Travelling the Silk Road: A Virtual Tour

October 22, 2008

This blog traces our journey along the eastern part of the Silk Road starting from its eastern terminus in the city of Xi'an (also known as Chang'an when it was the capital of the Tang dynasty and one of the world's great cosmopolitan centers) and moving westward to Urumqi, the present-day capital of China's westernmost province of Xinjiang. From Urumqi, we took a bus to the Turfan basin which is the lowest and the hottest spot in China, and then a car to Heavenly Lake in the Tianchi mountains. Unfortunately, we did not make it to two important Silk Road stopovers -- Dunhuang in Gansu province and Kashgar which is on the edge of China's western border. Dunhuang's caves contained a treasure trove of documents and art that tell us much of what we know about life along the Silk Road between the 8th and 10th centuries. Kashgar was an important crossroads for East-West interaction, and is famous for its lively bazaar (marketplace).


XI'AN

Xi'an sits in the Wei river valley which has been home to the capitals of several major dynasties, including the Qin, the Western Han, and the Tang. Xi'an (or more precisely the nearby town of Xianyang) is home to the terracotta warriors (see picture below) and the tomb of the emperor who first unified China and established the Qin dynasty. The city reached its peak in the Tang dynasty when it was a bustling cosmopolitan center for East-West trade along the Silk Road, and a place where many different cultures and religions coexisted.


One sign of this religious diversity can be found in the famous Muslim quarter which we visited and ate lunch. The Muslim quarter is home to much of the city's Hui (Chinese Muslim) community. Muslims have been here since at least the 7th century, though today's community is said to date back to the Ming dynasty.


The Muslim quarter is home to the Great Mosque which was said to have been founded in the 8th century, although most of the buildings date back to the more recent Ming and Qing dynasties. The Great Mosque contains an interesting mix of Chinese and Islamic architecture. It faces west towards Mecca but contains many features one finds in Chinese Buddhist temples and gardens such as rocks, pagodas and archways (see pictures below). (Speaking of Buddhist temples, Xi'an is also home to the Big Goose Pagoda which is surrounded by Da Ci'en Temple, one of the largest temples in Tang dynasty Chang'an. The pagoda housed Buddhist sutras brought back from India by the monk Xuan Zang who spent much of his life translating these scriptures.)






















In the Muslim quarter, we ducked into a restaurant for a taste of yangrou paomo (made of flat bread crumbled into a bowl of noodles, mutton and broth), lamb kebabs, noodles and tea. A meal that was very different from what you'd find in a typical Chinese restaurant.





















There were also many vendors selling dried fruit, nuts, and the delicious peanut and walnut cakes and dried permissons (see picture on the left). We picked some peanut cakes up from this friendly gentleman.






















URUMQI

After Xi'an we flew to the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi. Xinjiang is fascinating: it's very different from the rest of China both geographically and demographically. It's population is very diverse and contains around 50 ethnic groups, many of whom have more similarities with Central Asian peoples than with Han Chinese. The main ethnic group are the Uighurs, but there are also Kazahks, Hui, Mongols, Russians, etc. There are also quite a few Han Chinese settlers. Xinjiang these days is under a tight security blanket because of acts of violence committed against Chinese police and militia in the last few months. There is a small separatist movement here which has been fighting for the creation of a East Turkestan state. They have been branded terrorists by the Chinese government, but other Uighers who are not part of this group have been implicated and harrassed as well. When we traveled to Xinjiang last summer (2007), the violence had not yet flared up and the security thankfully was not so tight.

Urumqi seems like a regular Chinese city with little of the Muslim flavor present in places like Turfan and Kashgar. There is a major bazaar, Erdaoqiao which also boasts a KFC (note the Arabic script underneath Colonel Sanders, and the Chinese characters for KFC just above the doorway)......




















.....and of course the Uighur food which we took in at a well-known local restaurant (what you see in this picture is lamb kebabs, polo or rice pilaf, nokot or chickpeas with carrot, yogurt and tea)...

















