Strangers In Their Own Country: Chinese Population Transfer in Tibet and Its Impacts
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Inner Mongolia was Never Part of China
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By Oyunbilig
Inner Mongolia, as a part of the Great Mongol Empire, had never been part of China. From the day Genghis Khan founded the Great Mongol Empire in 1206 to the death of the last Grand Khan of the Mongols, Ligdan Khan in 1634, the Mongol nation had been an independent state for more than 400 years.
During the Ming Dynasty of China (1368-1644), the Mongols and the Chinese wared each other and tried to rule over each other, but the China's dominance had never reached beyond the Great Wall. Once the Mongols even captured an Emperor of China. (In 1449, Esen Taiji defeated Chinese army near Peking and took Chinese emperor Ying-tsung (or Ying Zong) prisoner). Also during the Ming dynasty, Fearing from the Mongol’s invasion, China took great efforts to rebuild the Chinese ancient fortification ---the " Ten thousand miles of &;quoot; Great Wall. The Mongol Empire lasted outside of the Great Wall until the Jorchid (later known as Manchu) people took over the entire Inner Mongolia in 1634.
During the Manchu rule, the Mongols had never given up their effort to reestablish an independent Mongolia. Galdan Boshogtu (1645-1697) of Dzungar Mongol once succeeded to unite all the Dzungar Mongols (or western Mongols) and the Khalkha Mongols (Outer Mongols) and almost seized Peking, the Capital of the Manchu Empire.
In 1644, Manchu people took over entire China and Emperor Shuen-chih (or Shun-Zhi) proclaimed the Great Ching Empire (Tai Ching). We have enough reason to say that Mongolia was not part of China during this historical period of time, because Mongolia (Including Inner, Outer, Dzungar Mongols) and China were both ruled by a foreign nation during the time . Chinese people didn’t have their own state or government, and China, just like Mongolia, was part of the Empire established by the Manchu people.
In 1911, following the collapse of the Manchu Empire, there was a great chance for all the Mongols to reestablish a independent state once again. However, the Chinese warlords, took the advantage of the Mongol nation’s weakness at that time, tried to take the Mongols under their rule. After 10 years of strive, Outer Mongolia (or Khalkha Mongol) proclaimed their independence in 1921 as People's Republic of Mongolia. But Inner Mongolia, a major part of the Mongol land, was under the Chinese warlords’ tight control and hundreds of years of dream as an independent nation was unable to come true for millions of Mongols living in Inner Mongolia. It is injustice and outrageous that the Chinese, as soon as they gained their freedom, turned to rule over other nation.
Since China’s takeover of Inner Mongolia, millions of peasants were settled to Inner Mongolia. Excessive cultivation backed by the warlords turned the great grassland into vast desert. The Mongols, totally depended on the grassland to survive, were forced to abandon their homeland and move to remote places. Meanwhile, those people who held courage to fight for the freedom of their homeland eventually fell down under the guns of the invaders and buried into their beloved land. (Gada Meiren, "Shineh Lama "--- Uljijirgal and Togtokh Baator were the most famous heroes among them).
Prince Demchegdongrov (or De Wang, Teh Wang), however, almost succeeded in establishing an independent Inner Mongolia. Born as a direct descendent of Genghis Khan, he dedicated his whole life to establish a self-ruling, even an independent Inner Mongolia. On July 26, 1933, De Wang held his first Conference on Inner Mongolian Self-rule, declared the Inner Mongolian government as a highly self-ruling government. This self -ruling government lasted until 1945. By the end of the WWII, to force the Japanese to end the War, Soviet-Mongolian joint army entered into Inner Mongolia. Despite the Inner Mongolians expressed strong will to be an independent country, or even willing to reunite with Mongolia (Outer Mongolia), Joseph Stalin handed Inner Mongolia over to China, according to the Yalta treaty reached by the US, Great Britan and the Soviet Union.
On May 1, 1947, the Chinese Communist Party declared their first puppet Autonomous Region--- the current Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region after the PLA took control over most part of the Inner Mongolia. Since then, the Inner Mongolians suffered the most brutal rule they had ever experienced:
It is very clear that Inner Mongolia was never part of China and, in fact, China never fairly treated the Inner Mongolians as a part of their own people.
East Turkestan (Xinjiang): One Nation Divided
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Since Sept. 11,
Beijing has been cracking down in Xinjiang. Decades of repression have already
made native Uighurs strangers in their own land
Xinjiang lies beyond the place where the Great Wall crumbles to the earth.
Across these hot sands the first Turkic camel trains probed into the Middle
Kingdom 2,000 years ago, laden with ivory and gold, skirting the forbidding
Taklamakan desert—the name means "Those who enter may never
leave"—to secure silks, which were the rage in Rome. Through this dusty
back door they brought China some of its greatest treasures: spices, ivory,
Buddhism and, later, Islam.
It's the latter that Abdul wants to talk about, but not right away—there are
too many Chinese around. Follow me, he says, and his shoes clack along the
cobblestones of a narrow maze of mud-brick houses in Kashgar's old neighborhood.
It's nightfall and time for children to empty the chamber pots. Abdul locks his
courtyard gate behind him, then his front door. Finally, under the roof beam of
seasoned wood, he feels it's safe to state his message. "I will teach my
son myself," he says, "because the Chinese won't let him into the
mosque until he's 18." That's it. A simple message—that he believes in
his religion—and Abdul feels he's risking jail to offer it. The Great Wall
might have petered out before Xinjiang, but that's a symbol of a China
Long gone. Modern China has a titanium grip on today's Xinjiang. Beijing's
ambition to develop its vast Far West is centered here, which explains the new
highways, rail lines and tile-and-glass towers that are the ubiquitous stamp of
Deng Xiaoping and his successors. The population bears a similar mark: Han
Chinese have been moved en masse to Xinjiang from other regions of the
country, partly for development but also to dilute the dominance of the Uighurs
who are as distinct an ethnic minority as the more internationally known
Tibetans to the south. Political control is of the familiarly unyielding Chinese
style: the Uighurs chafe under Beijing's grasp and have demanded independence.
Nothing frustrates Beijing more. Since 1997 the central government has brought
its nationwide "Strike Hard" campaign to Xinjiang with a vengeance,
hoping to wipe out local separatists. After Sept. 11, the campaign was
intensified, as China took cover under Washington's war on terror. The Uighurs,
conveniently for Beijing, are Muslim.
