The New Dominion

The first week of November saw a national level committee investigate AIDS statistics and prevention practices in Xinjiang, international level efforts to help protect Przewalski’s horses from the front-bumper menace, interested investors from Europe and Russia, a good old-fashioned school discipline controversy, and justice delivered to the minions and villains of Black Canyon. More under the break.

Xinhua Network News Xinjiang Channel 新华网新疆频道

• 4 November 2007 : In the past three quarters, the per capita income of farmers and herdsmen have increased by 343 yuan.
• 4 November 2007 : The China Edition of Forbes magazine has published its annual top 400 billionaire list which includes 6 individuals from Xinjiang. Brothers Zhang Jiefu and Zhang Yanfu are new on the list and jointly occupy position 400 through their oil processing and refining industries. Kong Guangxi (real estate, construction materials) has risen 30 places this year to position 61, Mi Enhua (construction materials, trade, wholesale) has dropped to position 248, Chen Zhifeng (exports, real estate, tourism) has inched up to position 332, and Zheng Daqing (real estate, cell phones, minerals) now occupies position 360.
• 5 November 2007: Xinjiang’s Animal Husbandry Office has announced that 10 million yuan of government funds has been allocated to help make China’s most Muslim province become the Northwest’s Pig Industry Base within 10 years. Places slated to receive initial funds for the new pig breeding infrastructure include the eastern part of Changji Prefecture, the northern part of the Hami Region, the Tianshan Northern Foothills region, the Yili valley, the Ta’e basin, the Yanqi basin, Korla, Aksu, and Kashgar, etc. (the etc. was in the original article, I kid not)
• 5 November 2007: To better ensure food quality and to better monitor medicine production, 9 new Food and Drug Administration Bureaus have been established in 9 counties: Yumin, Qinghe, Wenquan, Mulei, Urumqi’s Toutun River district, Bohu, Wuqia, Khotan, and Qaramay.
• 5 November 2007: In accordance with the 11th 5-year plan, Xinjiang’s Office of Personnel Training has begun to implement a program to upgrade the knowledge and skills of 12,000 technological experts in the fields of petrochemistry, coal refining, hydroelectric power, cotton processing, food processing, environmental protection, orchard forestry, and tourism.
• 5 November 2007: Compared with the same period of time last year, the number of AIDS infections in Xinjiang is down by almost four tenths.
• 5 November 2007: A construction project undertaken by Xinjiang’s Transportation Office to lower the number of collisions with Przewalski’s horses on Xinjiang’s roads has been completed. In the past two months there have been 5 fatal accidents involving Przewalski’s horses, and in response the Transportation Office set up several signs, warnings, prohibited areas, decreased speed zones, and solar-powered warning lights.
• 6 November 2007: The State Council’s AIDS Prevention Working Committee has sent a joint working group to conduct survey research in Xinjiang and to evaluate current AIDS epidemic preventive efforts underway in the region.
• 6 November 2007: Controversy emerges over the expelling of a naughty 8 year old student from an Urumqi school. Although an alliance of school officials, teachers, and concerned parents have made the case that the child is intractable beyond resolution, a number of interested parties have also criticzed the moves as overly harsh for a child of his age. Currently, a compromise solution has been put forward of giving the child’s parents “a little more time” to help the child better adjust to school life.
• 6 November 2007: The Chairman of Xinjiang, Ismail Tiliwaldi, met with the visiting executive chairman of the European Federation of Overseas Chinese, Jiang Ping. Tiliwaldi gave the basic rundown of Xinjiang’s situation and then the two discussed greater investment cooperation on projects such as environmental protection, ecological agriculture, and mineral resources development.
• 6 November 2007: 16,579 babies were born over the last year, compared to 12,705 the year before, which signifies a .31% increase in the birth rate. According to the latest statistics, the sex ratio for the preceding year is 111 boys per 100 girls, which is much higher than the average of 103-107.
• 7 November 2007: Tarim Oil Company has established China’s largest natural gas field, with proven reserves of 840 billion cubic meters. By the end of the year, Tarim Oil Company’s natural gas fields are expected to have produced 15.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas, much higher than its output last year of 11 billion cubic meters, when it was only the 2nd largest known field in China. Natural gas extracted from Xinjiang is sent to the energy hungry eastern part of China through the Xiangxiqidongshu Pipeline.
• 7 November 2007: Delegates from the Siberia Branch of Russia’s National Academy of Sciences and scientific research institutes in Xinjiang signed 27 cooperation agreements on October 26. The Russians currently have plans to conduct 40 research experiments and to setup 14 research stations in Xinjiang. These international agreements have a distinctively economic tint to them, as the greater portion of these cooperative efforts involve the petrochemical and coal industries, along with agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, software, and biotechnology.
• 7 November 2007: The “Deliver Warmth and Compassion with One Day’s Wages” program has officially begun in Xinjiang. Donations will be used to help low-income people prepare for the difficulties of the coming winter. The program calls on individuals, companies, and governmental agencies alike to donate a day’s wages or a day’s profits to contribute to the welfare of the poor.
• 7 November 2007: China Council for International Investment Promotion has set up a branch office in Urumqi. The state purpose of this move is to help promote the social and economic development of Xinjiang. Noting interest by both overseas Chinese in Europe and by the Russians in this week’s roundup, I say the timing couldn’t be better.