....and stands along the street selling flat bread (nan) and lamb kebabs, but otherwise not much else to suggest that we are moving away from China and towards Central Asia.























From Urumqi, we took a cheap, but comfortable airconditioned (very important!) bus into the hot Turfan basin, about a 2 1/2 hour ride east of Urumqi. As we drove into the basin, we could feel the temperature rising in the bus. In the remaining pictures, you'll see the extremes in the geography of this region, from grassland to desert to high mountains, and get some sense of how inhospitable and difficult the terrain was for travelers coming along the Silk Road who had to navigate this terrain.























TURFAN (TURPAN)

We went to Turfan in August, so it was hot but our driver who we had hired when we got into the Turfan bus station told us it was pretty pleasant for Turfan, only in the mid-90s. (Apparently, temperatures around 110 during the summer are quite common.) Our driver took us first to Grape Valley, a lush green valley where grapes are grown. Grapes and raisins are one of Xinjiang's main crops and grape vines, and grapes being laid out to dry everywhere. On the left is a picture of where we stopped to have lunch (notice the large clusters of grapes hanging on the trellis). Grape Valley is the green area just behind the girl in the traditional Uighur dress.






















Our next stop was to look at a karez, which is an ingenious kind of irrigation system used to irrigate crops in this hot, arid landscape. The term "karez" refers to a system of underground channels dug to bring water from the mountains down to the plains. The picture below on the left shows an actual channel. At regular intervals along these channels are dug wells to allow people access to extend the channels further (see picture of the scale model on right). This entire system is fed by gravity thus eliminating the need for pumps. Having the channels underground also reduces water loss from evaporation. Turfan, and a number of other oasis towns in the area, owe their existence to the karez, some of which were constructed more than 2000 years ago.































From the karez, we moved on to the Jiaohe ruins. These ruins, along with the Gaochang (Khocho) ruins are a reminder of the importance of this region to the Chinese empire during the Han and Tang dynasties. Jiaohe was a military garrison during the Han and Tang dynasties, while Gaochang was the Uighur capital in the 9th century and an important provincial post on the Silk Road until it burned down in the 14th century. Jiaohe is striking not only because the ruins are still well preserved, but because its baked ruins are built on this leaf-shaped plateau bounded by two verdant river valleys. Here's one of the river valleys. The Jiaohe ruins sit on the plateau to your right.




Among the ruins in Jiaohe are a Buddhist temple built around the 5th century (picture on the right), and a stupa (picture on the left), reminders of the early Buddhist influence in this region that came via the Silk Road through India. I also couldn't resist putting in a picture of what looked like Homer Simpson's profile (did he come on the Silk Road?), and a picture of the site of what is thought to be the Jiaohe government office.



























































As my wife remarked to me later, one amazing thing about these ruins is that many of the structures remind you of the present dwellings you see all around Turfan. I've included here a picture of a present-day cemetery in the village of Tuyoq on your left, and a picture of the ruins on your right. A reminder of how little things have changed out here in the hinterland.



























We then asked the driver to take us to the village of Tuyoq which is off the beaten tourist track. On the way, we stopped to snap a picture of Flaming Mountain and got back quickly into the (barely) airconditioned car.



The village of Tuyoq was an fascinating place that looked like it had been preserved for centuries. It mainly produces grapes (what else!) and has been a pilgrimage site for Muslims for centuries. Below are some pictures of the village. The picture on the left is facing the village mosque. Note the beds on the roof in the foreground. When we asked about this, we were told that people often sleep on the roof in the evenings because it's cooler. The picture on the right is taken on a hill behind the mosque.

































As noted, Tuyoq has been a destination for Muslim pilgrims who go to the village to visit the mazar, or symbolic tomb of the first Uighur Muslim. The mazar is up on a hillside above the village surrounded by earthen walls. When we ventured up, there were a number of people inside the mazar (the structure with the green roof). They did not allow us to go inside. Up on the hillside, there were poles with pieces of clothing tied to them which function as prayer flags.






