The separatist threat has virtually been eradicated, but the crackdown
continues. The result is a region as embattled as Tibet but with almost no
international recognition—and a distinctly schizophrenic personality, as can
be seen on a stroll through Kashgar's bazaar. Caucasian Uighur men in
embroidered hats sit on handwoven carpets hawking fearsome knives, gaudy
jewelry, kebabs and figs in a guttural language received from their Turkic
forebears. Their script is Arabic, their staple is bread, their worship is
performed in a mosque on Fridays. The Chinese in Kashgar, part of a group that
has grown from almost zero half a century ago to 40% of Xinjiang's total
population of 17 million now, live in modern apartments, eat rice—and shop in
new department stores, not in the bazaar. The worlds are so separate that the
two sides can't agree on what time the sun rises. Uighurs set their watches to
Central Asian time; Chinese to Beijing's two hours earlier.
Beijing worries that the province will become its Chechnya, that the Uighurs are
its link to the fanaticism of al-Qaeda, and the world has largely turned a blind
eye. However, the U.S. State Department this month in its annual human-rights
report said the crackdown was more against freedoms than terrorism. In Xinjiang,
that certainly seems to be the case—and the heavy hand of repression just
might be forging the exact sort of rebellion it is supposed to prevent.
"Chinese control the banks, get the loans, win the disputes," says
Mohammad, who runs a general store near the bazaar. The inflow of Chinese has
completely changed his part of the city; his rent has climbed fivefold in as
many years, to an annual $4,000. "Uighurs have to fight for everything.
Better to fight the Chinese."
Hong Kong
Democracy Protest: The Long March
Hong Kong's July 1 protest sends a clear message to China: the territory's
people want democracy
Using a specific issue as pretext for a general protest is a classic Chinese
political tactic. The Cultural Revolution got its ominous kick start in a bad
review of a play about a reformist Ming-dynasty official. The 1989 protests that
culminated with the Tiananmen massacre began with what was ostensibly a memorial
gathering for disgraced Chinese Communist Party General-Secretary Hu Yaobang.
And in Hong Kong it is now irrefutably clear that last week's half-a-million-man
march against proposed antisubversion laws, as well as this week's planned rally
at the city's Legislative Council (Legco) offices, have transcended that
catalyzing issue and even the broader socioeconomic fissures that brought
opposition to the government to such a compelling pitch. The rallying point now
is the assertion of democracy, however nominal, on Chinese soil.
It is impossible to know whether Hong Kong's current conflagration is the fault
of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa or those in Beijing to whom he answers. In
part, it is that lack of clear accountability—and the resulting sense that the
leadership in both places is unresponsive—that has so frustrated Hong Kongers.
Add to that economic insecurity and a public-health scare, and you have a recipe
for Hong Kong's politicization. For the July 1 mass protest against the National
Security Bill (commonly referred to as Article 23, after the constitutional
provision requiring its introduction) was not merely the largest antigovernment
demonstration Hong Kong has seen. It was the largest pro-democracy protest
anywhere in China since 1989. No matter how the authorities respond—be it
defiance, compromise or capitulation—the marchers have made one of the most
effective statements of popular will ever in the history of the People's
Republic. At stake is whether the world's next superpower will tolerate a
democratic model of development in one of its supposedly showcase cities.
"It's not just about Article 23," notes Allen Lee, an outspoken Hong
Kong delegate to China's National People's Congress. "Beijing's leaders
must look at the whole question of governance. Hong Kong people want
democracy."
That the stage for change should be set in the deep south will surprise no one
with a cursory knowledge of modern Chinese history. Sun Yat-sen and fellow
revolutionaries attempted at least half a dozen rebellions from Hong Kong before
1911. In the 1920s, the early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party used Hong
Kong, where they were tolerated by the British, as a base for the dissemination
of propaganda into China, where they were outlawed.
Now the south seems on a slow boil once again—which can only vex and worry
Beijing. That a showdown in Hong Kong's once rubber-stamp Legco now looms is as
surprising to Hong Kongers as it is alarming to Beijing. Previously, the faux
parliament could be counted on to support whatever legislation Tung's
Administration was ramming through. Now, suddenly, pundits in Hong Kong are
canvasing Legco members and counting votes to see whether Tung has enough
support to enact the Article 23 bill. That already sounds like the noisy
clanging of democratic machinery, and that was not what China's leaders had in
mind when they selected the aloof and stoic Tung to be Hong Kong's Chief
Executive after the territory's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. They
backed him—and renewed that support when he went for a second five-year term
in 2002, despite his already dismal approval ratings—because they could count
on his loyalty in keeping Hong Kong pacified and obedient. But now, Tung, 66,
and his beleaguered Administration have become objects of public resentment and
ridicule. Through his inability to tackle the various crises—economic,
political, epidemiological and now constitutional—besieging Hong Kong, Tung
has inadvertently politicized the city and become a liability to Beijing by
making Hong Kong emblematic of a larger Chinese issue: the pace of political
reform.
"Because the
Chinese leadership backed Tung," notes Shi Yinhong, a political scientist
at People's University in Beijing, "the standing of the central government
itself is on the line." That sentiment is echoed by Ma Ngok, a social
scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: "Beijing
is slowly getting the general idea that things are getting out of control in
Hong Kong." And any sense of crisis in Hong Kong causes problematic ripples
not only up north but also across the Taiwan Strait. The mainland has held up
Hong Kong's promised autonomy and "one country, two systems" as a
model for reunifying with Taiwan. But the Article 23 bill, says Joseph Jaushieh
Wu, an official in Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's office, has "further
confirmed suspicions among the Taiwan people about the reliability of Beijing's
promises."
How did Beijing get it so wrong? That such a large demonstration caught the
central government unaware represented a massive intelligence failure by the
Communist Party's new leadership. None of Beijing's hundreds of officials in
Hong Kong had warned that the July 1 march would amount to more than a few tens
of thousands of people, drawn from the usual ranks of activists and art students
who light candles during yearly vigils marking Tiananmen's anniversary.
"The problem was similar to SARS," surmises Shang Dewen, a professor
of economics at prestigious Beijing University who has long advocated democratic
reforms. "People at the low levels didn't want to report bad news up the
chain." The obvious failure of Hong Kong policy could now force Party boss
Hu Jiantao to replace officials in Hong Kong, much as he sacked the health
minister and Beijing's mayor in the middle of the SARS cover-up. "This is a
huge problem for the government," says Bao Tong, a former top Party
official who was purged and imprisoned after Tiananmen. "That
demonstrations will spread to China is the first thing the leaders will think
of."
