China Learn

Modern China dates from the revolution of 1911 which overthrew the corrupt Manchu monarchy and proclaimed the republic. The Revolution of 1911 came to a head after a seventy-year period in which the big imperialist powers-Britain, France, Russia, America, Germany and Japan-had completed the economic and political domination of China. Foreign powers, led by Britain, had seized important Chinese territories and forcibly opened the coastal ports for their trade. They had forced “extra-territoriality” on China under which foreign nationals-especially westerners-were not subject to Chinese laws. Foreign occupation troops were permanently stationed in major Chinese cities, including the capital city of Peiping. Foreign settlements in these cities operated their own police forces, enacted their own laws and ran their own courts. They were states within a state. They received the customs revenue and controlled all foreign trade.

Foreigners in the so-called treaty ports remained immune from taxation and local regulations. About eighty percent of the railways and seventy-eight percent of deep-sea and river navigation was in their hands. Foreign businessmen exercised a monopoly of taxes on salt, wine and tobacco which yielded them vast revenue. Foreign merchant vessels freely plied China’s inland waterways. And in special leased territories, such as Hong Kong and Kowloon, the invaders enjoyed even wider powers. China’s sovereignty was nominal only. She lay prostrate at the feet of foreign robbers.

The chief cause of China’s plight was to be found in her decadent feudal economy. Four-fifths of the Chinese people were peasants. These millions tilled the soil and dwelt in thousands of small villages. By 1920 over half the peasants did not own the land they cultivated.

In a typical area of China two and one half million landlords owned more than half the tillable soil, whereas thirty-one million peasants held the remainder. The payment of rent took from sixty to ninety percent of the peasant’s harvest. In addition, the tenants had to supply the landlord with a specified number of chickens, ducks and wine, and had- to work for him, free, for a certain number of days. Taxes, too, were exorbitant. In addition to the main tax, there were thirty types of special taxes for the army, the garrison, the militia, the guards, etc. In many cases taxes were collected ninety years in advance. All this exploitation lined the pockets of the landlords, the state officials and warlords. The result was that in southern China only thirty-two peasants out of a hundred owned their land.

. Political control in the villages rested in the hands of officials recruited on the basis of civil ‘Service examinations. The qualifications demanded to pass these examinations stressed a profound knowledge of philosophy and literature, which only the sons of the rich country gentry could acquire. In this way a class of landed aristocracy and scholar-gentry arose in China, who controlled effective economic and political power.

These conditions led’ to widespread unrest in the countryside. Sometimes it took the form of banditry and sometimes of open rebellion against the landlords and the state. Both the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions were primarily agrarian in character, although the latter was also strongly anti-imperialistic. Consequently, the Chinese peasants in their millions constituted the main base of the impending democratic revolution.

Hundreds of thousands of ruined peasants flocked to the big cities wherever foreign capital established industrial enterprises to exploit China’s resources and cheap labor. In the early twenties of this century, there were five million workers in China, of whom two million were employed in large-scale city industry. The workers were accorded barbarous treatment. They were crowded into unsanitary factory barracks and fed with a few bowls of rice. The working day, fixed at twelve hours, was frequently stretched to eighteen hours. The average wage for a skilled worker amounted to twenty cents a day. Child labor was universally employed. In the Hankow factories boys between the ages of nine and fifteen earned one cent a day by working from four in the morning until 8.30 at night, with only one intermission for dinner. Only two rest days were allowed per month. Under these conditions, it was inevitable that revolutionary sentiments should take a strong hold among the workers. These workers formed the most advanced detachment of the revolution.

In the chief cities and coastal ports a new class of Chinese merchants had sprung into being. As agents of foreign enterprises, this group coined handsome profits. Their attempts to establish independent Chinese industries were, however, met with the determined opposition of the imperialists. Nevertheless, while eager to retain their former profits, they sought greater elbow room to expand their separate business operations.

Together with these major developments-a new Chinese intelligentsia came into being. These intellectuals were deeply affected with liberal and radical ideology. Like every other section of the people they keenly felt the searing shame of national degradation imposed upon China by the powers and sought for measures to overcome it.

China, however, escaped complete colonial subjugation.

This was avoided because American imperialism had appeared late on the scene in China and because of the acute rivalries that existed among the big powers themselves. While the western imperialist powers, particularly Britain, Tsarist Russia and France, had carved their spheres of influence out of China preliminary to their outright annexation, America, the late-comer, improvised the “Open Door” policy. This policy served to regulate the acute rivalries among the powers and for a considerable period checked the outright annexation of China by anyone power.

Numerous anti-Manchu and anti-imperialist secret societies, among them the Kuomintang (Chinese National Populist Party), operated in China. Revolution broke out in October, 1911, while Dr. Sun Yat-sen, its leader, was still abroad. The Manchu regime crumbled like a castle of sand. The revolutionaries, however, failed to consolidate their gains, largely because they had no mass base among the peasants and workers and because very little cohesion and discipline prevailed in their own ranks. The revolutionary forces were compelled to retreat. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was succeeded as president of the “republic” by the feudal warlord Yuan Shih-kai.

During the next fifteen years, numerous regional warlords (politicians with private armies) remained in power. Foreign powers subsidized one or another of the warlords and in return got them to mortgage China’s rich resources and to act as watch dogs for their special privileges and investments. In 1915 Yuan Shih-kai signed away China’s sovereign rights to Japan. The warlords conspired and continually fought against one another.

