Old Silk Route Hub Looks to Rekindle Indian Connections

It’s half past seven in the morning and the centre of Lanzhou, a city of almost four and a half million inhabitants in northwestern China, is already buzzing with activity and early rush hour traffic. Located more than 2,000 kilometres to the northwest of Shanghai, the capital of the large Gansu province is a major industrial hub and a link between the country’s prosperous east and what many call the underdeveloped west.

With its wide streets, modern skyscrapers, parks and promenades that run parallel to the Yellow River, it’s hard to call Lanzhou anything but a developed city. Officials, though, talk of the great prosperity of cities like Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, and the need to spread out the wealth across the breadth of China, especially to regions that do not enjoy the prosperity of the likes of Shanghai.

The city entered the railway age as early as 1953 and is a major hub in the country, but as we witnessed the evening before, the flight from Shanghai revealed a largely underpopulated landmass after the plane flew over Nanjing. Nothing would delight officials from Gansu more than to have citizens in the country’s east internally migrate to this huge province that boasts of some of the world’s most stunning landscapes including the Gobi Desert, cold lakes and snow-covered mountains. 

The main provincial museum, whose most famous artefact is the 2nd Century CE bronze sculpture, called the Flying Horse of Gansu, boasts of several exhibits of Buddhist art that have a strong Indian influence. It was through the Ancient Silk Route that Buddhism found its way to China from India more than two thousand years ago. Other signs of India are visible in old Buddhist imagery, such as peacocks and Apsaras, beautiful celestial beings depicted as hovering over the Buddha. 

The Silk Route also brought Islamic influences to China and there are clear traces of this in Lanzhou, such as Central Asian-influenced cuisine, particularly skewered meat, and a significant number of minority Hui Muslims. The city’s major mosque was opened in 1990 and does not particularly stand out from its surroundings. 

Environmental Clean-up 

Being in a dry and water-scarce area, signs appear in hotels and other prominent places to save every drop of water. With its advancements in technology, particular care has been taken to ensure that water is recycled for the thriving floriculture industry. 

Attempts to plant trees on barren hills have also begun to bear fruit. Officials say the afforestation efforts in the city that began in earnest in 2013 have helped improve the city’s water resources, reduced the impact of climate change and also decreased the amount of sand in the Yellow River.   

Known as one of the most polluted cities in China thanks to its petrochemical industry and the dust storms from the Gobi Desert, the capital of Gansu has managed to partially clean up the air, although the skies were not nearly as clear as we would witness in Beijing a few days later. 

One of the major initiatives to spread out the development in the area is the Lanzhou New Area (LNA), a 1744-square kilometre extension of Lanzhou, which is located 70 kilometres away from the city. According to a report from the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral institution established by the BRICS members in 2015, 9770 new companies have been registered in the LNA since its foundation. The report added that the LNA has a  total of 350 global trade companies that export products to over 50 countries, and that a total of 627 companies relocated there.

The LNA, which is also becoming an educational hub, is a fine example of planning going right with its share of broad tree-lined avenues that looked particularly appealing in the autumn with the golden, red, brown and orange foliage. 

The 453,000-square kilometre Gansu Province lies between the Chinese Loess and Tibetan plateaus, borders Sichuan, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia and also shares a functional international border with Mongolia. 

At a time when signs are emerging of a slowdown in the Chinese economy, officials from Gansu talk of re-establishing the area’s ancient links with India, saying this would present a win-win situation for both countries. Off the record, they speak of a lukewarm response from their Indian counterparts to proposals for greater economic cooperation, insisting that joint ventures would pave the way to address the over $100 billion trade deficit that India faces with China.

Few developments in the LNA are as impressive as the greenhouse growing roses. With light and temperature-controlled facilities and heavy automation helping it run round the clock. Spanning 180,000 square metres, the greenhouse produces around 100 million fresh cut roses every year. A large variety of roses, including those imported from Denmark and Holland, in the greenhouse produce the kind of intoxicating aroma that is hard to forget.    

Civilisational links in Dunhuang

Flying over the barren hills surrounding Lanzhou and the snow-covered Qilian mountains, our second stop in Gansu was the historical city of Dunhuang. Just before the aircraft began its final descent to the city, the crew requested all passengers to shut their window shades. This was because the city is surrounded by sensitive installations. Photography was also banned in the airport premises.   

The city, which lies on the edge of the Gobi Desert is most famous for its Mogao Caves or Thousand Buddha Grottoes, a series of temples constructed between the 4th and 14th centuries in an oasis.

“Carved into the cliffs above the Dachuan River, the Mogao Caves south-east of the Dunhuang oasis, Gansu Province, comprise the largest, most richly endowed, and longest used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world,” according to the Unesco website. 

Dunhuang’s officials take great pride in their city enjoying sister-city status with Aurangabad, although they say officials from the city now-officially known as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, have been slow to respond to official communication to revitalise the partnership. The Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University and the Dunhuang Academy signed a letter of intent on cooperation and exchange in 2018.  

The well-maintained caves are probably the most underrated historical tourist destination in the world. The Chinese authorities allow monks to meditate outside the caves on special occasions but other religious activities such as incense burning are strictly prohibited in order to preserve them. 

 As we were given a walking lecture by the extraordinary Lu Shuaiyang, a senior member of the Dunhuang Academy, a group of excited school children approached us to practise their English and meet a rare breed (for Dunhuang)- visitors from India. The fact that direct flights between China and India have not been resumed has caused much distress to officials in the city, who are keen to welcome Indian tourists. 

An earlier flight connected Mumbai with Chengdu from where Dunhuang is just two and a half hours away by plane. Chinese officials also say the process of obtaining Indian visas remains difficult, despite a recent thaw in relations. One academic with a special interest in South Asia went to the extent of saying that it was easier for Chinese to visit India in the era of Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang), the 7th century pilgrim and scholar, than it is now. 

Besides two-way tourist traffic, Dunhuang officials also speak of replicating one of their most successful private projects in India- the Dunhuang Mirror Power Plant, the world’s world’s highest molten-salt solar thermal power plant, which used 12,000 mirrors and was designed to generate 390 million kilowatt-hours per year. The plant used the sun of the Gobi Desert to power Dunhuang and other parts of Gansu. 

Any growth in economic cooperation between China and India will require the addressing of mutual suspicions and concerns, but such initiatives would clearly lead to a win-win situation. China’s on-going transformation into a cleaner and greener economy has lessons in store for India and Gansu’s officials seem to be more than eager to come to the assistance of the southern neighbour which stands to lose a substantial amount from the effects of climate change. 

On one of our evenings in Dunhuang, we witnessed a musical and dance depiction of the artistic traditions of the ancient city. The Apsara dance, which had a strong Indian influence, is the starkest reminder of the centuries of cultural exchanges between the two great civilizations of Asia. For those hoping for this to indeed be the Asian century, the stunning performance is a metaphor for what can happen when these great cultures come together. 

About The Author

Ajay Kamalakaran

Ajay Kamalakaran visited China recently as a part of a cultural exchange programme on the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Views expressed in the column are personal

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