Kevin's favourite capital of the week:
Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province.
Very brief notes on the Geography of
Yunnan province: When you think Chinese landscape paintings, Yunnan
would not be a bad place to compare them to. With tall mountains in
the North, limestone plateaus and karst mountains in the South and
river valleys and lakes through out, you might feel like painting as
well. A mild climate that produces seasonal rain and mist probably
won't hurt the image either.
Kunming's location: Slightly East of
the centre of Yunnan province, in a valley by a lake. Yunnan
province borders Burma, Vietnam and Laos.
The closest I've been to Kunming:
Phongsaly in Northern Laos, which is close to the border with Yunnan
province. Still a good distance from Kunming though.
Brief notes on the History of Kunming:
The area around Kunming has been inhabited for at least 30,000 years,
but the city became part of China during the time of the Han Dynasty
(206 BCE – 220 CE). At this point it became an important part of
China's trade network, being near southeast Asia and India, and
connecting a southern version of the Silk road. It was part of
various small kingdoms, when there was not a dominant Chinese empire
after this. It was called by various names until it received its
current name after the Mongols conquered it, during the creation of
their Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). The last emperor of the Ming
(1368-1644) fled to Kunming from Qing forces before the Qing absorbed
it back into China. At the twilight of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
Kunming was gaining prominence as a trade port with French Indochine
(mostly the Vietnam area) and even as China tried to become a
republic Kunming remained a vital trading outpost. In 1937 when the
Sino-Japanese war began (and would later be rolled up into World War
2), Kunming began its transformation into the city it is today, due
to its ideal location, that is as far away as possible from Japanese
forces and still in China. A massive influx of people, industry and
education made Kunming something more than a trading outpost. A lot
of fighting happened in Yunnan province once the Japanese occupied
most of Indochine. Kunming was a vital outpost for supplying (via
Burma) Chinese forces to fight the Japanese. Once the fighting
against Japan was finished and the Communists and Nationalists set
about fighting each other, Kunming quickly became a something of a
backwater again. Its status as such meant it was good place to
escape to later on, for those who could, from the craziness that was
the Cultural Revolution. Thanks to this status again, it is much
cleaner and less industrialized than other Chinese cities and enjoys
substantial tourist appeal. It has also been used as a base from
which China can extend its soft power into Southeast Asian countries.
Recent news from Kunming: The only
event people would like have heard of happening in Kunming recently
is the attack on a train station, on March 1st 2014, by
several knife wielding people. Reports vary but around 30 people
were killed and about 135 were injured during the attack. It has
been subsequently called China's 9/11. The suspects, those who were
not killed at the train station, have been sentenced to death or life
in prison. The attack was carried out by Uighur separatists, who
largely live in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Northwest
China, that is not very close to Kunming at all. That's all I will
say on the matter, but an excellent discussion of the China's
policies towards Uighurs and internal lack of harmony in general can
be found here:
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-stabbing-silence-20140419-story.html#page=1
An article we read in my Chinese
Geography class on the area is:
X Guo (2001) Land expropriation and
Rural Conflicts in China, The China Quarterly, 166, 422-439.
This article deals with the the
post-Mao changes that occurred with regards to land reform in rural
townships. Specifically the new found power of local cadres to sell
off public land to build factories and other more economically viable
activities, with a near complete lack of over sight. This tended to
lead to land that had been worked by peasants being sold with them
only finding this out when the bulldozers arrived (though a local
cadre would be with them to pay some compensation). This might not
have been such a problem if the local elections that were adopted in
other provinces had also been adopted in Yunnan. As of the writing
of the article this had not come to pass.
Physical Sources:
X Guo (2001) Land expropriation and
Rural Conflicts in China, The China Quarterly, 166, 422-439.
Barbara A. Weightman (2011) Dragons
and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia, Third
Edition, Hoboken, N.J. Wiley.
Internet sources:
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