タグ: Xinjiang Uighur region

China at 70 – Where From Here?

October 1, 2019 marked exactly 70 years since the late Mao Zedong stood atop the gate at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and declared that the Chinese people had stood up, and henceforth China would be the People’s Republic of China.

The 70 year period was not without its challenges including armed clashed with three other world powers, the US, India and Russia and the growing, flowering, decline and growing again of one of the world’s biggest economies. Add to this the tumult brought about by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which was aimed at revitalizing the revolution and keeping ideology pure, but which resulted in the death of countless citizens and the doling out of large doses of misery to millions of others.

With Reform and Opening up in the early 1980s the pent up energy of the Chinese people was released and the world saw a real miracle as so many in the new China were lifted out of poverty as the economy showed almost unstoppable growth. China rose to be the #2 economy in the world defying all odds.

While economic growth has slowed, China is now set on a course to become a “moderately prosperous society” by the middle of this century. This vision, combined with the establishment of the Belt and Road initiative to revitalize the Silk Road are both visions of China’s future set forth by its president, Xi Jinping.

China is not without its problems going forward however. The ongoing trade war with the United States is one major headache. The Uighur minority in Xinjiang is another matter that must be addressed with wisdom and fairness. And now Hong Kong seems a problem with no easy solution that must be addressed in a creative way to ensure democracy and guarantee the rule of law. China’s claim to the South China Sea and its relations with Taiwan are also thorny issues going forward.

So what will the future be for China? A “moderately prosperous” society for the majority of its people as President Xi Jinping suggests, Or a rethinking of the China Dream in light of 21st century realities?

Please log in and give us your thoughts on this.

 

Sands of Time–China’s Taklamakan Desert

inhospitable : adjective 

1: not showing hospitality : not friendly or receptive

2: providing no shelter or sustenance an inhospitable environment

Merriam-Webster.com

From all accounts, China’s Taklamakan Desert is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Bordered by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains to the west, the Tian Shan Mountains to the north, and the Gobi Desert to the east, the Taklamakan is often referred to as the “sea of death” or the “place of no return.”

The Taklamakan, which occupies 330,000km2 in China’s westernmost Xinjiang Uighur region, has an annual rainfall from 38-10mm, and temperatures that range from 400C to -200C. The topography consists of constantly-shifting sand dunes that can range from a height of around 240m to around 500m.

Wildlife, such as it is, consists of Camels, wild asses, foxes, wolves and gazelle. The peoples of the area are Uighurs of Turkic origin and Han Chinese. In ancient times peoples of all ethnicities transversed the area. Between 2005-2009, archeologists excavated a desert site called Xiaohe where they found almost perfectly-preserved mummies of people of Caucasian origin from an estimated 2000 BCE.

In modern times the People’s Republic of China has built roads across the vast emptiness of the Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan, but it ancient times travelers along the Silk Road avoided a direct crossing and skirted the desert on either a northern or southern route. A main Oasis on the fringe of the desert was Kashgar, which remains important today as a Chinese gate to Pakistan and a key station on the modern Silk Road.

From an economic standpoint, the only significant activity connected with this area is the Tarim Basin Oilfield which is rated as China’s 4th largest and covers an estimated 560,000km2. Yields of crude oil exceeding 5 million tons have been reported by PetroChina for the Tarim Oilfield. In addition, the company reports supplying 25 billion m3of natural gas annually.

Several companies offer tourists a chance to explore a part of this vast desert wilderness by road. There is only one report of a brave soul, a Korean man, who crossed the desert on foot in modern times.

Visiting the Taklamakan might not be an ideal vacation, but it would certainly be an adventure. Times change, trends come and go, but places like this (despite the shifting sands) seem to change little as the centuries go by.

photo: Aftab Uzzaman via flickr