Geez it's like you people want poor people to stay poor. There's more than enough capacity for solar deployments in the nations East - it's explicit policy that's put deployments further West. Beijing is happy to build some UHV lines if it means that prosperity can be driven into the West - it's the same argument as for the HSR line to Lanzhou and then to Urumqi. It's the same argument as for the HSR line to Hohhot and the HrSR from Chengdu to Lhasa. Beijing knows that these infrastructure projects are inefficient, but Beijing is more concerned with equity of growth than the growth itself - they'd rather see 10% growth in the West and 3% growth in the East for 5% growth nationally than 6% growth nationally, but coming entirely from already established tier 1 population centers.

It's not only mutual prosperity, but also an effort to reduce internal migration towards tier 1 cities.