Further upstream from Tuyoq are a series of Buddhist caves dating back to the 3rd century B.C. Some of the art was damaged, we were told, by Muslims and Japanese soldiers. I tried to take some pictures of the cave art, but a guard was standing there telling me no pictures. When I tried to take one, he tried to take my camera away. I told him no way, and then agreed to delete the picture.























HEAVENLY MOUNTAIN (TIANCHI)

After several days in Turfan, we hired a car to take us up to Tianchi (Heavenly Mountain) which is part of the Tianshan mountain range that runs east-west across central Xinjiang. Tianchi is a picturesque glacier lake about 7,000 feet in elevation, though some of the peaks around the lake reach over 16,000 feet. We stayed in a Kazakh yurt by the lake and hired some Kazakh guides to take us up the mountain by horseback. This area is settled mainly by Kazakhs who raise sheep on the mountainside. Below you see the two guys who led our horses up the mountain. Note their facial features which are more akin to people of Central Asia than to Han Chinese. Also below are pictures of the outside and inside of the yurt where we slept. The wood stove inside the yurt came in very handy as temperatures even in August went down to the 50s.













































































We asked the people who managed the yurts to kill a sheep for us and roast some lamb kebabs for us. They were the best kebabs I've ever had. We shared them with some other backpackers who were staying there -- an Israeli, a Dutch couple, and two Afghan New Yorkers who were working in Kabul for the U.S. government -- along with a simple meal of rice pilaf, carrots and tea.

Letter from Beijing: China and Tibet

Here's an op-ed I wrote for the Poughkeepsie Journal which should come out sometime this week.

April 13, 2008

LETTER FROM BEIJING

It’s been almost a year since I wrote in these pages. I had just arrived in Beijing and the major issues were safety concerns about Chinese exports to the U.S., environmental pollution, and the Beijing Olympics. The first two issues are still there but have been eclipsed by the protests in Tibet, and their effect on the Beijing Olympics.

We will be here for the Olympics and are watching this global drama unfold with great interest, and some anxiety. We have an uneasy feeling that there may be more than sporting events taking place in Beijing for our entertainment come August.

The Chinese government now has its huge propaganda machine at full throttle. In the first days of the Tibet protests, there was little news and many Beijing residents knew nothing about the protests. Then suddenly, the news about Tibet began to appear with every conceivable spin on the protests and the response by the international community.

In the eyes of the Chinese media, the Tibetan protests were violent, the Dalai Lama was behind this violence, and pro-Tibetan protests abroad were the work of a small number of Tibetans. Most Chinese here accept this view, although a small group of Chinese intellectuals did call for an independent investigation of the protests.

For those of us here with access to other sources of information, a very different picture emerged. In this picture, the Tibet protests started off peacefully before turning violent, the Dalai Lama called for dialogue, and the outrage over China’s treatment of Tibet was not limited to a small number of Tibetans. Instead, we were hearing from a wide range of human rights activists, political leaders, and other prominent voices in the West.

Some of these anti-Chinese protests and criticisms have been thoughtful, but others have engaged in China-bashing that borders on racism. One CNN commentator has called the Chinese a bunch of goons, and said that China hasn’t changed at all.

Complicating these two contrasting images is a third picture of Chinese around the world rallying in support of the Chinese government. These Chinese do not understand why the world is picking on China just when it’s having its big coming-out party. They point out there are other oppressed groups, and dictatorships much worse than China. They ask why China is being portrayed as the big bully when not long ago it was a poor country picked apart by Western and Japanese imperialists? Why doesn’t China get credit for expanding opportunities and freedoms for a billion plus people and bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty?