Though he's Hong Kong's Chief Executive, Tung seems even more out of touch than
Beijing with passions in his own backyard. The son of a shipping tycoon, Tung
affects a patrician, I-know-best attitude. That approach might have worked
during the territory's go-go decades when every Hong Konger seemed to believe he
too could become a tycoon—and indeed it did work for generations of colonial
governors. But since the territory's real estate and stock-market bubbles burst
six years ago, Hong Kongers have had to cope with rising unemployment rates and
plunging wages; the sense that the Chief Executive not only doesn't understand
what it is like to work for a diminishing paycheck but doesn't care is
overwhelming. Hong Kong, in the midst of a prolonged economic slump and reeling
from an epidemic outbreak, needs a leader who can empathize and simultaneously
sell a promise of better times to come.
Tung fails spectacularly on both counts, and the chasm between him and his
constituents has only widened with his handling of the Article 23 bill. The
problems with the proposed law are by now well documented. Article 23 was
inserted into Hong Kong's Basic Law in the aftermath of Tiananmen. The bill
written to implement it seeks to apply mainland Chinese-style security laws to
Hong Kong and, unsurprisingly, is feared by a wide spectrum of Hong Kongers as a
potential tool to squash dissent and opposition. If passed, the legislation
would create the new and vaguely defined offences of secession (the wide
applicability of which threatens the many economic and cultural ties Hong
Kongers have with Taiwan and Tibet) and subversion (applying that to peaceful
demonstrations or industrial action would be child's play for Beijing). Even
academic libraries may be affected, since they are duty-bound to compile
material for research, regardless of its political content. Although
colonial-era security laws that remain on the statute books are in some ways
more Draconian, the Article 23 bill is nonetheless felt to be more threatening
to civil liberties because it will be Beijing, not Britain, that applies it.
Driving this concern is the fundamental mistrust of the mainland that Hong
Kongers have obligingly contained since the handover but which is now erupting,
with all the predictable urgency of long-suppressed and unresolved emotion. Even
those unopposed to the Article 23 bill—such as Shiu Sin-por, director of
right-wing think tank One Country Two Systems Research Institute—are prepared
to concede this. "The opposition to Article 23 is a manifestation of
fundamental differences between Hong Kong and China," he says. "The
really fundamental difference is a lack of trust of the communists in Beijing,
and that's something no one can change. If you don't trust the central
government, then this type of proposal, no matter how good, means you won't feel
safe."
Though Tung on Saturday announced half-hearted concessions—scrapping
provisions relating to arbitrary police powers to enter homes and requiring that
organizations banned in the mainland be likewise curtailed in Hong Kong, and
adding a safeguard that would protect media that publish "sensitive"
information so long as publication is in the public interest—he has failed to
address the crisis of confidence in his government. In mishandling the Article
23 bill since it was introduced, the Tung Administration has inadvertently
raised the stakes so that protestors now want more than amendments and
blandishments. They want real, tangible evidence of openness and, eventually,
universal suffrage. "Now I'm definitely going to march to Legco on July
9," says Ricton Cheung, a 41-year-old advertising executive who echoes the
sentiments of many Hong Kongers. "The amendments are beside the point,
because that's not what the people are requesting."
The concessions themselves may prove a disastrous gambit on Tung's part. It is a
political dictum that unrepresentative regimes are at their weakest not when
they ignore dissent but when they make belated attempts at conciliation. Tung's
concessions do not go far enough to appease the crowds now baying for his head,
although making any concessions at all is a de facto admission that he has been
guilty of misreading the public mood. Indeed, the reaction to what Tung
considers a major effort at rebuilding public trust was swift and
uncompromising. Even former Chief Secretary Anson Chan, who retains significant
personal popularity in Hong Kong, broke her usual queenly composure. "Both
the government and the Legislative Council have demonstrated that they were not
responsive to community aspirations," she proclaimed. "I think that
the sooner the government allows a proper debate and discussion about the pace
of universal suffrage, the better it would be for everybody ... It almost seems
as if they're daring the people to take to the streets."
Democratic Party Chairman Yeung Sum says he will press instead for a
postponement in order to allow a fresh round of consultations with the public,
and he is hoping that the pro-business Liberal Party, whose eight seats would be
the swing votes in this week's Legco showdown, will also ask for deferral.
"We need time to heal the pain between the government and the people,"
says Yeung, "so the only thing is to defer." One of his wishes already
appears to have been granted. Liberal Party legislator Miriam Lau confirmed that
"our Party stance right now is that we prefer deferment, to allow more time
for the community to discuss this."
Although deferment of or amendments to the bill may satisfy some conservative
elements reluctantly drawn into last week's protests, they are not expected to
diminish the democracy movement's broad base of support. Once broken, trust is
not easily won again, least of all by perfunctory concessions. Even
archconservative David Chu of the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance was heard on a
radio talk show saying that "today, even if the government wanted to pass a
free-lunch bill they would have difficulty." And although a deferment will
allow both government and protestors to cool off, if it is not followed by a
sincere and open public consultation, deeper social unrest is all but
guaranteed.
China's leadership cannot be pleased with a democracy movement suddenly
flowering in soil that had long been considered arid. Developments last week
showed Beijing bigwigs distancing themselves from Tung's predicament. Liberal
Party chief James Tien said that Liao Hui, head of the Hong Kong and Macau
Affairs Office in Beijing, had indicated to him that China was OK with
postponing the vote and that it wasn't concerned about the details of the law so
long as it was eventually enacted. Most notably, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
was in the territory, he seemed to go out of his way to appear as the anti-Tung.
He went on impromptu walkabouts (hugely popular with the public), rocked in his
arms the baby of a mother who perished in the SARS epidemic and generally
conveyed the impression that he cared about Hong Kong. Not once, it was widely
noted, did he say that Tung was doing a good job—usually a pro forma statement
from visiting Chinese leaders. Says Tsang Yok-sing, head of the pro-Beijing
Party in Legco, the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, and an
adviser to Tung: "The Chief Executive still has the support of the central
government—I think."
Even if Tung survives, observers reckon it will become increasingly difficult
for his Administration to push through other unpopular measures, such as
proposals to raise taxes or cut welfare benefits. "When people don't trust
their government, they doubt everything," notes political activist
Christine Loh. "So the government can't get anything done and is in
continual crisis."
The irony for Hong Kong, and China, may be that such a crisis could end with a
rejuvenated, more confident city that is once again viewed internationally as a
dynamic center of culture and commerce. Contrary to Beijing's and perhaps Tung's
fears, increased freedoms for Hong Kong may mean greater stability in the
territory. (For an example of a stable Chinese democracy, see Taiwan.)
Multinational corporations and international investors would be reassured that
rule of law exists, public opinion matters and due process is observed—in
short, that Hong Kong is not just another Chinese city. "Democracy is not a
free gift," says the Democrats' Yeung Sum. "We have to fight for
it." It's a fight that, if won, could mean Hong Kong's salvation—and
future.