The Russian revolution of 1917 exercised a profound influence upon China. The young Soviet government unconditionally renounced all extra-territorial rights and the special privileges enjoyed by the Tsars in China. It invited China to sign its first equal trade and friendship treaty. The masses of China saw in the Russian revolution a clarion call of liberation, a new path to freedom.

A mighty anti-imperialist movement, combining students, workers, peasants and businessmen, culminated in the Shanghai general strike of May 26, 1919. It forced the resignation of the warlord Anfu clique government. In 1922, thirty thousand Chinese seamen struck in Hong Kong and won most of their demands after a fifty-five-day battle. Strikes and anti-imperialist demonstrations spread to other parts of the country.

In the midst of this revolutionary upsurge two major political parties, the Kuomintang and the, Communist Party, sprang into prominence. The Kuomintang, organized earlier by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was largely supported by liberal merchants and intellectuals. The Communist Party, organized in 1921, enjoyed wide support among the workers and peasants.

Dr. Sun quickly realized that the unity of these two forces was imperative for China’s progress. On January 20, 1924, he convoked the first congress of the Kuomintang at Canton and, despite the opposition of rightists, invited the Communists to join the Kuomintang. A revolutionary coalition representing the liberal merchants, intellectuals, peasants and workers was formed. A common program of agrarian and labor reforms was adopted. The congress welcomed Russian advisors and support to the revolutionary forces and pronounced the Soviet Union to be “the only country anxious to see China a liberated nation,”

At this congress Dr. Sun elaborated his famous “Three Principles of the People,” These were defined as “Nationalism, Democracy and People’s Livelihood,” “Nationalism” was declared to mean the complete independence of China from foreign domination and the extension of equal rights to the Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, Mohammedans and other nationalities inhabiting the vast country. “Democracy” was defined as a government “of the people, for the people and by the people,” and the right to universal suffrage, initiative, referendum, recall, equal rights for women, freedom of speech, press, assembly and the right of the workers and peasants to organize. “People’s Livelihood” was stated to represent the economic reconstruction of China along democratic lines. Among other things, Sun’s principles included the provision of land to the peasants who till it; tax reforms; rent reduction; state loans to the peasants; the eight-hour day; social insurance for industrial workers; compulsory education, and the creation of a peoples’ army.

Around this broad democratic program the revolutionary forces formed a united front. Canton became the centre of the first revolutionary government. A revolutionary army was organized, and plans laid for a great march to the north for the liberation of the rest of China from the grip of feudal warlords and imperialists. Sun Yat-sen, however, died in March 1925, before this project could get under way. In a message from his deathbed, he urged a firm and continued Sino-Soviet friendship.

General Chiang Kai-shek, then a leading Kuomintang official, was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern expedition. In the summer of 1926, the revolutionary forces began to advance north. The people flocked to their colors in millions. By the end of the year, in a giant sweep, the revolutionary forces had gained control of the rich provinces of Hunan, Hupeh, Kiagsi, Honan, Kiagsu and Chekiang. In the rich Yangtze valley they came face to face with the main strongholds of imperialism. The Chinese people, however, were in no mood for compromises. They stormed the British concessions in Hankow and Kuikiang. In retaliation the British, bombarded Wanhsien and killed three hundred and sixty Chinese. Early in 1927 the forces of the revolution stood at the gates of Shanghai, the imperialist Bastille in China. A revolutionary government was established at Hankow.

At this critical moment, however, when victory lay within their grasp, the right wing of the revolutionary forces began to waver. In the liberated areas the peasants began to establish organs of local people’s power, as propagated and envisaged in Dr. Sun’s program. They divided landed estates, refused to pay rent, burned the land deeds and organized committees of the poor.

In the cities the working class had played a leading role in the revolutionary movement from its very inception. The general strike of May-June 1925 had in fact been the beginning of the revolution. Now the working class emerged from underground where it, too, had been forced by the warlords, Trade unions sprang up like mushrooms and the Communist movement gained in strength and prestige. The workers everywhere fought for their rights through mammoth demonstrations and strikes. In many cases they began to arm themselves as integral detachments of the revolutionary forces.

The vested interests within the coalition-the bankers and landlords, some of whom had belatedly joined the ascending revolution-at this point concluded that the revolution had gone far enough. Terrified at the prospect of genuine people’s power, they bargained with imperialist groups and with the surviving northern warlords for protection against the insurgent masses. A group of Shanghai bankers reached a secret understanding with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. They paid him a sum of $30 million in return for which he undertook to halt the revolution and to suppress the growing power of the peasants and workers.

On April 12, 1927, Chiang broke with the Hankow revolutionary government and made peace with the northern warlords and the imperialists, the mortal enemies of the revolution. With their aid he established a banker-landlord dictatorship at Nanking. The Hankow (or Wuhan) government denounced Chiang at a traitor. Shortly thereafter the remaining Kuomintang elements still within the Hankow group also deserted and joined the counter-revolutionary camp.

The Chiang-led Kuomintang now waged a ruthless war of extermination against all revolutionary elements, and adopted measures aimed at restoring the old slave conditions for the workers and peasants. Spontaneous popular resistance sprang up against this terror. It achieved organized form when the armies, loyal to the revolution, led by the Communists Mao Tse-tung, Ho Lung and Chu Teh and the non-Communist Yeh Ting, merged into the Chinese Red Army and established the first workers’ and peasants’ Chinese Soviet Republic at Haifeng in Kwangtung in November 1927.