This response by Chinese who have access to other sources of information should make us think twice about how we in the West respond. This event is unlike the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests where Western critics were joined by many Chinese at home and abroad. In the case of Tibet, any Western criticism must contend with a unified front consisting of the Chinese government and Chinese people. Tibet is also unlike the food safety scares where international criticism prompted the Chinese government to make changes in its regulatory system. The Chinese government is unlikely to budge on Tibet which it sees as an issue of territorial integrity.

So am I saying that we should not criticize China, stand by and do nothing? No, I would encourage people to make their voice heard but to do it in a way that will both apply pressure and promote dialogue. China does care about its image and international opinion. But I would advise against China-bashing, which is counterproductive and will only make the Chinese government dig in its heels. It is important that we express our outrage, but more important that we do so in ways that engage China and the Chinese rather than turn them away.

The one thing I would add to my closing words is that we could all benefit from learning more about the history of Tibet and China. For a short primer, see this New York Times editorial by Elliot Sperling, a Tibet specialist, in the April 13, 2008 New York Times.

Don't Know Much About Tibetan History

By ELLIOT SPERLING

Bloomington, Ind.

FOR many Tibetans, the case for the historical independence of their land is unequivocal. They assert that Tibet has always been and by rights now ought to be an independent country. China's assertions are equally unequivocal: Tibet became a part of China during Mongol rule and its status as a part of China has never changed. Both of these assertions are at odds with Tibet's history.

The Tibetan view holds that Tibet was never subject to foreign rule after it emerged in the mid-seventh century as a dynamic power holding sway over an Inner Asian empire. These Tibetans say the appearance of subjugation to the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries, and to the Manchu rulers of China's Qing Dynasty from the 18th century until the 20th century, is due to a modern, largely Western misunderstanding of the personal relations among the Yuan and Qing emperors and the pre-eminent lamas of Tibet. In this view, the lamas simply served as spiritual mentors to the emperors, with no compromise of Tibet's independent status.

In China's view, the Western misunderstandings are about the nature of China: Western critics don't understand that China has a history of thousands of years as a unified multinational state; all of its nationalities are Chinese. The Mongols, who entered China as conquerers, are claimed as Chinese, and their subjugation of Tibet is claimed as a Chinese subjugation.

Here are the facts. The claim that Tibet entertained only personal relations with China at the leadership level is easily rebutted. Administrative records and dynastic histories outline the governing structures of Mongol and Manchu rule. These make it clear that Tibet was subject to rules, laws and decisions made by the Yuan and Qing rulers. Tibet was not independent during these two periods. One of the Tibetan cabinet ministers summoned to Beijing at the end of the 18th century describes himself unambiguously in his memoirs as a subject of the Manchu emperor.

But although Tibet did submit to the Mongol and Manchu Empires, neither attached Tibet to China. The same documentary record that shows Tibetan subjugation to the Mongols and Manchus also shows that China's intervening Ming Dynasty (which ruled from 1368 to 1644) had no control over Tibet. This is problematic, given China's insistence that Chinese sovereignty was exercised in an unbroken line from the 13th century onward.

The idea that Tibet became part of China in the 13th century is a very recent construction. In the early part of the 20th century, Chinese writers generally dated the annexation of Tibet to the 18th century. They described Tibet's status under the Qing with a term that designates a "feudal dependency," not an integral part of a country. And that's because Tibet was ruled as such, within the empires of the Mongols and the Manchus. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, Tibet became independent once more.

From 1912 until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, no Chinese government exercised control over what is today China's Tibet Autonomous Region. The Dalai Lama's government alone ruled the land until 1951.

Marxist China adopted the linguistic sleight of hand that asserts it has always been a unitary multinational country, not the hub of empires. There is now firm insistence that "Han," actually one of several ethnonyms for "Chinese," refers to only one of the Chinese nationalities. This was a conscious decision of those who constructed 20th-century Chinese identity. (It stands in contrast to the Russian decision to use a political term, "Soviet," for the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.)

There is something less to the arguments of both sides, but the argument on the Chinese side is weaker. Tibet was not "Chinese" until Mao Zedong's armies marched in and made it so.

