Aug 17, 2006
Found an article on rantburg.com that gives discusses a move by India that gives todays “Great Game” a whole new twist. According to the article (originally from atimes.com), India has a military base under construction in Tajikistan. Tajikistan is rich in oil reserves but has suffered from a lack of foreign investment following the break-up of the Soviet Union stands to benefit both financially and in terms of national security from the presence of Indian troops in the country. From the Indian point of view the base will act as a counter-balance to Chinese-Pakistan co-operation in the region. The Indians will join the Russians who also maintain a base, opened in 2004 in Tajikistan.
You can read the article by clicking on the more button.
[Read more]
Aug 12, 2006
Michael Manning’s wonderful The Opposite End of China blog has an interesting post on another planned railway development involving Xinjiang and the broader Silk Road
region. A plan is in the pipe-line to build two new railway lines with Golmud, in Qinghai Province, (see map) as the hub. One line will run from Golmud to Dunhuang in Gansu Province with the other line connecting to the Urumqi-Kashgar line at Korla.
This comes on the back of talk of a line linking Kashgar with Pakistan over the Karakoram Highway as well as mention we heard made whilst we were in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek recently of a line connecting Kashgar with Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city - Osh. All this might sound like a grandious dream - three new rail routes for Xinjiang - but with the regional importance of Xinjiang in relation to Central Asia and the rich oil reserves waiting to be exploited it certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see a beginning made on some of these plans in the not too distant future.
Of course as Michael points out, it would be at least another 5 to 10 years before a route such as the proposed Korla to Golmud railway brings him trainloads of people to play with on the weekends. Lets hope he can hold out that long.
Apr 17, 2006
There are rumours going around that Xinjiang’s capital will be changed from the present capital of Urumqi to Korla. Urumqi will become a special administrative zone much like Chongqinq (which used to be known as Chung King). Chongqing has a population of some 35 million, a number which is growing daily.
Urumqi’s population is around 3 million, with Xinjiang’s population being just over 20 million. If and when this move takes places, Xinjiang’s population can be expected to increase even more dramatically. This will also have a significant impact on Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities, such as the Uihgur and Mongolian minorities.
Korla too will experience significant changes. Already most of the infrastructure is in place to the west of the current city center to accomodate many more citizens. Tree lined empty avenues welcome the visitor with vacant lots stretching for miles.
OurSilkRoad has heard this from several separate sources, including some in Korla’s local government, but there has been no official announcement.
Apr 4, 2006
Things really seem to be happening over the Khunjrab Pass which serves as the main transport link between China’s Xinjiang province and Pakistan. Xinjiang’s governor Ismail Tiliwaldi was quoted yesterday as saying that his government will look into a rail link between the two Central Asian regions.
Such a link would be a massive engineering undertaking. The pass between Xinjiang and Pakistan rises to some 4733 meters, meaning the line would rival the 1,956-km-long Qinghai-Tibet railway, which links Xining, Qinghai’s capital in northwest China, with Lhasa, capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Qinghai-Tibet railway records the highest elevation of any rail line in the world, reaching 5,072 meters above sea level at Tanggula Range.
This railway would be a boon for both travel and trade in the region. As regards travel, tourists would be able to stop over in Kashgar to enjoy Central Asia’s largest market and some of the sights of the silk road before heading on to Pakistan. Xinjiang’s trade would be the biggest winner as this would truly open up Pakistani ports, simplifying access to lucrative European markets.
Mar 27, 2006
There is an interesting article up on the Asia Times website at the moment detailing plans to run an oil pipeline from Russia through Xinjiang and on into China. That isn’t that much in the way of news, what is thought-provoking is the idea that they raise of extending a branch of the pipeline on into India.
This would take the idea of the Silk Road into the 21st century. The Oil Road would link Russia either from Kashgar over the Kharkoram Highway into Pakistan and on into India or from Korla and over the mountainous but closed border with India.
A lucrative idea with a great deal of wheeling and dealing left to be done.
Mar 13, 2006
There is a good article over at Star.Bulletin.com discussing the shifting power balance that Central Asia is currently experiencing. The author Bill Sharp clearly describes how Russia has lost ground in the region, and despite a growing American military presence in the area in recent years, how China has been the big winner.
China in, Russia out
China maneuvers to replace Russia as a dominant political influence in Central Asia
THE independent Central Asian “stans” — Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — were long obscured from global view when they were individual republics of the Soviet Union. As independent nations, they are now of great interest to China, which is quietly and persistently seeking political leadership in the region through the Chinese dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
[Read more]
Mar 12, 2006
China Daily is carrying a report detailing Chinese plans to connect the vast natural gas reserves in the Taklamakan Desert to energy starved Eastern China.
Environmental concerns aside, this is a massive undertaking which will cost far in excess of the US$5.7 billion price tag for the first pipeline and will serve to further deepen the importance of the Xinjiang region to Chinese development.
China plans second west-east gas pipeline
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-11 16:40
China is planning to build another natural gas pipeline from the energy-rich West to the energy-thirsty East in the coming five years from 2006 to 2010.
[Read more]
Mar 12, 2006
Welcome to Our Silk Road’s new blog.
This is a meta site for all things related to the Silk Road. Travel, deserts, trade and camels! From Japan in the north and Indonesia in the south across China and India through Central Asia, the Silk Road linked East and West in so many ways.
This site continues that tradition.
Apr 27, 2005
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tgl/top/2005/04/413989/
My friend ‘Igor’ has just announced that his band Kurva is breaking up with three of the four members leaving Hanoi in the next wee while. I assume they were better than Weaverbrae (terrible mid 90’s ‘metal’ band from CHCH)…
Igor’s site The Good Life is brought to you by the letter ‘p’ and those good folks at the VietNamNet Bridge and is well worth checking out if you have an inkling.
Favourite quote:
Goat is a culinary delight in many countries, but in Vietnam, where fine rice wine is infused with the animal’s balls, you’re assured of an evening of goatish chaos.
Jan 18, 2005
In January the Kyoto Prefectural Government introduced a service which they have called “Charisma Navigation”. This service is available free for the first three months. It enables visitors to Kyoto to borrow a PDA-like device to help them see the sights of Japans most renowned tourist destination. The service is available in Korean and English. A similar service is scheduled to start early this year in Tokyo.
You can apply online before you arrive.
The English site is here.
And the Korean site is here.
From the Charisma Navigation site:
Kyoto, Japan’s prime tourist destination.
Annually, 67 million people visit Kyoto, but only 800 000 are from
overseas. Language is an obstacle for many foreign tourists, limiting
their ability to get information or access destinations. Guidebooks and
maps provide only limited information, and are inconvenient to use
while en route.
To solve this inconvenience for foreign visitors, the Kyoto Prefecture
Government has developed “Charisma Navigation,†a mobile navigation
system for tourism that provides you with various information and
functions, such as Charisma’s recommended courses with specific theme,
searching tourism database, navigating to the destination by bus,
subway and on foot with help of GPS, so that you can easily get
authentic but local tourism contents in Kyoto and Nara.