Aids in China:
Rough Treatment
As Beijing goes for
a kinder, gentler image, the brutal suppression of AIDS victims in Henan shows
the message hasn't yet reached the provinces
Since taking office in March, China's President Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen Jiabao have cultivated an image of baby-cuddling folksiness.
Hu's and Wen's breaking of bread with peasants during official outings—not to
mention eventually coming clean on SARS—are seen by some as evidence of the
emergence of a new breed of Chinese leader.
But to the residents of AIDS-stricken Wenlou village in central Henan province,
China's authorities seem considerably less paternal. As many as 60% of the
locals are HIV positive, infected when they sold blood under unsanitary
conditions in the 1990s. Most are too poor to afford even basic medicine needed
for the host of small infections the virus brings, let alone the costly
antiretroviral drugs just now becoming available in Chinese cities. Victims are
treated in makeshift infirmaries lacking basic medical gear.
As more villagers are ravaged by full-blown AIDS, they have begun demanding
relief from the state. Last month, a handful of Wenlou victims had faith enough
in their leaders' benevolence to travel to the provincial capital of Zhengzhou.
Their goal was to convince health officials to help them set up organized care
for children orphaned by AIDS.
Instead, the supplicants only brought more suffering down on their own heads.
When they reached Zhengzhou, several were detained by local police, says a
Wenlou resident and AIDS victim who asks to be identified only by his surname,
Cheng. Worse, authorities then tried to scare the village's 3,000 residents into
silence. On the night of June 22, Cheng says, he and his children awoke to the
sound of splitting wood. He says hundreds of police stormed Wenlou, breaking
down doors, attacking villagers with cattle prods and dragging some out of their
beds and into police cars. The ordeal was repeated the next night, says Cheng.
In all, about 100 people were taken away. "These attacks were so
sudden," Cheng says with bewilderment. "All we were trying to do was
to answer the question of what will happen to the children when the adults die.
Can you really say that's an unreasonable demand?"
This was the third such crackdown in the Wenlou area in just over a month.
Although the government is still embarrassed by the AIDS crisis in the province,
it's unlikely the raids were ordered by Beijing. Local police "probably
acted out of a long-ingrained habit of using any means possible to suppress
information," says Hu Jia, a Beijing-based AIDS activist. That's not
explanation enough for Cheng. "I have two small children," he says.
"How am I supposed to make them understand why this is happening?"
In Rural China, It's a Family Affair
A dearth of brides has
some village bachelors looking for love close to home
It's a chilly evening in this land of yellow earth and the matrimonial bed for
Liu Dehai and Hai Hongmei is laid with a quilt embroidered with the characters
for "double happiness." The words are also pasted on the wall, a
bright-red portent of good fortune for just-married Chinese. Next to the bed
sits a new pleather sofa, plastic wrap still hanging from its arms. This should
be a place of contentment and hope, but Liu's mother doesn't want anyone
observing too closely. "Please," she says, hands frantically kneading
the quilt, "do not speak of this room." Indeed, the newlyweds point to
the desperation that has engulfed the hardscrabble villages of China's central
Shaanxi province. For Liu and Hai are not just husband and wife but also first
cousins.
In some Asian countries, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, marriage between close
relatives is tolerated, even encouraged. The attitude is at least you know who
you're getting and, if there is any wealth to share, you can keep it in the
family. Most everywhere else, the practice is a social stain. Yet for increasing
numbers of Chinese, the issue isn't a matter of choice—but survival. China is
facing an alarming dearth of young brides. Two decades of restrictive
family-planning policies have resulted in a drastic gender imbalance—the
country is missing 50 million girls who would have been born if not for
sex-based abortions and female infanticide. Sons are valued far more than
daughters in China because males maintain the family line and care for parents
when they grow old. Girls, on the other hand, leave their parents' home for
their husband's clan when they marry. In China's poorest villages, fathers don't
even count their daughters when asked how many children they have. "Two
strong sons," says a millet farmer surnamed Yang when asked about his
family. As an afterthought, he adds: "Two donkeys. A pig. And one
daughter."
But all these strong sons will one day need strong wives. Now that the offspring
of China's one-child policy are reaching marriageable age, millions are finding
there just aren't enough women to go around. With so many men to choose from,
women are loathe to live in, say, the mud caves where many Shaanxi peasants make
their homes. So men in the countryside are resorting to drastic means to
continue their family lines, including wedding women who once had little hope of
marrying, like those with physical or mental disabilities. Brothers share one
wife. The most desperate of all, though, are those who marry members of their
own family. Pretty girls who could have their pick of men in the cities are
instead told they must stay home and marry internally—all for the good of
their family clan.
Liu Dehai never imagined he would wed his shy first cousin Hai Hongmei. But
Liu's parents couldn't make enough from Shaanxi's parched earth to buy their son
a wife. Desperate, his mother asked her sister for a big favor. A few days
later, Liu was informed he would be marrying his kin. "It can be unsafe to
marry cousins," says Liu's mother. "But what can we do?"
While not as risky as once thought, marriage among first cousins nearly doubles
the chances of birth defects. Reminders of the potential dangers fill
neighborhoods just a few miles from Liu's village of Nanliang. In the roadside
hamlet of Chenzhuangke, a first-cousin couple grieve for their young son who
died of a rare blood disease. In the nearby city of Yan'an, a brother and sister
squat in the mud-brick slums, signing a secret language to each other. Both Cao
Shuai and Cao Jing were born deaf-mute. Everybody in the neighborhood thinks
they know why: their parents are first cousins. And last month in Yan'an county,
a severely retarded newborn girl was found abandoned by the side of a dirt road.
Authorities tracked down her parents, only to find out they were a brother and
sister, eking out a life together in a dark, cramped cave. And the situation
could worsen. Chinese demographers estimate that in some rural areas, 80% of
children between ages five and 10 are boys. "You think the problem seems
terrible now," says a U.N. official based in Beijing. "But wait until
all the kids from the one-child policy years have grown up. That's when the
epidemic will really hit."
No one knows exactly what the impact a surplus of tens of millions of men will
be on society. Sociologists predict that both military and monastic life will
become more popular. But these institutions will only be able to soak up a
limited number of men, and the government fears a rise in crime, prostitution
and drug use as a swarm of bachelors roam the countryside. A hint of that future
has already arrived in Shaanxi's Qiaogou village, where children play under a
dusty apple tree, tossing scraps of vegetables as makeshift toys. The noise is
the raucous glee of boys being boys. There is only one girl playing among them.