Elliot Sperling is the director of the Tibetan Studies program at Indiana University's department of Central Eurasia Studies.

Chinese Nationalism and the Nanjing Massacre

So what is Chinese nationalism, and what does it have to do with the Nanjing Massacre which is the subject of the podcasts that you will be listening to? This is a much bigger topic of course than I can take on in this one blog, but let me try to provide a little context. First of all, most scholars agree that Chinese nationalism (and nationalism as a general term) is a modern invention. Nationalism is closely tied with the emergence of the nation-state. Both concepts have their origins in the European experience. Here the nation refers to a group of people who enjoy a common cultural or ethnic bond, and the state refers to an independent country with a sovereign government, clear territorial boundaries and a loyal population. Nationalism refers to pride in and loyalty to the nation-state, or a desire to establish a nation-state. Nationalism is a particularistic force that sees one’s people as distinct from other peoples or nations.

These concepts of nationalism and the nation-state become relevant to China after its encounter with European powers in the Opium War of 1840-42. Prior to this time, China saw itself as a civilization based on a set of universalistic principles that other civilizations could adopt. Chinese culture, not the nation-state, was the focus of people’s loyalty. But the Opium War and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-85 forced China’s integration into the modern interstate system. China no longer saw itself as a universalistic civilization superior to all others, but as one nation-state among a community of states. Chinese elites in the early 20^th century began to use norms associated with nationalism and the nation-state – sovereignty, territorial integrity and the equality of states – to defend its own borders from the incursions of imperialist powers. Nationalist discourse occupies a prominent place in the Revolution of 1911, in Sun Yatsen’s writings, in the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and in the formation of both the KMT and the CCP. (Not surprisingly, we also see nationalism on the rise in the rest of Asia during this period.)

Thus, Japan’s invasion of China in 1936 occurs just when nationalism is on the rise in China. By this time, nationalism had become an effective way to gain popular support and unify the masses, certainly more effective than other ideologies that were being debated at the time such as liberalism, fascism, anarchism, and perhaps even Marxism. Indeed, some scholars have argued that appeals to nationalism, rather than to Marxist principles, were a major reason for the CCP’s rise to power in the 1930s and 1940s.

Chinese Nationalism and Tibet: Take the Chinese seriously

In the last few weeks, the headlines here in China and abroad have been inundated with news about the uprisings in Tibet, and the international and domestic response to these uprisings. A major leitmotif that runs through many of these stories is Chinese nationalism. What we are seeing in these media reports, and in the blogosphere, is an outpouring of nationalism and patriotism on the part of Chinese both in China and abroad. These Chinese resent the way that the Chinese government and the Chinese themselves have been portrayed. They complain that Westerners are quick to jump on China for problems with human rights and food safety without recognizing the tremendous progress China has made in the past few decades. They support the Chinese government’s position on a unified China, and point out that people in the West use a double standard with regard to Tibet. Westerners, they say, get all riled up about Tibetan independence, but remain silent on independence for Palestinians, Kurds, and other oppressed peoples around the world. Why should all their anger be directed at China, particularly a China that has developed so successfully, lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and restored a sense of pride and dignity to the Chinese nation?

It’s worth quoting here from Wenran Jiang’s April 4 op-ed piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Jiang, a well-respected Chinese-born political science professor from Canada, writes:

“For their part, many in the Chinese diaspora have exhibited a strong sense of nationalism that opposes any Tibetan independence movement and resents any form of boycott of the Beijing Olympics. What is surprising, however, is the very high level of mobilization of Chinese public opinion that is not as much a response to Beijing's rallying calls for national unity as it is a strong reaction to what many Chinese perceive as the one-sided reporting of the Tibetan unrests by the mainstream Western press. Chinese people everywhere want their side of the Tibet story told.