• 7 November 2007: Anyone interested in using the bathing facilities or lodging at Urumqi’s bath houses must now go through a formal registration process where they must provide their real name. Lobbies of these facilities are to be equipped with CCTV cameras whose tapes will be retained for 30 days. This move apparently is in response to a recognition of the bath houses as centers for prostitution, gambling, and drugs.
• 7 November 2007: Four buildings are to be designated as national level protected cultural sites: the former offices of the Eight Route Army, the former Soviet Consulate, Xinjiang People’s Theater, and the Shaanxi Great Mosque and Palace, a Hui place of worship. All are located in Urumqi.
• 7 November 2007: Xinjiang’s economic value as a frontier region bordering 8 different countries becomes apparent in new statistics revealing Xinjiang’s total import-export volume for this year to be valued at over 10 billion US dollars, a rise of 39% since the preceding year and 15% higher than the national average.
• 8 November 2007: A discussion forum on e-government services was opened in Urumqi on November 7. Representatives from China Telecom and 170 city and county level delegates attended.
• 9 November 2007: After 5 days of touring and inspection, the State Council’s AIDS prevention working committee expressed its approval of AIDS prevention efforts in Xinjiang. Recommendations made by the working committee include increasing AIDS prevention education and awareness for grass-roots level cadres, enhancing communication between the departments involved in the efforts, increase local financial input along with tighter budgetary oversight, and intensify propaganda and public awareness efforts.
• 9 November 2007: For the first time in several years, there was a surplus of jobs at the Xinjiang Autumn Talent Exchange Job Fair, where over 8000 positions were available to 6000 job-seekers. Analysts ascribe this both to novel paths to getting jobs, such as the growing availability of jobs in China proper and online applications, and to the steadily growing small and mid-sized company sector of the Xinjiang economy.
• 9 November 2007: An international team of 6 scientists, including individuals from America, Germany, and the Netherlands, visited the Qaramay National Nature Reserve in the Jungaria Basin to make observations of newly released wild specimens of Przewalski’s horse. An American expert from the Smithsonian Institute said the purpose of their visit included investigating the measures taken to assist the horses’ survival through the winter, and to help find a volunteer Kazakh herdsmen to track and monitor the horses on behalf of the Horse Breeding Research Center, a program which, if successful, will be expanded in the future.
• 9 November 2007: According to an official statement from the Xinjiang Public Health Department, the number of AIDS cases in Xinjiang has exceeded 20,000, though according to a national estimate, the actual number of AIDS cases in the region is probably over 60,000.This report also noted that most of these infections are concentrated in the Yili Kazakh Prefecture, Urumqi, Kashgar, and Aksu.
• 9 November 2007 : The former Chairman of the Board and General Manager for the Xinjiang Construction Group Construction Engineering Company and Chairman of the Board and General Manager for the Xinjiang International Trade Company, Jiang Peng, was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption. His company was allocated over 3 million yuan of public money for the construction of public works. Jiang was arrested in 2006 for suspicion of embezzlement of these funds, as far back as 2002.
• 9 November 2007: Six defendants in what has been dubbed the Kashgar “12-25″ Threat to National Security Case have been sentenced for attempting to split the country. Under the charges of splittist activities, organizing and leading a terrorist organization, and the illegal production of explosives, 4 death sentences and 2 life imprisonment sentences were passed down. The Xinhua article announcing this sentence also includes a detailed list of the alleged suspects’ activities, including running a terrorist training camp for two months with the Hollywood name of “Black Canyon,” conducting an explosives collecting operation dubbed “Operation Harvest Corn,” resisting PLA counterinsurgency efforts by sabatoging communications facilities, blowing up public buses, and occupying the Kusilafu village’s government building and declaring independence. Kusilafu is a village in Akto County (Location in Google Earth), a hotbed of resistance to Chinese rule.
• 10 November 2007: The Macao based charity Mingde will donate over 20,000 yuan to aid orphans with serious illnesses.

Other News

• 5 November 2007: Joei Villarama at the Filipino website Global Nation talks about her visit to Xinjiang.
• 7 November 2007 : Danwei runs front page of Xinjiang Metropolitan Daily, featuring SWAT members showing off their new equipment at Er Dao Qiao.
• 7 November 2007: Mongolia Web reports an outbreak of Horse Flu in Xinjiang near the border with Mongolia (as if things weren’t bad enough for the poor wild horses). Over 5,500 cases have been reported for what has been the first outbreak of equine flue for 13 years. Chinese officials have quarantined the horses and have issued assurances that the horse flu rarely fatal to the animals and does not transmit to humans.
• 8 November 2007: The English Edition of Xinhuanet runs an English language version of the article linked above discussing the international team investigating Przewalski’s horses near Qaramay.

Blogs

• 10 November 2007: Michael Manning at The Opposite End of China shares a Xinjiang-related piece of the PBS series China from the Inside.

Tags: agriculture, AIDS, conservation, diseases, economy, education, historic sites, internet, Ismail Tiliwaldi, jobs, justice, livestock, morals, natural gas, oil, overseas investment, population, Przewalski's horse, public health, russia, separatism, social welfare, travelogue, video