Seven-year-old Xiaochun is astonished when asked what he thinks his future will
hold. "I'll get married and be a good farmer of course," he says.
Where will he get a wife? After all, there's only one girl among his playmates.
Xiaochun furrows his brow and considers the question. "I think in other
villages far away, there are many more girls," he says. "I will get my
wife from there." Across China, millions of young males are hoping the same
thing, but only a few will ever meet the woman of their dreams.
Workers' Wasteland
China's prosperous surface
masks a rising sea of joblessness that could threaten the country's stability
April was a grim month in Wei Jianzhong's sooty, barracks-like neighborhood in
Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province. That's when the Henan No. 5
Provincial Construction Co. fired its latest round of workers. The victims have
gathered in Wei's cramped living room to commiserate. There's Xiong, a
53-year-old former steamfitter who is trying to survive on $12 a month in
unemployment benefits. He reminisces about the time two years ago when thousands
of workers from a nearby factory blocked railroad tracks and erected huge
posters of the patron saint of Chinese workers—Chairman Mao—to demand their
jobs back. He participated in the protest "to stand with them," he
says. Today he is out of work too. He wonders aloud, "Who will stand with
me?" Kong Qingbin, who worked for 30 years as a guard at the same factory,
chimes in with an idea: "Execute the factory leaders. Then maybe we'll be
satisfied."
Wei shrugs, gets up and leaves the flat to saunter through his neighborhood in
his plastic sandals and unbuttoned shirt. At 51, he sells bags of Betty Crocker
Bugles for pennies apiece through his first-floor apartment window. It's all he
can do to augment the $40 monthly stipend he and his wife receive from the
company that laid them off eight weeks ago. Out on the street, he passes idle
ex-colleagues, working-age men playing cards on empty fruit boxes. Layoffs by
the construction company touch nearly every household. Wei introduces Mrs. Xie,
whose husband was fired in April. He came unhinged under the strain of
supporting his wife and daughter, grew paranoid and delusional. Convinced that
the police would charge him with murder, he tried to drown himself in a barrel
of water. Today he's in a mental institution while his wife peddles dumplings of
fatty pork and mustard greens under the soot-covered trees. "People here
have sympathy," Mrs. Xie says, "but I can't eat sympathy and they
don't eat enough dumplings."
If this is China's century, it's getting off to a bleak start for millions of
jobless mainlanders. The country has dazzled the world with its remarkable
progress since embarking on the capitalist road in 1978. The economy has
quadrupled in size in two decades. China is rapidly replacing Asia's tiger
economies as a global center of manufacturing, and coastal cities such as
Shanghai sparkle with skyscrapers, five-star hotels and modern electronics
factories. The streets clog with the private cars of the newly prosperous.
But for every Chinese who has escaped poverty into the emerging middle and upper
classes, there are many others, young and old, trapped in hellholes that blight
the outskirts of population centers like Zhengzhou. China's headlong rush to
join the global economy is creating new jobs in the private sector, but it is
simultaneously breeding a gigantic underclass of have-nots—citizens the
government fears could one day rise up in open revolt.
Urban joblessness, unheard of when the Maoist government provided
cradle-to-grave employment, now averages around 8-9%, according to scholars at
the Beijing-based Development Research Center (DRC), a government think tank.
(The official rate, by contrast, is a rosy 3.6%.) Joblessness is much higher,
perhaps 20%, in industrial rust belts that cut great swaths across the north,
where outmoded, bankrupt factories are being shut down and communist-era work
units eliminated at a breathtaking pace. Reliable numbers aren't available, but
some estimate there are at least 19 million Chinese who are out of work; tens of
millions more are unaccounted for by Labor Department statisticians.
And these staggering numbers are getting worse. China has entered what is
perhaps the most dangerous phase yet in its transition to a free market economy.
Beijing's recent commitment to play by World Trade Organization rules lowers
trade barriers. That means more foreign competition pressuring China's most
vulnerable industries, such as the country's steel smelters, coal producers and
120 carmakers. If the government lives up to its vow to cut bank lending to
money-bleeding state enterprises—something it must do to salvage its woefully
indebted banking sector—and curb deficit spending, factory layoffs will soar
still higher.
Meanwhile, struggling Manchurian farmers who have spent a lifetime planting
grain for the state stand little hope of competing with mechanized
agro-businesses in the U.S. Forced off the land, they will decamp for the
coastal factories, only to collide with millions of laid-off state workers
seeking the same jobs. "In the next 10 years, I predict 150 million farmers
will move to cities looking for work," says Chen Huai, a senior research
fellow at the DRC. That's a mass of unemployed migrants larger than the total
U.S. workforce. After years of downplaying its unemployment problems, now even
Vice Minister Wang Dongjin from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security
describes China's jobs crunch as "grim." The ministry acknowledges it
must create 17 million jobs a year just to maintain its current unemployment
rate. Hu Angang, a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, warns that China
is careering toward nothing less than "an unemployment war, with people
fighting for jobs that don't exist."
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The Sky is
Falling: Women in Communist China
Mao envisioned a China in which women would
"hold up half the sky." But as the nation embraces capitalism, women
are losing ground
Before she was abducted, Hu Lixia had never been alone in a room with a man who
wasn't a relative. The plum-cheeked teenager had never had a boyfriend or even a
secret crush. Every day, after she finished work at an ice-cream factory in
central Hunan province, she would rush home to help cook dinner. She was, as her
mother puts it, "a good country girl." But one evening in November
1998, Hu didn't return to her tiny village in remote Xupu county. Her parents,
sugarcane farmers with only four years of schooling between them, were frantic.
They contacted the local police, but their pleas for help were ignored. A month
later, a bribe to the father of a local gangster with a suspiciously fancy house
brought them grim news: Hu had been kidnapped, raped and forced to work at a
brothel in Guigang city in nearby Guangxi province. Desperate to get his
daughter back, Hu's father, Hu Yangduan, together with the father of another
missing girl, paid the traffickers $180—about one year's income—and both
children were returned. "I was so angry at her for letting someone deceive
her that I wanted to beat her," recalls Hu's father, clenching his
weathered fists. "But when I saw her, all I could do was cry."
Hundreds of girls have been kidnapped from Xupu in the past few years, including
more than a dozen from Hu's village of barely 200. Some girls—lured into cars
by promises of candy or fancy clothes or merely a joyride to the city—are
never heard from again. Others, like Hu, eventually find their way back home.