Unlike in 1989, when Chinese all over the world, including scholars and students from the mainland, protested against the government crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square, Chinese people have taken to streets this time in support of Beijing. In the past week, such rallies have taken places in European cities, in Montreal and Calgary, and one is expected in Edmonton this weekend.

While many overseas Chinese believe that Beijing's extremely harsh and hostile words against the Dalai Lama are neither effective nor well received by the Western public, they still see mainstream Western news media as being excessively anti-China. (Many noted errors in the reporting, including the mislabeling of photos of Indian and Nepalese police confronting demonstrating monks as Chinese soldiers cracking down in Tibet.) They have fed their observations back to Chinese cyberspace instantly, and what we are witnessing is an emerging synergy of cybernationalism connecting many Chinese at home and abroad.

But what has propelled this strident nationalism? Why has the disdain for Tibet independence and its ambitions become so highly charged and emotional? Hasn't the Chinese Communist Party simply been using nationalism as a tool of legitimacy for staying in power? Aren't most Chinese brainwashed since childhood?

First of all, there is an overwhelming sense among the Han Chinese (the country's predominant ethnic group) that Tibet has been part of China for centuries. True, Chinese control over Tibet was weakened when China was invaded by Western powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. But the Han have not forgotten the earlier ties. As well, Central Intelligence Agency-funded Tibetan covert operations against China in most of the Cold War years are well documented, stirring further resentment. As such, historical memory ensures that in the minds of the Han, any perceived attempts to separate Tibet from China will be linked with the humiliation the Chinese suffered at the hands of Western and Japanese imperialism. So, to most Chinese, a potential boycott of the Beijing Olympics is viewed as a denial of China's moment in restoring its respectable position in the world.

Second, many Chinese deeply believe to this day that the People's Republic of China has lifted Tibet's people out of a medieval serfdom that was degrading to the majority of Tibetans, especially women. The attitude, felt particularly by the communist and socialist idealists, is not unlike that felt some years ago by many in North America who saw the spread of their European culture as bringing civilization to the native people. Just as aboriginal children were put in boarding schools and forced to learn English, many Chinese thought they were giving emancipation to an oppressed people under the name of socialism and progress. While not denying Chinese policy failures in Tibet over the years, many reacted angrily to the recent charge that they were committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet. They point out that what China did in Tibet is generous in contrast to how native Indians were treated in North America over 400 years.

Finally, many Han Chinese also think Tibetans should appreciate the tremendously high level of financial and other support that has been poured into their region, both from the central government, in the form of subsidies, and from the market adventurists who have invested heavily in the area in recent years. To the Han, such economic development is seen as eliminating poverty and bringing prosperity to the ordinary people of Tibet, as in the rest of China. That's why the shocking images of angry young Tibetans violently attaching Han Chinese and other non-Tibetans made Chinese people recoil in indignation. (Even though they might note that while the gap between the rich and poor in the rest of China is mostly a distribution issue, the division line between the haves and have-nots appears to be drawn along ethnic lines in Tibet.)

Taken together, these historically-conditioned perceptions will continue to shape events. And failing to understand the deep-rooted emotions on both sides will not only hinder potential solutions to the complex issues involved, but may risk generating further divisions.”

Note the connection Jiang makes between the Chinese nationalism on display today and the earlier Chinese nationalism that arose in response to Western and Japanese imperialism. These expressions of nationalism, and the arguments that come out of them, have to be taken seriously by anyone who seeks to understand and deal with a rising China. Otherwise, we risk alienating an important global player, not to mention a major portion of the world’s population. We also risk aggravating already serious misunderstandings and misperceptions between Westerners and Chinese. And indeed, a number of things said about China’s treatment of Tibet by Western media and groups like the Free Tibet movement have been guilty of fanning the flames of Chinese nationalism by portraying China as a big bully, and calling for the international community to boycott the Olympics.