Civil war raged unchecked for ten long years. In Kuomin tang China increased burdens on the people further depressed their living standards. The bankers, landlords and imperialists were masters once again and the people were soon reduced to the status of serfs. In contrast, in the Soviet areas, feudalism was abolished and the landed estates distributed among the people; hunger rents were eliminated; education and sanitation measures were introduced; and organs of peasant self-government were created to administer these reforms.

With the aid of foreign arms and German military advisors, Chiang organized seven expeditions against the Soviet areas. In each case he failed. The Red Army later staged a strategic withdrawal from the Kiangsi Soviet areas and after a historic march of six thousand miles through remote regions in China, re-established itself in the ShensiKansu-N inghsia Border Area.

Nanking’s sovereignty over China was only nominal.

Semi-independent warlords still warred with one another and also with the central government. In this way they played directly into ‘the hands of Japan, which in 1931 had invaded the Chinese mainland. In addition, Chiang’s war against democratic elements at home and his continued good relations with China’s imperialist enemies abroad kept the nation divided, weak and dependent upon foreign powers. This policy encouraged Japanese aggression in Manchuria and later in China itself.

Realizing the danger represented by Japanese imperialism the Chinese Soviet government declared war on Japan in April 1932 and repeatedly appealed to the nation for the immediate cessation of civil war. It urged the legislation of democratic reforms and the formation of a national united front of resistance against Japan, This policy of unity, democracy and resistance, while officially rejected by the Kuomintang, found favor with the majority of Chinese people. The Nanking policy of appeasing Japan and continuance of civil war was universally condemned. Influential sections of the bourgeois elements, groups which had supported Chiang’s 1927 betrayal, now became aware of the bankruptcy of the Kuomintang and swung behind the progressive forces. During 1936, the wrath of the people reached a new height. Mammoth demonstrations for a united front swept China like wildfire. Patriotic “Save the Nation” societies united to form the All-China Federation of National Salvation.

The climax was reached when Generalissimo Chiang was kidnapped at” Sian late in 1936, by his own troops, who had refused to attack the Red Army and demanded to be sent against Japan. Chiang refused to consider the rebel demands for the cessation of civil war, the enactment of democratic reforms and the organization of resistance to Japan. Chiang’s mortal foes, the Communists, were instrumental in saving his life and procuring his release. The Sian events paved the way for the national united front which emerged in 1937. Knowing that the consolidation of China’s unity imperiled her plans of conquest, Japan hastened to invade China on July 7, 1937.

From the start of the war until the fall of Hankow and Canton in October, 1938, China displayed remarkable unity in action. The Kuoinintang and Communist Eighth Route and New Fourth armies co-operated and fought side by side. Popular guerrilla warfare was encouraged. Political liberties were widened and economic reforms pledged. An advisory Peoples’ Political Council of all groups was established.

The trend toward unity, democracy and resistance, however, was gradually weakened by the end of 1938. The Japanese occupation of the industrial areas weakened both the economic and political influence of the industrialists inside the Kuomintang government. The nation’s economy now became increasingly dependent upon agriculture, and as a result the political influence of the feudal landlords became once more predominant. While the landlords and state officials speculated and profiteered, the burden of war was entirely shifted to the backs of the peasantry and working class. Industrial development was stifled. In order to preserve the power of vested interests no reforms were introduced to alleviate the people’s plight. Consequently, the war never became a people’s war in Kuomintang China.

The Communist program, on the other hand, while no longer confiscating the landed estates succeeded in enlisting support for widespread guerrilla warfare by enacting far-reaching agrarian reforms. This policy immediately brought them into sharp conflict with the Kuomintang landlords. To the Kuomintang landlords the Japanese invaders, who preserved feudalism, were a “lesser evil’ than the Communist allies. As the conflict progressed, these contradictions seriously strained the united front. The Kuomintang diverted troops from the war front and deployed them to blockade the Communist-held areas. Clashes between the two forces became a common occurrence.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, these two trends were further crystallized. The Kuomintang feudalists gambled on the inevitability of Allied victory and held the view that China could “sit the war out.” Such a policy of limited war, they argued, would necessitate no serious reforms and it would enable them to maintain their dictatorship in post-war China, after they had first crushed the Communists.

The Communist-led forces, on the contrary, maintained that China must make a maximum effort to mobilize her total resources. They urged the immediate enactment of democratic reforms. This, they argued, would not only speed victory, but also strengthen China in her bid for equality among the nations after the war. Otherwise she would remain a weak pawn in imperialist hands.

The practical outcomes of these two policies were staggering indeed.

“If all the people thump their feet on the ground, there will be an earthquake, if the entire people blow there will be a storm.” – A Chinese Proverb

In its popular sense colonial expansion started with the rise of the mercantile era in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Profit-hungry European traders-in the beginning chiefly from Holland, Spain and Britain combed the seas to reach new lands as sources of trade and outright plunder. Christian missionaries frequently formed the advance guard of this penetration. These were followed by the traders-the men with guns-who conquered and subjugated native peoples with their superior productive forces and firearms.

Holland, a major capitalist nation in the 17th Century, pioneered in the building of a colonial empire. By 1641 most of Indonesia was in her possession. The Dutch administration set a colonial pace for treachery, bribery, murder and cruelty. The population in many provinces declined sharply due to the slave-running.