But Hu was so traumatized by what had happened that she refused to leave her
house for more than a year after her return, spending her days sequestered in a
dark room filled with piles of coal. Finally, she fled last year to the boomtown
of Shenzhen, where she now toils in an electronics sweatshop. Although the
16-hour shifts are exhausting, they're nothing like the conditions at the
brothel, where she was forced to service a stream of men for no pay. "My
elders used to sing a song comparing life to a dark well of bitterness,"
recalls Hu of her months as a sex slave. "Women, who stand at the lowest
level, are never able to see the sun or sky."
How times change. When Hu's mother was growing up, her hero was Xiang Jingyu, a
Xupu-born revolutionary who was one of China's first crusading feminists.
China's communist leaders may have inflicted fear and famine on their subjects,
but they were progressive when it came to women's rights. Soon after the
communist revolution, Beijing's leaders even designated Xupu as a model town for
local efforts to promote equality between the sexes. A feudal country that had
bound its girls' feet just a few years before had been transformed into a nation
where women, as Chairman Mao Zedong famously declared, could "hold up half
the sky." But as China sheds the stifling rigidity of communism for the
ruthless disorder of capitalism, the sky seems to be falling in on millions of
women. After half a century of struggling to achieve equality with men, women
are bearing the brunt of the nation's massive social dislocations. In 1990,
women earned 83% of men's pay. By 1999, that figure had dropped to just 70%
True, capitalism has benefited an élite group of educated, urban women who are
enjoying unprecedented opportunities—from heading to America for M.B.A.s to
launching their own companies. But, in general, women are losing out. As
discrimination against them increases, they are the first to be laid off from
once ironclad state jobs. They are the first to be deprived of local-government
seats now that Beijing no longer enforces long-held gender quotas. They are the
first to drop out of school as academic fees climb ever higher. And they have
regressed financially, too: in the 1980s, women made 80¢ for every dollar that
men earned; now, women make only 65¢, as private enterprises are free to pay as
they please.
At the extremes, old bad habits from China's imperial past are also resurging:
prostitution, concubinage, wife buying, female infanticide. One symptom of the
intensifying pressure is that nearly 300,000 women in China committed suicide in
2000, making it the only country in the world where relatively more females than
males take their own lives. "China is progressing in so many ways,"
says Deng Li, deputy director of the government-run All-China Women's
Federation. "But for many women, their lives are going backward, because
the rules to protect them are no longer being followed."
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China's Baby Bust
A dwindling birthrate and an aging populace force China to rethink its family-planning policy
Carol Yang is convinced
she has it all. Her mother, steeped in a different era's values, isn't so sure.
True, Yang has a cushy job at an international public relations firm, travels to
exotic locales like Nepal and, most important in these divorce-prone times, is
married to a loving husband. But Yang doesn't have children, and her mother
worries, as mothers will. "She thinks that I'm not a complete woman if I
don't have kids," says Yang, a 33-year-old general manager at Hill &
Knowlton's Shanghai branch. "But I tell her that times have changed and
that children are no longer the measure of a successful woman."
Such an attitude should hearten China's draconian womb police, who have spent
two decades trying to control the nation's burgeoning population through any
means possible. They've succeeded remarkably well. The average Chinese woman has
two kids today, compared with six children 30 years ago. "For all the bad
press, China has achieved the impossible," says Sven Burmester, the United
Nations Population Fund representative in Beijing. "The country has solved
its population problem."
But this solution has spawned a host of new problems. China's population will
start declining from 2042, according to U.N. statistics. In the nation's
fast-paced cities, the one-child policy has morphed into a no-child philosophy.
While country folk still pine for a large family to plow the fields, city
dwellers—the very people that China hopes will power its economic engine—are
eschewing the delivery room altogether. In Beijing and Shanghai the population
would be shrinking were it not for an influx of migrants from the countryside.
Such alarming news has shaken China's usually torpid parliament into action.
This summer, the rubber-stamp body proposed amending its one-child policy so
that some urban couples can have a second child. It also suggested letting each
province decide how many children a family could have. "A one-size-fits-all
family-planning policy doesn't work," says Zhao Baige, a director general
at the State Family Planning Commission. "China is a large place with
diverse citizens and diverse needs."
The need for family-planning reform is most apparent in China's cities, which
are springing into the modern age with few of the usual safety nets attached.
The first generation of "little Emperors," the coddled offspring of
the one-child policy, are reaching adulthood, and many are showing distressingly
little sense of family obligation. "They're rebelling against all concept
of family," says sociologist Li Yinhe. A record high 29% of urban twenty
somethings profess little interest in marriage or children, according to a
market research poll. In a once unthinkable breach of Confucian tradition, many
are even refusing to care for their elders. China's graying population is
estimated to peak in 2040 and the nation has no mechanism to finance its
welfare.
Even those young men who are interested in starting a family are finding
themselves stymied. Two decades of infanticide and sex-based abortions carried
out by a populace that favors males over females has drastically skewed the
nation's gender balance. There are now 117 boys born for every 100 girls,
compared with a ratio of 105 to 100 globally. "Every girl I meet has
already had several marriage offers," says Gong Min, a 24-year-old computer
salesman from Beijing. In some rural areas, the situation has gotten so bad that
a trade in abducted brides is burgeoning. Last year, 110,000 women were freed
during a crackdown on human trafficking, but millions more will never be found.
"When we started our family-planning policy 20 years ago, we had no idea of
the social problems that would follow," concedes Zhao of the State Family
Planning Commission. "Now we must address the consequences."
But the proposed family-planning amendment may be little more than a token
gesture. In truth, the one-child policy has already been slowly dismantled,
especially in rural China. Certainly, some women are still forced to abort
late-term fetuses in remote rice paddies, so that family-planning officials can
hew to population quotas. But, in general, most peasants are already allowed to
have two children—if the first is either handicapped or a girl. Ethnic
minorities like Tibetans have never had any limits on family size. And in the
teeming cities, only children are themselves allowed to produce two progeny, if
they marry another only child. Indeed, the bill under debate in China's National
People's Congress only legalizes—and perhaps enhances—what has been de facto
practice in recent years.
Still, by formalizing its family-planning policies on a national level, China
hopes to combat one major problem: corruption. In villages, local officials
routinely slap arbitrary fines on citizens with extra children, and share
profits with doctors who push patients to get sterilized. By bringing
decision-making closer to the grass-roots level, Beijing hopes to eliminate the
opportunity for graft. But none of this addresses the larger problems caused by
two decades of social manipulation. Ironically for a developing country, China
is now faced with a decidedly First-World problem: a declining fertility rate
combined with a rapidly graying population. "Instead of tinkering with
family-planning policy, China needs to tackle its social welfare system,"
says a Peking University professor. "We need to figure out who is going to
take care of our parents and grandparents."