The Chinese Military History Museum

March 20, 2008

Today I decided to take a second trip to the Chinese Military History Museum (or more accurately, the Military Affairs Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution) which is located on the western side of Beijing. I wanted to refresh my memory about the exhibits and take a few more pictures for this blog (see my Flickr site for all the pictures).

To get to the subway, I had to take a taxi from my house. On the way down, I got into an interesting conversation with my driver who asked me what I thought about the recent protests (or riots depending on which perspective you’re taking) in Tibet. I said I didn’t trust the Chinese government’s reports and wish I had more information about what was going on. I didn’t doubt that there was violence on both sides, but said the government had all the firepower and should be careful how they handled these protests. Being a good Chinese citizen, he tried to defend the government’s actions. He said, the Tibetans were causing a lot of disorder, burning and looting. I went back to my point about the Chinese government’s lack of credibility, especially in the eyes of the international community, but I don’t think I persuaded him. Before we could get any further in our discussion, I was at the subway station.

The Military History Museum looks from the outside like a piece of Soviet-inspired architecture and inside it’s appropriately dim and dreary until you get to the exhibits. Today, entrance was free and there were crowds of schoolchildren traipsing past the exhibits.

The purpose of this museum is pretty clear, at least to an American who is cynical about these kinds of things, and that is to instill pride in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and China in general. The third floor which is about the People’s Liberation Army today is one big propaganda ad, full of glowing, colorful displays of shiny weaponry and smiling soldiers and politicians contributing to China’s development. Perhaps it’s appropriate that the gift shop is located on that floor! After leaving that exhibit, who wouldn’t want to buy a medal with Mao’s picture on it, or a shiny tank made out of bullet casings!

The first two floors, which is where I spent most of my time, is more interesting. The display, particularly the socialist realist artwork, are still meant to instill nationalist pride (as you can see from the pictures) but there is more attention to history in the form of photos, documents and other artifacts. The first floor tells the story of how the CCP and the PLA developed after the split between the CCP and KMT in 1927 up to the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The second floor continues the story of China’s (meaning the CCP’s!) resistance against the Japanese, and the civil war between the CCP and KMT that ends with the CCP’s victory in 1949.

There are several things I took away from this visit:

One is that the displays drive home the fact that the CCP and the PLA developed hand in hand. The party and the army, politics and the military, were one (and you could say the same about the KMT). All the important CCP leaders after 1949 had their formative experience in the PLA. Conversely, the PLA was not just a military machine. It played an important role in the CCP’s ideological and social campaigns to recruit support from the peasantry. This close relationship between the party and army is still important to understanding the CCP today.

Second, the exhibit gives you an appreciation for how long, arduous and precarious the process of building an organization like the CCP was. When the CCP began to strike out on its own in 1927, it’s survival was by no means guaranteed. There was infighting among its own members (something only hinted at in the displays), attempts by the KMT to eliminate the CCP, the Long March which decimated the Communist forces, the Japanese invasion, and then the KMT again. One nightmare after another. Yet the CCP was able to overcome all these obstacles and grow stronger in the process. Even for hardened cynics like myself, the displays do inspire admiration for what CCP leaders were able to accomplish in the face of incredible odds. I can only imagine what the Chinese feel after leaving the museum.

Third, keep in mind that this is a military museum and thus it leaves out much of the social and cultural changes taking place during this very turbulent period. As I said earlier, the PLA (or Worker and Peasant Red Army as it was initially called) was as much a military force as it was an organization for carrying out the ideological and socioeconomic experiments of the CCP in the countryside. In this sense, the CCP was built to “win the hearts and minds” of the peasantry and did so much more successfully than the U.S. troops ever were able to do in Iraq.

Xinjiang -- part of and apart from China

In August, my family and I went to Xinjiang for a week. We went to the capital, Urumqi, and the adjoining Turfan Basin and Tianchi (Heavenly Lake) up in the Tianshan mountain range. Xinjiang is a huge chunk of China. It is bigger than Alaska but more important to China than Alaska is to the U.S. It sits on about 30% of China’s oil reserves and adjoins that volatile but oil and natural gas-rich region known as Central Asia.

