China is in talks with Nepal about the former's plan to extend a railway line via a tunnel under Mt. Everest that will link the country to Nepal, China state-run news media said on Wednesday.

Reports said the plan is just one of the  ambitious railway projects of Beijing which, observers believe, will be highly unlikely to get off the ground.

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The proposal comes amid skepticism about whether some of the projects will materialize or not, and at a time when China's presence in Nepal is increasing, which has alarmed India.

Reports from China Daily said the Qinghai-Tibet railway already links China with Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and an extension of the railway running the stretch in as far as the international border is already being planned as requested by Nepal.

Chinese reports said the extended railway project will most likely be completed in 2020. The proposed extension puts China in a beneficial economic situation as the extension will potentially link the mainland to the huge markets of India.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on a visit to Kathmandu in December, said the proposed line linking the two countries will benefit each other's economy and will strengthen ties between the two countries.

Chinese railway expert Wang Mengshu told the China Daily that the extended line will have to go through Mt. Everest and so workers will have to dig long tunnels.

Mengshu said that considering the challenging Himalayan terrain, with its high elevation, trains using the line going to Kathmandu will have a maximum speed of 75mph.

Last year, China announced that it was considering building a high speed line railway to the United States running 8,000 miles.

According to the proposal, around 125 miles of undersea tunnel will be included, which would be the world's longest, crossing the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska.

TagsMt. Everest, Kathmandu, Qinghai-Tibet railway