In addition, merely loosening rules on urbanites isn't going to convince people
like Carol Yang to suddenly go forth and procreate. "It used to be that if
you didn't have kids people assumed it was because you couldn't," says
Yang. "But now people realize it's your own personal lifestyle
choice." That's a choice too many Chinese may now be making.
Abortion Issue
on China : No questions asked
Thin, dull yellow, wooden benches line the stuffy waiting room. Barred windows
send blocks of light onto a once white linoleum floor. Although this is a
hospital, it smells of neither sterilization fluid nor menthol rub, but of human
sweat. Along a dim hallway, young women in all stages of pregnancy wait on more
paint-chipped benches. A metal examination table, stirrups down and unused, lies
to one side. There is no central air-conditioning.
This was Guangzhou's finest, grade A public hospital when it was built 40 years
ago. Now, it is one of hundreds of private and state-owned clinics stretching
from the boomtown of Shenzhen to the ancient city of Guangzhou that perform tens
of thousands of abortions every year. They draw pregnant women from across
China, and beyond. "Women come from Hong Kong for treatment all the
time," says a tired gynecologist at the Guangzhou Area People's Hospital.
"They even fly in from Beijing, Singapore and Macau."
Why would someone come so far for a medical procedure? One reason is that the
operations are cheap: $60 per patient, all inclusive. But the main draw is the
method used: in 1998, Guangzhou Second City People's Hospital began using
general anesthesia for every operation, which is used in the rest of China
solely for late-term abortions or patients under extreme stress. But here,
thanks to the drugs, all patients are unconscious during the 10-minute
operation. "We've performed over 7,000 'no-pain' abortions since we began
the service midway through 1998," one long-haired nurse at Guangzhou's
Second City People's Hospital boasts. "Now all the hospitals in the region
give 'no-pain' abortions."
And Hong Kong women come despite clean, government-approved alternatives at
home. Paul Yip Sui-fai of the University of Hong Kong's statistics and actuarial
science department says that thousands are making the quick trip across the
border for a cheap, painless procedure. Adds Angela Pau, spokeswoman for the
Hong Kong Family Planning Association: "Almost one-third of women we
surveyed admitted to going to the mainland for abortions."
Hong Kong's official rate of abortion is already high—one per every 2.4
births, against a one-to-five ratio in Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan. But
Yip says the real number could be twice as high. "Adding the illegal and
mainland abortions into consideration would result in an abortion rate of 0.67,
or 67 abortions per 100 live births," Yip explains.
It helps, of course, that on the eastern side of the Pearl River, abortion is
treated as a human right, rather than a metaphysical question. And no one cares
who you are or why you're there. "Girls and women of all ages come in here
everyday for treatment," says the gynecologist at Guangzhou Area People's
Hospital. "I don't ask for reasons or hometowns."
Indian Priminister Vajpayee's China Visit
India, China sign major Economic Agreements
India and China on Monday signed two major agreements -- one on expanding border trade and the other a joint declaration laying down guiding principles for bilateral ties. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao described the inking of the two agreements as a 'new phase' in Sino-Indian ties.
But there was
speculation that expansion of the border trade could be significant if it
involved trade through Nathu La Pass in Sikkim, which China has refused to
recognise as part of India.The two documents were inked at the end of the first
day's talks between Vajpayee and his Chinese counterpart during which the
contentious border dispute was among the topics discussed with 'an openness and
frankness as between friends'.
Wen described the signing of the two documents, at the
Great Hall of the People, as 'a major feat'. Diplomatic sources told PTI the
border trade agreement provides for trade through Sikkim. They added that India
has also decided to recognise the Tibetan autonomous region as part of the
territory of the People's Republic of China.
If trading posts on the Sikkim-Tibet border are opened, it
will, in effect, recognize Sikkim as part of India, 28 years after its merger.
Besides the MoU on border trade, India and China also signed the first-ever
joint declaration, to be made public on Tuesday, which lays down 'goals and
guiding principles' for future relationship between the two Asian giants
As a follow up to the recent China visit of Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee to step up economic cooperation, the government on Friday
decided to offer fresh tariff concessions to Beijing. This was decided at the
Cabinet meeting chaired by the prime minister, Divestment Minister Arun Shourie
told reporters in New Delhi. The tariff concessions have been provided under the
Bangkok Agreement that is in operation among the South Asian and Pacific
countries.
The tariff concessions are expected to be reciprocated by
China. This would lead to a rise in exports of major items like chemicals,
leather, textiles and diamonds to China. With Indian Exports rising and doing
well in major world markets Indian companies are optimistic of making grand
successes in China,The concessions will be available to about 700 items, which
constitute about 30 per cent of Indian exports.Priminister Vajpayee also donated
large consignments of SARS control and other Respiratory Diseases Medicines to
China as a gesture of Goodwill.
Poet Vajpayee wins over Chinese students
'There is no
objective reason for discord' between India and China, Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee told students at the Peking University on Monday. But while
contending that India and China were not a threat to each other, he referred to
the border dispute, saying, "One cannot wish away the fact that before good
neighbors can truly fraternize with each other, they must first mend their
fences."
Referring to the future of Sino-Indian relations as a
'tryst with destiny', the prime minister, who is on a six-day official visit to
China, said he was encouraged by his talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
According to foreign ministry sources, during his talks with Vajpayee, Wen said
China wanted to see historical disputes with India gradually phased out.Vajpayee
inaugurated a Center for Indian Studies at the Peking University before
addressing the students.
The prime minister referred to the 'rivalry' that is often
perceived to exist between the two countries. "It is an unavoidable
characteristic of human nature that there is always a sense of competition
between two close and equal neighbours," he said, adding that healthy and
good-natured economic competition is a positive phenomenon and should not be
shied away from.
True to style, his speech had a fair sprinkling of poetry,
quoting from both Taoist mystic Lao Zi and Rabindranath Tagore."This is the
first time that I am getting the opportunity to hear any Indian poet," said
a second year student of Chinese literature, referring to the Tagore quotation
with which the prime minister closed his speech." I was really moved by
him," said another student. "He looked just like my grandfather and
made me think how alike we all are."
The address lasted around half-an-hour and was not followed by a question and
answer session, which was a disappointment for some students." I hope that
he comes back again some day," said a student.
Personal Note:
I wish to mention that China should understand the Generosity of India and its people and hence they should stop Patronizing Dictatorial Regimes instead they should work in closer Co-ordination with India to help improve Peace and Stability in the Asian Region.