While Xinjiang is part of China, it also stands apart from China in many ways – culturally, geographically, historically and politically speaking. Culturally, the different ethnic minorities that populate Xinjiang are Turkic-speaking people who have more in common with their Central Asian and Russian neighbors. Uighers, Kazaks, Mongols, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Russians are some of the major ethnic groups living in Xinjiang. We saw displays of these different ethnic minorities in the provincial museum in Urumqi. The food in this region is very different from typically Chinese food, and again shares more in common with Central Asia and the Middle East as you can see in some of our pictures in the Flickr website.

Geographically, this is a region that is very different from either the rice fields of southern China or the loess plains of northern China. Much of it is inhospitable land, consisting of desert or high mountains with pockets of oasis towns, as you can see from our pictures from Turfan and Tianchi.

Historically, Xinjiang has only been part of China since the Qing dynasty when the Qianlong emperor’s military campaigns succeeded in defeating the Zunghar tribes (also known as Western Mongols) that had given the Manchus fits since the start of the Qing. By 1759, with the capture of the cities of Kashgar and Yarkand at the far western edge of Xinjiang, the Qing had expanded China’s territory further than at any point in China’s history. Indeed, Xinjiang literally means "new frontier" in Chinese.

Before the Qing, this region was an important part of the Silk Road that connected China with central Asia, India, the Middle East and southern Europe. Some of the places we visited – Urumqi and Turfan – were important stopovers on the northern Silk Road. The Silk Road was not only an important conduit for the trade of goods such as silk and jade, but also for the exchange of different religions and values such as Buddhism and Islam, of which we saw many influences. Here are pictures of an ancient Buddhist stupa and relative more modern mosque as examples of those religious influences. Up the valley from that mosque were caves dug into the hillsides filled with Buddhist scupltures and art.

Politically, the inhabitants of Xinjiang have posed challenges for China’s attempts at integrating them into the Chinese nation. Since Xinjiang became part of China, China’s rulers have had to contend with Muslim uprisings. Most recently, a group calling for the establishment of a separate Turkestan state (Turkestan is an old name for this region) has been active in this region. A few years ago, they conducted some bombings of buses in Urumqi and even once in Beijing. The government responded with a harsh crackdown, executing several leaders of the movement in Korla, the second largest city in Xinjiang just south of Urumqi. In talking to the Uighers here, you certainly sense resentment of Chinese control, especially of the oil resources. Uighers often learn their own language in schools and are not required to learn Mandarin. As a result, Xinjiang is a satisfying place for Americans to go because you feel this is one place in China where the natives speak Chinese about as well you as do! But they love it also when you try to speak Uigher with them.

We had a great time in Xinjiang, and only wish we could have had more time. We will definitely be back. A few impressions about Xinjiang from our brief time there.

Xinjiang is huge. One week was clearly not enough to see this enormous province. We only travelled around central Xinjiang, but there is a very different Xinjiang to the north and particularly to the south where the southern Silk route winds around the Taklamakan desert to meet the high mountains separating Xinjiang from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We also never got to the far western city of Kashgar and its famed bazaar which is seen as a meeting point of Eastern and Western cultures.

A sense of how much Xinjiang is not a part of China and the challenges that face China in integrating this province and making the Uighers and other minorities feel that they are Chinese above all else. Urumqi was the only city where one felt that this integration and Chinese settlement was working. Urumqi was not that different from other Chinese cities, increasingly modern and quite liveable.

The natural beauty of the region. Getting out of the polluted environs of Beijing, we were struck by the clear, blue skies especially in the high altitudes of Tianchi, and the unspoiled beauty of the mountains and desert. At the same time, the life of many of the people outside of Urumqi is not that easy. Life looked pretty spartan in the village of Tuyoq, although the explosion of the Chinese tourist industry seems to be bringing money into this region.