Five
years after starting its "go west" campaign to
develop its western region, China's road
construction in these strategic areas has reached
a gigantic scale. Last month, the Yunnan (ATol map of Yunnan)
provincial government announced the completion of
a central section of the Kunming-Laos highway, a
road that will eventually link Yunnan, in
southwest China, to Thailand. Earlier this year,
also in Yunnan, the new Kunming-Xiaguan highway
was opened; this was the first section of the
improved Yunnan-Tibet highway (ATol map of Tibet). China
intends to complete paving and upgrading the road
all the way to Lhasa. The Sichuan-Tibet highway is
also underway (ATol map of Sichuan),
creating great engineering challenges as workers
upgrade a road on some of the world's highest and
most difficult terrain.
Meantime, on the
other side of the plateau, a new Tibet-Nepal
highway is being built to connect China with the
Indian subcontinent. North of this, new roads
stretch from Xinjiang province (ATol map of Xinjiang) to
Kazakhstan and Pakistan. Still
more roads connect the west to
the booming coastal cities in the east. As a
whole, this network of roads, stretching from
Singapore to Uzbekistan, is the cornerstone in
China's relentless attempts to gain leadership of
the continent through commercial ties.
Road construction has become ubiquitous
throughout the west, from steamy tropics to
snow-capped mountains to arid deserts. It seems as
if everywhere one goes, there is a bypass, a road
under construction, and workers in orange
waistcoats pitching their tents by the roadside.
Some of the results are impressive. The Erlanshan
tunnel, on the Chengdu-Tibet road, is celebrated
as a Chinese engineering achievement almost as
great as the Three Gorges Dam. The asphalt snakes
zigzagging through Xinjiang today seem to belong
to a different era than earlier highway projects,
those former premier Zhu Rongyi once famously
dubbed "tofu constructions" for their scandalously
poor quality.
The justifications for the
western development policy are economic, political
and social. Beijing is increasingly concerned by
the growing economic gap between east and west,
which led to social unrest and riots in different
areas during the 1990s. The "go west" campaign, it
is declared repeatedly, aims to make the west an
"incubator for skilled manpower" and a "hot spot
for foreign investments". Five years after
announcing these large-scale projects, it seems
the western regions have made some progress, but
still face many obstacles.
Focusing on
building roads into the Tibet Autonomous Region
has predictably drawn much criticism from
advocates for the Tibetan cause. Together with the
highly controversial Golmud-Lhasa railroad, argue
some pro-Tibetan groups, these roads will
encourage a further influx of Han Chinese into
Tibet, making the Tibetans a minority inside their
own territory and risking their traditional
culture. The Chinese respond by pointing out the
many benefits to the region and its people that
will come through an improved road system. A
network of superhighways between Thailand and
Tibet via Yunnan will allow easy access for
tourists from southeast Asia to southwest China
and Tibet, both of which have immense tourism
potential.
Yet, the statements about roads
making life better for the Tibetans are debatable.
Most reports by foreign researchers and
journalists show that, whereas investments are
pouring into Tibet in bigger sums than ever
before, the main beneficiaries are Han Chinese
immigrants, whilst Tibetan farmers and herdsmen
still count amongst China's poorest people, often
losing their land for the sake of construction,
and are frequently denied access to information or
the right to participate in decisionmaking
regarding the future of their "autonomous region".
Significantly, the Asia Development Bank, despite
providing US$2.6 billion in loans for roads in
other parts of western China, has announced its
loans will not be used for road construction in
Tibet.
The Tibetan road network, beside
the nominal objective of bringing prosperity and
modernization to the plateau, is highly important
strategically, giving China easy access to the
Himalayas and links into the Indian subcontinent.
This development should, and indeed has, stirred
some disquiet in India, whose side of the
Himalayas has very few roads.
The main
beneficiary: The east Some residents in the
west say the improved roads will merely allow
easier, more convenient shipment of natural
resources to factories in the east, and that the
west will not be the main beneficiary. That
western China is rich in natural resources is not
in dispute: Sichuan and Tibet have minerals,
Qinhai and Xinjiang have oil, and Xinjiang has
natural gas. Until recently, these resources could
not be exploited due to access problems. Providing
easier access for mining projects is definitely
one of the western road network's main goals. As
for goods manufactured inside the region, there is
still great reliance on traditional agriculture,
in which the west has an advantage over the east,
but other investments have been slow to come,
despite government incentives that sometimes
extend to complete tax exemption.