Yellow River
Going Dry
According to a report from
the Yellow River Water Conservation Committee, due to much-reduced flow from
incoming streams, the Yellow River is experiencing a record low in its water
level. As of now, the five main water reservoirs, Longyang Isthmus, Liujia
Isthmus, Wanjiazhai, Sanmen Isthmus and Xiaolangdi, have a total water reserve
of 12.4 billion cubic meters.
Subtracting the minimum reserve of each reservoir, the total amount of water available is only about 3.5 billion cubic meters. This is 7.3 billion less than last year at the same time of year, and it’s a record low level. According to the Meteorology Department, the Yellow River basin’s forecasted rainfall this spring is very little. The drought is severe. According to experts, the Yellow River could fall to its lowest water level since 1950, and the region might experience a serious drought before the end of June.
The course of the Yellow
River in the Lanzhou area is experiencing some extraordinary conditions: the
bottom of the river is exposed. One can no longer see the full might of water
rushing by as in former days on the Yellow River. On the weekends many people go
down to the riverbed to walk around, fly kites and have fun. The rare drought in
the Yellow River region has brought serious challenges to agricultural
development and the people in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia
and Inner Mongolia. Right now, only three out of six electricity generators in
the Liujia Isthmus Water Reservoir are working properly. The whole province of
Gansu is experiencing a blackout so severe it has to buy electricity from nearby
electric providers. Every day the city of Lanzhou is short about 1 million
kilowatts of electricity. Since February 14, Lanzhou has had to ration its
electricity consumption.
Inner Mongolia, which lies around the upper-middle reaches of the Yellow River
will experience the worst drought in its history by the end of this year. The
Hetao Irrigation Area in Inner Mongolia is one of the most important irrigation
areas in China. Several million acres of farmland will be lacking water. This is
because the water reserves of Longyang Isthmus and Liujia Isthmus reservoirs
from the upper reaches of Yellow River have decreased significantly. It has been
estimated that before the irrigation period of April and May, the water storage
from the two reservoirs will be 500 million cubic meters. This is less 1/10 of
the previous years’ storage.
The daily water flow in
Hetao Irrigation Area, Inner Mongolia, will be limited to 100 to 150 cubic
meters per second, as opposed to the 300 to 450 cubic meters per second in the
past. It’s estimated that 300 thousand farmers’ lands [in Inner Mongolia]
won’t be able to get water from the Yellow River.
The Yellow River is drying up throughout its course. Since last August, the
rainfall in Shandong Province was the lowest in the past 50 years. Shandong is
short 8.1 billion cubic meters of water. The whole province’s water reserve is
only 3.4 billion cubic meters. This is a huge gap to fill. Experts estimate
that, beginning in April, the water shortage in the Yellow River will affect
farmers and their water usage will have to be strictly restricted. This means
that some wheat fields in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia won’t be getting any
water at all. Shandong and Henan’s wheat fields will only be able to get a
small amount of irrigation.
The Yellow River dried up once in 1977. About 500 kilometers of its course dried
up, from the mouth of the river to Henan’s Huayuankou. Experts estimate that
this year’s drought will be more severe than 1977’s, and the river will only
yield about 5.5 billion cubic meters of water.
Parts of the Yellow River have dried up before in history. But what worries the
experts is the fact it is getting more severe, with more and longer sections of
the river drying up, and the duration of the drought period getting longer.
On the surface it seems that the weather is the main factor accounting for the
drought. Since 1980, droughts have come often. Especially since 1997, the
recharge zone of the river experienced a four-year-long drought, and the
northern areas were also seriously lacking water. Another factor is the
excessive usage of Yellow River’s water. China has built hundreds of water
dams on the Yellow River in the last 50 years, especially in the upper ranges.
Billions of tons of water are distributed to various dry lands for irrigation.
In the last 10 to 20 years
of economic growth water demand has increased significantly. Various kinds of
river-related construction have put a lot of pressure on the Yellow River.
It’s reported by foreign media that the Yellow River is going to make humans
pay for what they have done, and millions of residents around the river are
going to pay for what they did to the river.
Experts said that if we don’t work to protect the Yellow River, the “mother
river” of the Chinese people might one day dry up. This will be critically
dangerous to the residents and ecosystems surrounding the river. The ancient
Yellow River’s existence has had enormous significance and many meanings in
Chinese history and culture. But what will it mean if it dries up?
Shandong Joins
Guangdong, Jiangsu as China's Economic Giants
The coastal province of Shandong in east China has become one of the country's top three economic areas along with the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu, according to official figures.Zhang Gaoli, governor of Shandong, said the province's gross domestic product (GDP) for the past year is expected to be 1.05 trillion yuan (128 billion US dollars).
The figure represents an increase of 11.5 percent year-on-year and makes Shandong the third provincial area in China with its GDP exceeding the 1-trillion-yuan mark.The governor projected the province's foreign trade for last year at a total of 33.5 billion US dollars, and its actual use of overseas investment at 6.57 billion US dollars, overtaking Shanghai, and Guangdong and other provinces.
Investment in fixed assets in Shandong, a province with a population of about 90 million, jumped by 25 percent last year to 350 billion yuan (42.6 billion US dollars), the fastest growth since 1994, said the governor.Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong, has become one of China's leading manufacturing and processing areas thanks to massive investment from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries or regions.
Jiangsu is famous for its booming manufacturing industry in areas adjacent to Shanghai, the country's industrial center. Though its population is much less than each of the three provinces, Shanghai projected its GDP for 2002 at 540 billion yuan(65 billion US dollars), about half of each of the provinces.
China Names 10
Most Famous Mountains
A list of China's
10 most famous mountains, including Mount Taishan in east China's Shandong
Province and Mount Huangshan in east China's Anhui Province, was published in
Beijing Friday.The mountains were selected by a panel of 21 prestigious Chinese
scholars and specialists, including Sun Honglie, an academician of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences and a member of the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress.
The event was sponsored by the China Territory Economics Institute and a
magazine on land resources. The selection standards included reputation,
cultural heritage, ecological environment and scenery. The 10 were chosen from a
list of 42 mountains.The winners are Taishan (Shandong province), Huangshan (Anhui
province), Emeishan (Sichuan province), Lushan (Jiangxi province), Changbaishan
(northeast China), Huashan (Shaanxi province), Wuyishan (Fujian province) and
Wutaishan (Shanxi province).
Mountainous areas make up 69 percent of China's land territory and their
inhabitants account for 56 percent of the population. They are home to 90
percent of China's forests, 77 percent of its pastures, 76 percent of its lakes
and 98 percent of its hydropower resources.An official with the panel said the
list was intended to promote exploitation of resources in mountainous areas and
promote sustainable social and economic development.