The story was little different in the case of other colonies. The British East India Company bled that country white. Between 1768 and 1771, ten million people-one third of the people of Bengal-perished. The net revenue collections, however, continued to exceed all previous figures.

Rich native manufacturing centres were completely depopulated through British state action directed against handicraft industries. Tens of thousands of Indian artisans perished. Dacca, the “Manchester of India,” was reduced from one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants to thirty thousand by 1840. Murshidabad, which Sir Robert Clive described as “extensive, populous and rich as the City of London,” was completely desolated.

In its initial phases, capitalist expansion was merciless in its pursuit of profit. Profit was all that counted.

The quest for the capitalist market even created the myth of the white man’s “superiority.” The assumption of the colonial people’s “inferiority” facilitated the process of conquest and domination. The native peoples were described as “heathens,” “sub-humans,” as the “lesser-breed,” and on these grounds the conquerors sought to justify their wholesale extermination. Racial discrimination was thus very early used as a weapon to enslave other peoples.

Expanding capitalism, of course, introduced into the colonies many of the mechanical benefits associated with western civilization. Since railways and modern productive techniques were, however, primarily designed to enhance the exploitation of the colonies, these failed to bring any worthwhile benefits to the people. Nevertheless, one powerful factor did emerge.

The history of capitalism from the very beginning up to and beyond the emergence of imperialism at the turn of the 20th Century was also a history of revolt. The colonial peoples never “accepted” their masters. The centuries reveal a magnificent record of struggle. Only the superior arms and equipment of the conquerors sustained them in power. Today, however, even this superiority is crumbling under the tremendous impact of continent-wide upheavals of peoples whose single cry is liberty. From the Philippines to Indonesia the watchword is colonial emancipation. And the imperialist slave-holders are fighting back.

To perpetuate its rule imperialism has been forced to revise its strategy. The poison of slavery is being poured into new bottles and labeled “Independence” and “Democracy.” Imperialist policies are being streamlined to cope with tougher problems. As direct control becomes increasingly untenable under pressure of popular revolt, more subtle and indirect methods of domination are being adopted. The roots of these policies reach deeply into the very heart of modern society.

Imperialism is not merely a policy pursued by a given state; it is a system. By its very nature imperialism fosters plunder and violence. Imperialism is the ultimate phase in the development of the so-called “free enterprise system.”

Under “free enterprise,” profit serves as the sole motive of production. In order to increase their profits, the capitalists pay their workers the lowest possible wage consistent with the standards of a given country. Their greed for profit restricts the internal market which results in under-consumption or, conversely, in over-production. To dispose of their surplus goods, and to exploit new sources of raw materials and cheap labor, capitalists must acquire colonial empires in the industrially undeveloped ‘areas of the world. It was this driving force which led, during the course of the 19th Century, to the division of the globe among the chief imperialist powers. When there were no new outlets for expansion, the rival groups of imperialists entered into conflict over one another’s possessions. This driving force lay at the bottom of the two world wars through which mankind has passed during the past forty years.

The chief features of an imperialist state are those in which production and capital have reached a stage where monopolies begin to dominate the nation’s economic life; where industrial and banking capital merge to give rise to finance capital; where the export of ~,capital becomes a decisive factor; where monopolies and cartels come into existence on an international scale and mark out their respective spheres of exploitation throughout the world; and where, finally, the world is territorially divided up among the chief imperialist powers.

Canada, while not matching the economic and military strength of America and Britain, may thus be recognized as a full-fledged imperialist power. Twenty corporations own nearly half the industrial wealth of Canada. The directorates of banks and industrial concerns interlock to create a financial oligarchy. Canadian capitalists hold investments totaling $1.4 billion in foreign lands including the United States, Cuba, Spain and Brazil. The official 1945 Report on Canada and, International Cartels conclusively establishes the link between Canadian monopolies and some of the world’s biggest international cartels, particularly the American and British.

While Canada controls no colonies, Canadian monopolists have nevertheless derived enormous profits from the exploitation of the colonial areas of the British Empire through special preferential privileges.

Two alternatives lie before Canada:

Firstly, there is the imperialist policy of exploitation of colonial peoples, in which Canada has an active share. Under this policy the economies of the colonial lands are subordinated to the needs of the imperialist “mother” countries. Their industrial development is deliberately retarded and remnants of feudalism kept alive and reinforced. Outside of Soviet Asia and Japan, less than two percent of the population of Asia is employed in modern industry. In the United States and Canada today one farming family produces enough food for itself and four additional city families. Under Asiatic farming conditions ‘as many as five farm families are required to produce food to sustain one city family.

Living under this grinding poverty, the people of Asia lack the purchasing power to buy manufactured goods. This low consumption has a depressing effect upon world trade and economy. While the economically developed United States has in the past purchased as much as one-third of Canada’s exports, China-with nearly four times the U.S. population-has bought not more than a fraction of one percent. Canada cannot remain rich or prosperous in a poor world or a poor Asia.

Imperialist policy in addition carries within itself the germs of that type of conflict which leads to world conflagrations. It entails the suppression of the democratic national liberation movements of the colonial people struggling for freedom.

The Canadian imperialists have already underwritten both these destructive policies. This is evidenced by their active support for the Truman Doctrine with its dangerous aspirations toward uncontested world supremacy.

Canada’s alternative choice, however, involves aiding the liberation of the colonial world and assisting in the rapid development of their boundless natural resources. Such a policy would serve to stabilize world peace. It would raise the living standards of millions of people. It would bring trade and prosperity to Canada and to all nations on earth.