"It
doesn't make sense to transfer industrial capacity
to the western regions, as was mistakenly
attempted during the Third Front campaign of the
1960s and 1970s," says Dr Tim Oaks, a social
geography professor from the University of
Colorado who has spent many years doing research
in western China. "One cannot deny the fact that
the eastern regions stand to benefit a great deal
from western development and one shouldn't assume
that the "go west" campaign will shift the balance
of regional inequality in China that much. I think
that as long as the campaign focuses on
infrastructure, energy, and the intensification of
natural resource extraction in the western
regions, the eastern regions will continue to get
more of the benefits. The western regions would
benefit more if the campaign focused more on
direct poverty relief and improvement in access to
good education and health care."
Despite
this criticism, statistics for the first quarter
of 2005 surprisingly put Yunnan, considered a
remote backwater just a few years ago, as the
fastest-growing provincial economy in China. The
northwestern province of Shaanxi (ATol map of Shaanxi)
followed close behind, while western cities like
Chongqing (ATol map of Chongqing)
and Chengdu are opening up to foreign direct
investment and east-coast capital. The government
sees a modern highway network as a crucial factor
in drawing investments to the area. The business
community generally agrees. "There must be
improvement in road infrastructure in order for
the west to draw investors," says Chris
Devonshire-Ellis, partner at Dezshira, a
consultancy to foreign and joint ventures in
China. "It is crucial to have the road network,
and indeed there has been some improvement,
especially in highways connecting major cities and
manufacturing centers to airports, but still much
needs be done. There should be, for example,
better links between highways and the railway
network to make the transportation of goods more
efficient."
Yunnan and Shaanxi seem to be
the exceptional success stories, however. For the
most part, despite huge government investments
during the last five years, the west still lags
behind - too remote to be attractive to most
investors, and lacking qualified personnel. The
original plan included improvement of the
education system in these regions, alongside
investment in infrastructure, but reports from
different provinces show this element was severely
neglected. Even as a few western cities enjoy
unprecedented prosperity, the rural areas sink
deeper into poverty. One Mr Liao (not his real
name), a school principal from Yunnan, describes
the situation: "Tuition fees have gone up again
this year, making it even harder for peasant
families to send their kids even to primary
school. Our school is understaffed and the
teachers underqualified. Last year, teachers'
salaries were often delayed for weeks, and
sometimes we got less than half of the original
salary."
Reports from Guizhou province,
one of China's poorest, reveal an even graver
picture, with high rates of dropout from schools.
Professor Oaks thinks that though the gap between
east and west is likely to be reduced, the more
significant problem now is the urban-rural divide,
and that, says Oaks, will continue to widen. "The
investment in infrastructure needs to be matched
with investment in education and basic
healthcare," Oaks stresses. "Also, there is a
problem with the scale at which physical
infrastructure is being developed. The
infrastructure that is being built - large dams,
power plants, and highways - primarily benefits
urban and wealthy parts of the western regions.
Most rural areas see little benefit from these
infrastructure developments. Villages still have
to rely upon themselves to improve local roads,
provide water supplies, and so on. And they have
to rely on themselves for providing educational
and health care resources. So infrastructure
development is good, but it's not reaching down to
the most basic levels where it is needed."
An underdeveloped education system,
naturally, will result in the west continuing to
be burdened with a poor population, and will stand
as an obstacle to future economic growth and the
resultant higher living standards.
Devonshire-Ellis ascribes the problem mainly to a
lack of foresight. "There is [a] serious lack of
qualified people in the west," he states.
"Different regions should find their own niches,
and start training people in specific professions,
but there isn't enough long-term planning. There
should be planning for 20 years ahead, combining
infrastructure building and education."
Devonshire-Ellis gives the example of
Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, as a
city finding its niche. "Urumqi's markets are
totally different than those of Shanghai. It has
done a very good job establishing ties with
central Asian markets and is building itself up as
the biggest central Asian city and transportation
hub," he says. The recent purchase of
PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian-owned oil company
operating in the central Asian republic, by the
Chinese oil company CNPC will undoubtedly further
enhance development in this area, and the new
superhighway into Kazakhstan is essential for such
economic cooperation.
