacity. In addition, the upgraded KKH-1 has been designed to particularly accommodate heavy-laden vehicles in extreme weather conditions.
On January 4, 2010, the KKH-1 was closed in the Hunza Valley, eliminating road-traffic to China except by small boats. A massive landslide 15km (9.3 miles) upstream from Hunza’s capital of Karimabad created the potentially unstable Attabad Lake, which reached 22km (14 miles) in length and over 100 metres (330 feet) in depth by the first week of June 2010 when it finally began flowing over the landslide dam. Eventually, a new 24km route along the southeastern side of the Lake was completed in 2015 and opened to the public on September 14, 2015. The route comprises five tunnels and several bridges. The longest tunnel is 3,360 metres in length, followed by 2,736 metres, 435 metres, 410 metres and 195 metres. The Attabad Tunnel was completed on September 14, 2015.
Had the intent been to ensure all-weather, year-long road connectivity between China and Pakistan, then logically the Khunjerab Pass should have been discarded as an option, and instead focus should have been laid on five other passes of the Karakoram mountain range. These include the Mintaka Pass at over 4,700 metres above sea level just west of Khunjerab, which was used by travellers on the ancient Silk Route; the Shimshal Pass at 4,735 metres that leads to the Shimshal Braldu River Valley; the Kilik Pass (elevation 4,827 metres or 15,837 feet), 30km to the west of Mintaka Pass, which is a high mountain pass between Gilgit-Baltistan and Xinjiang; the eastern or ‘Old’ Mustagh Pass (altitude of about 5,422 metres); or the 5,600 metre-high ‘New’ Mustagh Pass.
China has also built feeder roads eastward through the Shaksgam Valley (part of the Trans-Karakoram Tract) linking Gilgit with Hotan, which is an important military HQ of the PLA, situated at the cross-section of the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway (NH-219) The highway starts from Yecheng, a city in southern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, passes by Gar County in Tibet and reaches Shiquanhe Town located in Ngari Prefecture of Tibet and the Hotan-Golmud Highway (NH-315). The Hotan-Golmud Highway links Xinjiang to Qinghai province and central China. It reduces the distance between Gilgit and Golmud to almost half, while bypassing the 428km-long Urumqi-Kashgar Highway.