In this respect the late President Roosevelt observed:

“I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries.”

Freedom from want was set as one of the major objectives of the United Nations. In his book, World Industrial Development (published by the International Labor Office in 1944) Eugene Staley pointed out that sixty percent of the world’s gainfully employed people of Asia subsist on a diet far below the minimum health standard. Millions accordingly face extinction from famine and pestilence. A similar widespread deficiency exists in clothing. Were all the people to use as much cotton for clothing and furnishing as the pre-war U.S. per capita consumption, world cotton needs would be three times greater than its highest point in the past; and if the rest of the world were to be given half as much soap as an average American today uses, world production would jump over two hundred percent.

The people of Asia would require about two hundred and fifty million vehicles (or seventy-five years of U.S. output) to satisfy its present need. Similarly it would take six hundred million radio sets to bring the rest of the world up to the American rate of consumption.

Adoption of policies leading to such a gigantic expansion of production would provide an inexhaustible market for Canadian goods. It would create jobs; it would strengthen world peace. It would be consistent with the spirit of the Atlantic Charter, the Four Freedoms and the United Nations Charter. It would open a road leading to a lasting peace and prosperity for all.

Around 220 AD, Buddhism spread from India to China through the ancient sulk route where it prospered during the Han Dynasty. Thereafter, Buddhism played an important role in Chinese culture and history. Many instances of Buddhist cultural messages are still found in parts of China where these are now carefully preserved.

16 kilometers away from Datong city, an incredible number of Buddhist statues are found within grottos at the foot of the Wuzhou mountain. Called Yungang Grottos or cave clusters, it is one of the four famous ‘Buddhist Art Treasure Houses’ in China. Magnificent stone carvings numbering more than 50,000 in 253 grottos or caves on a wide range of subjects including Chinese and foreign art forms are so unique and inimitable in design and form that it was declared a world heritage site in 2001.

Representing early Chinese Buddhist cave art in all its finery, these statues attract tourists from near and far who come to marvel at their sculptural beauty. The Yungang cave art also portrays the successful fusion of Buddhist religious symbolic art from Central Asia with Chinese cultural and edifying traditions during the 5th century AD. The grottos, incidentally signify the power and endurance of Buddhist beliefs in China ages earlier.

The amazing array of mode, manner and style adopted during creation of these statues and art forms is a source of wonder to the tourists visiting the Yunging caves. The ‘Flying Apsaras’ that flank the 17 meter high statue of Buddha at the center of cave number 17 is undoubtedly an Indian motif. But there are Persian and Byzantine armaments, Greek tridents and rock-hewn replicas of flowers and leaves of Mediterranean origin in other caves. They suggest European influence. Images of Hindu Gods like Vishnu and Shiva also adorn some of the bigger caves. However, Chinese dragons and Bodhisattvas mingle well with the foreign floral and decorative architecture.

The Yungang caves stretch for almost a kilometer east to west and cut into the southern cliffs of Wuzhou mountain. The Buddhist monk Tan Yao is believed to have supervised most of the stone carvings during the Northern Wei Dynasty when he was regarded as the ‘most wise man’. Acting on his words, five statues of emperors Taizu, Taizong, Shizu and Gaozu were installed in some of the caves that were known as the ‘Five Tan Yao caves’.

The Yungang caves may be divided into three major sub divisions – east, middle and west. While Pagodas dominate the eastern parts that are comparatively larger, the caves in the western part are small or medium sized with niches. Caves that constitute the mid portion are endowed with front and back awnings with Buddha statues dominating the center. A closer review of the cave archeology reveals a strong Indian Gandhara Buddhist art classically blended with traditional Chinese sculpture.

Caves that are of special attention are numbers 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 where Buddha is depicted in several forms. While in number 19 he is handsome, in 18 he is shown as dignified and lively. The statue in 20 is altogether different. It is martial and stately. However, a line of similarity links all of them. Thick lips, big noses, slanted eyes and broad shoulders depict a pronounced ethnic culture of the time.

Macau is the Las Vegas of the East. Though there are casinos in other places in Asia - Kathmandu in Nepal and Goa in India, but the experience in Macau is more glitzy. But there is more to Macau than just casinos. The Historic Center of Macau was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO recently because of the 25 listed monuments from its Portuguese past.

Macau today stands on land that has been reclaimed from the sea. Located 43 miles southwest of Hong Kong, it is actually on the peninsula of the Zhujiang or the Pearl river estuary and consists of the Taipa and the Coloane islands. The peninsula is connected with mainland China through three bridges. One unique feature of Macau is that there is no cultivable land, no forest or woodland here. And so the inhabitants of Macau live of the sea. However in the recent years, tourism has become a big industry in Macau and employs many.

Macau is a small place, and so spending 48 hours in this city might be enough. There are two main things you can do here. Spend the first day touring the historic sites which include the Guia Fort’s Lighthouse and air raid shelters, the Church of Sao Paulo, St. Paul’s Ruins, the Macau Tower, Pou Tai Un Temple, Statue of the Goddess A-Ma, the A-Ma Temple, Museum of Macau, Chapel of Our Lady of Penha… and more. There are both Portuguese and Chinese heritage sites that are must see on your visit to Macau.