In the southwest,
nowhere is the growing income gap more apparent
then on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. A journalist
who took the road recently describes the scene:
"You pass the long Erlanshan tunnel, feeling
you're almost in a science fiction film. Then, a
day later, the highway deteriorates into a barely
passable dirt road." The vast sums invested in
this highway so far are but the beginning. The
greatest challenges for China's transportation
engineers are still ahead, as the sections of the
road passing through the eastern reaches of the
Tibetan plateau have yet to be built. These remote
areas rise over 5,000 meters above sea level and
are often afflicted by floods, landslides and
heavy snowfall. Despite years of construction,
most villages in the region still aren't connected
to any roads. According to state statistics, 90%
of China's poorest people inhabit the western
regions.
Where is the money
going? The corruption and inefficiency of
local governments have caused further unrest in
the rural west, and has been a major drawback for
foreign investors. When announcing the loans for
road construction, the ADB bluntly warned: "many
local governments do not have the capacity to
manage responsibilities delegated to them by the
central government." Some economists describe
investing in the west as being "risky" due to a
lack of understanding of the free market game, and
general ineptitude, on the part of local
governments in the area.
Chris
Devonshire-Ellis sees a lack of cooperation
between the different provinces as a major
problem. "Local governments see other provinces as
competitors, an attitude which often results in
roads between provinces being hindered. The local
governments should put aside their differences and
work together to develop the area." Prof Oaks also
warns against corruption and waste, which, he
argues, are inherent to large developing projects
in China: "when large-scale campaigns occur in
China, they invite many abuses and much corruption
because suddenly many resources are made
available. Much gets wasted, funds get stolen by
corrupt people, and sometimes the results are
worse for people than before the campaign." And of
course, worsened conditions in the rural areas
lead to further social unrest and make western
China an even more risky destination for
investors.
Economic development, though,
is only the overt objective of the "go west"
campaign; the unstated and possibly even more
important goal is strategic. The western regions
as a whole make up more than half of China's
landmass, and border 13 countries. Much of the
population in these areas is ethnic minorities,
sometimes with aspirations for independence. An
improved road network will serve the double aim of
containing these populations, who have long been
one of Beijing's biggest headaches, and improving
China's position against its neighbors. Other
countries thus view the new stretches of asphalt
with mixed feelings of anticipation and fear, as
China emerges as an ever-stronger regional power.
Environmental protection is another
challenge. When the "go west" campaign was
announced in 2000, environmental protection was
one of the key targets, at least on paper.
Although much is being done in regard to
afforestation and water preservation, the rapid
development has still put much pressure on the
west's fragile ecosystems. Beijing's new
environment-friendly policies require all road
constructions to be subjected to environmental
impact assessments, undertaken by local
environment protection bureaus. In reality,
explains a local official for one of these
bureaus, there is often serious pressure from the
local government to hasten the assessment and use
lower standards, so construction can start on
schedule. In addition, apart from the national and
regional highways, there are dozens of smaller
roads being built in the west, connecting counties
and villages to the main transportation arteries.
On many of these smaller county-level roads, the
assessments are all but sketchy, and sometimes
they do not exist, the official adds, and
expresses concern for the future of China's
western forests and waterways if development
continues at such a wild pace. Environmental
problems stand as a serious impediment to greater
investment by multinational corporations in the
region. The China-Britain Business Council, for
example, warns British companies against
involvement in many of the major infrastructure
projects in western regions because of negative
environmental and social impacts.
Some
experts argue that focusing on large-scale
projects isn't necessarily the answer to the
west's problems. "Good infrastructure is crucial
to long term sustainable development," says
Professor Oaks, "but as a whole, development needs
to be carried out at a local scale and made to fit
specific local conditions, which are very
different throughout the western regions. And
instead of focusing on large-scale, costly
projects, the focus should be on small-scale
inexpensive projects that are less visible, like
encouraging small-scale enterprises in rural areas
so that locals don't have to migrate far away to
cities to find jobs. In many regions throughout
China there are people working on projects like
these. But a big difference could be made if the
kind of money spent on projects like the Three
Gorges Dam could be spent on improving access to
rural education, and improving the basic
technology used in rural households. So, while
there is a consensus as to the importance of
building infrastructure and developing projects in
the west, with highway construction as a major
component, the opinions of scholars, investors and
government officials are divided as to the best
way of doing this. One thing is clear. Though in
recent years Beijing's "going west" was somewhat
sidetracked because the central government's
paying heed to other parts of this vast country,
the work is now going on at full scale, with
significant future consequences for the whole
continent and - for better or worse - forever
changing the face of China's west.
Rui Xia is a Western teacher and
freelance writer living in China. Rui Xia is her
unofficial Chinese name.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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