Spend the second day in your 48 hour trip gambling in Macau. For your information, Macau has the largest casino in the world in Sands Macau when it comes to the number of tables. So it is a major casino destination where people gamble away till late in the night, and enjoy the shows - Las Vegas style. In fact, gambling revenues from Macau are now even challenging Las Vegas, and so for the first time, the US city has some serious competition. Apart from the Sands Macau, there are other casino dens as well such as the MGM Grand Macau, Venetian Macao, Four Seasons, City of Dreams, Grand Hyatt, Cotai Strip and others. Macau is developing fast and some major hotel and casino projects are scheduled to open in a few months, bringing in hordes of gamblers from all across Asia.

And when you are not visiting the historic places and gambling, you can spend a few quiet hours in the many street side cafes, trying some serious Chinese cuisine. There are all kinds of eating joints - from street side cafes to takeaway shops to lavish restaurants. Other than Chinese food, Portuguese and Brazilian food is also popular in Macau.

Night markets will let you shop till late hours and keep a memento or two from your 48 hours in Macau.

While traveling through the ancient Silk Route that also passes through the Taklamakan Desert, the great traveler Marco Polo commented that the traveler would often hear voices and spirits beckoning him to abandon the path and walk through the desert instead. The inevitable result would be to lose his way and die of thirst. In Taklamakan (also Taklimakan) the same tune rings true since it means, “if you go in, you won’t come back”. Some even call it the “Desert of Death”. Even today, it remains so - a place of mystery, extremely remote, incredible beautiful, but importantly the crucial link between East and West Asia.

Covering an area of 270,000 sq km of the Tarim Basin in central Asia, Taklamakan is the largest sand-only desert in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China. At least two sub routes of the Silk Route crosses the Taklamakan, the key oasis towns being Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan in the southwest, Kuqa and Turfan in the north, and Loulan & Dunhuang in the east. White Jade River and Yarkant flow into the Taklamakan, the former originating from the Kunlun mountains while the latter from the Tien Shan range. Though it is the largest sand-only desert, it can become freezing cold, on account of the great mountains all around it - the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Karakoram. Three of the biggest ranges in the world are in the immediate proximity of Taklamakan.

Though the fear of fatality in the ‘desert of death’ had prevented people from venturing into Taklamakan, many European travelers have trekked through this formidable desert in search of archaeological treasures buried within its sand dunes. Notable among them are Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein, Albert von LeCoq and Paul Pelliot. But nothing beats the recent travels of Antonio Graceffo who conquered Taklamakan in a tricycle. “The most memorable day was the sixth day. There was a head wind that lasted for five hours, pelting me with sand. It came in a continuous force of hot air, blowing mercilessly in my face and eyes, like walking into a hot hair dryer, dragging away my tricycle”, he wrote. According to another traveler, there are venomous snakes abounding in Taklamakan as also frequent sand storms ‘blowing away everything’. Besides, people have to withstand great temperature variations - boiling heat during the day and freezing cold at night.

The archaeological findings in Taklamakan are a mixed lot. Along with ruins found in the desert that suggest Indian/Buddhist influence, mummies (4000 year old) belonging to Europeans have also been unearthed. They appear to have been members of the Tocharins that spoke Tocharian, an Indo-European language. The Taklamakan was later inhabited by Turkic people. In order to secure control over trade across Central Asia through the Silk Route, the Chinese often took over the oasis townships of Taklamakan. However, the present inhabitants consist mostly of Turkic Uyghur and Kazakh people along with Han Chinese.

If you love adventure, crossing the Taklamakan can be among the most memorable journeys you can take. You are sure to cherish the experience for a lifetime.

The Lijiang or the Li River originates from the Mao’er mountains in the Xing’an county of China. It flows through Guilin, Yanshuo and Pingle, and then finally joins the Xi Jiang, which is a tributary of the Pearl river in Wuzhou. As the riverside scenery all through its 437 km course is enchantingly beautiful and also full of wonders, the river cruises along Li is quite popular with the tourists. Government run tourist agencies operate regular Li River Cruises (from Guilin to Yangshuo). The trips usually start from a wharf due south of the Liberation bridge in downtown Guilin. Alternatively, tourists are transported to the wharf by an hour-long bus journey through the city. Nt too long ago, the Lijiang river was unknown to people from outside China and the region, and so tourism was restricted. But now things are changing. More international tourists are coming to know of the amazing scenic beauties of the region, and thus, the Lijiang river cruises are becoming more popular.

As you sail lazily through the river, a smallish hillock raises its head from the western bank of Li. A careful observation reveals the resemblance of an elephant sucking water through its trunk, standing erect on the water’s edge. The attending guide tells you that it is the famous Elephant Hill of Li that appears in most Chinese travel literature. Also impressive is the moon-like cave and its reflection on the Li, on a moon-lit night.

As the cruise skim the calm waters of Li, another hilltop comes into view with a hexagonal pagoda perched on it. It is known as the Longivity Buddha Pagoda where Buddha’s statue in stone is carefully preserved for display. Fiery red maples add distinctive color to the hill during autumn.

As you proceed further from Yangdi to Xingping, hills clad in deep green vegetation and smallish bamboo groves catch your eyes on either side of Lijiang. These are indeed a soothing experience to the city-exhausted eyes. Peak after peak meets the eye at every bend of the river, providing the visitor with a strangely satisfied yet amazing feeling of joy.

Now also is the time to observe a fantastic sport practiced by the local fishermen. Instead of fishing with the use of a net, they employ well trained cormorants (diving sea birds with jet-black plumage) to dive deep into the waters of Li and pick up fish for them. As the bird comes up with the fish held firmly in its beak and lands on to the fishing boat, it is removed from its throat and placed in the fishing basket. “But doesn’t the bird swallow the fish in the process” you ask in disbelief. “No, Sir,” responds the guide in good humor, “a fine thread is passed round the bird’s neck to ensure that such an eventulity may not arise.”

Leaving the cormorants and their strange ways of catching fish for others, you may now look forward to some of the cruise’s finer parts as the Li takes a sharp turn at Xingping. Here beautiful landscape fills the eye as far you can see on both banks of the river. In fact, the scenery that you witness here has been depicted in many Chinese paintings and works of art.

Tai Shan is the most revered of China’s five sacred Taoist peaks, and also holds the distinction of being the most climbed mountain on the face of the planet. The Shandong citizens take great pride in their ‘one mountain, one river and one saint’, as if they have the last word on each. These are the peak of Tai Shan, Huang He (the Yellow River) and Confucius.

Tai Shan is a mountain of historical and cultural significance in China. It is located north of the city of Tai’an, in Shandong Province. The tallest peak is the 1,545 meter-high Jade Emperor Peak.

Tai Shan is associated with many supernatural beliefs and the Chinese feel strangely attracted towards it for all the odd reasons. It is said that Tai Shan offers a unique experience - its supernatural aspect attracting the Chinese in hordes. And the extreme beliefs are today as strong as they were before. Bixia, the Princess of the Azure Clouds, a Taoist deity whose presence permeates the temples dotted along the route, is a powerful cult figure venerated by the rural women of Shandong and beyond. The temples on its slopes have actually been frequented by pilgrims for over 3,000 years.

It’s also said that if you climb the Tai Shan you’ll live to see 100 years. This is the belief that drives tribes of wiry grandmothers up the steps towards the cluster of temples at the summit where they burn money and incense, praying for their progeny, and secretly perhaps, hoping to make it to 100 years. If you visit the peak at daybreak, you will witness a handful of sun worshippers gathered on the peak, their awe-filled eyes straining for the first flickers of dawn. The reason? In ancient Chinese tradition, it was believed that the sun began its westward journey from Tai Shan.

Having scaled the Tai Shan and standing atop it, Confucius uttered the dictum ‘The world is small’, Mao lumbered up and declared ‘The East is red’. Who knows what golden words you will utter when you too can climb up the Tai Shan?

For those seeking solitude and an enjoyable climb, it is good idea to avoid coinciding the day of your climb with the public holidays in the first weeks of May and October. Otherwise you will have to share the mountain with what the Chinese call ‘re’n shan re’n havi’ - which literally means a ‘mountain of people and a sea of persons.’

And after a day’s climb, the perfect way to relax is to enjoy the Tai Shan once again. Huh, what was that? Relax, Tai Shan is also the name of the most popular beer of the Western Shandong province.

Shanghai, which is today one of the most dynamic and thrilling cities of the world, was defined as the first great city of the 21st century. Before the Japanese invasion of 1937, Shanghai had often been brought to us through celluloid by several world class directors including Kozuo Ishigaro in his immortal film “When we were orphan” (2000) and Stephen Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun” (1984). Nor was Shanghai feeble in the sphere of trade and commerce.

However, as a result of economic reforms initiated in the 70s, the quantum of commerce and industry has increased enormously in the rapidly changing city of Shanghai. Now, the city has computerized stock exchange, five star hotels, intercontinental clubs, multi cuisine restaurants and sizzling bars. As the central Chinese government has started patronizing foreign investments by way of relaxing regulations and lessening bureaucratic formalities since 1990, U.S. investments have increased in Shanghai enormously.

IBM, the giant from the US has already opened its branch in Shanghai and others are following. Du Point, the conservative conglomerate has offices in Shanghai and several multinational corporations are in the course of starting operations in China, using Shanghai as their base. Copious flow of foreign money in Shanghai in recent years is also responsible for a boom in the construction business. You will come across quite a few multi-layered departmental stores and shopping malls offering classy consumer durables in Shanghai today. The manufacturing processes are not lagging behind in Shanghai either. Industrial units producing cellular telephones, fax machines, color television tubes, textiles, air conditioning equipments, etc. are now located within or in the immediate vicinity of this great city.

Taking into consideration the overall developmental aspects of the city, Shanghai today is considered China’s largest and greatest commercial and industrial hub, providing employment to thousands of skilled workmen that are flocking into the city everyday in great numbers. The situation has reached such an alarming position that unless the city is expanded by as much as ten folds immediately, there would be an acute accommodation problem in the not too distant future.

The rapidly changing city of Shanghai is now geared up to the level of a world-class metropolis as most of the pre-conditions move to that direction. Take for instance, the case of languages spoken in the city. According to a recent study, more than 40% of Shanghai’s residents speak in English. Also significant is the cultural diversity and absolute bar on racial discrimination. The present Chinese government is following the principals adopted in the US during the earlier days when specialists from all over the world were invited to stay in the US and contribute to the country’s welfare. The Chinese now are in the process of issuing “Green Card” to all eligible professionals for immigration to China with least hassles.

In days when military warfare was an unknown jargon and nuclear arms did not appear in children’s books, people defended their home by erecting walls around it. The poor did it with fencing materials obtained from the forest, the middle class did it with clay and mortar, and the rich had money to spend by erecting stone walls.

Early Chinese rulers followed the same principle by erecting massive walls to protect their kingdom from enemies that included sundry nomadic tribes, Mongols, Manchurians and the Turks. However, the Great Wall of China was not built in a day or a year. Several dynasties gave shape to the wall through centuries till at last, the mammoth wall covering more than 6000 km’s or 3,900 miles, stretching from Shanghai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east to Lop Nur in the southeastern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region was completed. To illustrate it better, let us see who built what. There had been four major walls built by the Qin Dynasty - 208 BC, the Han Dynasty - 1st century BC, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms - 1138 - 1198, and by the Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty - 1368-1620.

Although the Qin dynasty laid the foundation stone, their progress was short lived. Actually, it was the Ming dynasty that started the wall on the eastern end at Shanghai Pass near Quinhuangdo in Herbei province next to the Bohai Gulf, spanning several provinces and more than 100 counties. The final 500 kilometers have now been almost ruined and ending on the western end near the historic Jiayu Pass that is located in the northwest of Gansu near the Gobi Desert where the Silk Route adjoins it. During the early days when the Silk Route was used by traders, Jiayu Pass was the greeting point and the numerous watch towers built beyond Jiayu were meant to protect them as well as sending smoke signals to alert probable invasions.

The Great Wall of China has also been nicknamed “the longest Graveyard” or “the longest cemetery”. Hundreds of laborers died when it was built or were sentenced to death for disobeying their superior’s order. The hapless victims however, were not buried under the Wall for fear of reprisal and so were buried in nearby grounds.

Though picture postcard images of the Great Wall of China appear in convincingly good shape, the actual condition is far from it. Most of the Wall has turned to rubbles and in many places it has been bull dozed to accommodate new construction sites. The watch towers and signal posts that were once in control of sentries keeping 24 hour vigil for enemies lurking below are now the playground of vandals, who often remove valuable stones/ materials for their personal use.

From a practical point of view, the enormous expense needed for the maintenance of such a gigantic structure spreading over thousands of miles through cities and towns, mountains and valleys, rivers and lagoons and almost covering ‘No man’s Land’ elsewhere, may appear counter-productive to a country’s resources and therefore, may have been abandoned. Apart from the heritage aspect and a raging controversy on whether the Wall is visible from space (affirmations and denouncements galore), the ancient ‘wall of fame’ has little use in today’s world.

Taking cue from the ancient Silk Road or Silk Route that traversed an amazing distance of more than 8000 kms or 5000 miles through high altitude passes, dry inhabitable deserts, picturesque snowbound lakes and mountain caves connecting China with Asia Minor and Southern Asia, the Karakoram Highway (KKH) is an amazing feat of human endurance and achievement. It today links China’s Xinjang region with northern Pakistan’s Abbotabad district.

It is the highest paved international road in the world across the Karakoram range of mountains. It goes through the Khunjerab Pass at an altitude of 4,693 meters or 15,397 feets, and is also the highest paved International Border Crossing. Yet another amazing feature of this fantastic highway is that, it cuts through the collision zone between Asian and the Indian Sub continent where China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India come within 250 kms of each other. In terms of strategic and military importance, the Karakoram Highway (KKH) is indeed of high importance.

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) also known as the Friendship Highway in China. It was built by the governments of Pakistan and China, and was completed after 20 years of toil and strives in the year 1986. 810 Pakistani and more than 50 Chinese road-building workmen had reportedly lost their lives while constructing this amazing Highway, mostly due to landslides and high altitude sickness.

The Highway, connecting the Northern areas of Pakistan runs around 1300 kms from Kashgar in the Xinjiang region of China to Havelian, which is located in the Abbotabad district of Pakistan. An extension meets the legendary Grand Trunk Road at Hasan Abdal, west of the Pakistani capital Islamabad. However, not all parts of this super highway is quite motorcar worthy. According to Lee Freeman of Australia who cycled through the KKH as a tourist, “It cannot be called a highway at all since a large section of it, specially the one that runs through Afghanistan, is merely a cattle-track”. Vivid photographs taken by him of the road condition affirms his statement. Abdul Ghani of Pakistan who made a thrilling trip to China through the KKH soon after its completion remarks, “The Karakoram Highway follows the Indus river here for 340 kms, and it’s all like this, narrow and winding, with a steep drop to the river, isolated and awe inspiring.”

On June 30, 2006, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Pakistan Highway Administration and China’s state-owned Assets Supervision (SASAC) to rebuild and upgrade the KKH. “The width of the highway,” according to SASAC, “will be expanded from 10 meters to 30 meters, and its transport capacity will be increased three times. Also, the upgraded road will be constructed to particularly accommodate heavy-laden vehicles and extreme weather conditions.”

“The Karakoram Highway, following the ancient Silk Route that once connected famous landmarks that are now lost to time,” said a tourist recently traveling through the KKH, “today offers an opportunity to visit these sites and capture some of the magic of old times as historical figures like Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Genghis Khan and Taimur Lang or Tamerlane had all once marched through this Avenue de la Fame.

The Karakoram Highway, in recent years, has become a destination for adventure tourism. The road has also given mountaineers and cyclists easier access to many high mountains, glaciers and snowbound lakes, providing routes to Gilgit and Skardu from the Pakistan end of this amazing highway.

The Karakoram Highway is truly amazing - it is important historically, communicates East and West Asia and the scenic beauty is simply fabulous.