On railways and history and the railroading of history

The building of railways in China has had a tortured history. Early attempts were foiled by residents who feared the building of tracks would disturb grave sites and upset an area’s natural harmony.  Laborers who made their living driving cart mules or pulling barges naturally felt threatened by competition.  Despite the best efforts of reform-minded officials like Li Hongzhang, by the end of 1896 the vast expanse of the Qing Empire had only 370 miles of track compared to 2,300 miles in Japan, 21,000 miles in the UK, and 182,000 miles in the US.  Shady deals to finance the building of railways were part of a parcel of factors which led to the demise of the Qing, and even shadier deals with foreign banks (and the governments behind them) over who would control those railroads would continue to plague a succession of Chinese governments into the 20th century.

China has come a long way since then.  As of 2006, the PRC could boast of nearly 50,000 miles of track with plans to increase that number to 120,000  by 2010.  I recently rode the new Beijing-Tianjin high speed rail line and came away very impressed. In fact, getting from our house to Beijing’s new “South Station,” seemingly halfway to Hebei

CSM: “An experiment in democracy leads to fierce resistance”

There are situations where the venality of officials transcends the usual debate over political systems and makes me despair not for any particular locality or government, but for human nature in general. This is just such a case.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

“When Fang Zhaojuan began organizing her neighbors here to impeach village leaders whom she suspected of corruption, she had no idea that the challenge would lead her first to the hospital and then to jail.

She was following the law, after all, and had launched legal petitions signed by a large majority of villagers. They believed they had been cheated of proper compensation when their village council had sold land for industrial development to the government of a nearby township.

Mrs. Fang, her family, and colleagues on a recall committee, however, found themselves plunged into a violent political drama. This, they say, has shown residents of the hamlet just how narrow the boundaries remain for their democratic rights. It has also, they add, hardened their resolve to enforce them.

Huiguan, a nondescript cluster of brick houses outside the port of Tianjin, is like tens of thousands of other Chinese villages, on the verge of being swallowed up by a fast-expanding city.

Fuller on Becker on Beijing

It’s an intellectual treat when somebody reviews a really good book, when the reviewer sinks their teeth into an author’s work, adding additional nuance and insight in a review which both explains and expands on the original argument and analysis.

It may be an intellectual treat, but let’s be honest: it’s not half as much fun as when somebody absolutely goes to town on a book (Think: Joseph Esherick eviscerating James Hevia a decade back) shredding it with analysis and a bit of wit.

For those who enjoy a good dust-up (and who among us doesn’t?) be sure to check out Pierre Fuller’s scorch of Jasper Becker’s new book, Beijing: City of Heavenly Tranquility.

I’ve not read Becker’s book yet, so I can’t speak to the validity of Fuller’s critique, but the review was fun to read…the literary equivalent of a crane kick to the face.  By the end of it, I could hear the faint voices of academia whispering: “Finish him, Johnny! Sweep the leg!”

The Great Wall…highway?

While David Spindler is fond of correcting the myth that the Great Wall was an elevated highway for guards and soldiers, the Modern Mechanix blog reprints a 1931 article about plans by the KMT government to build a 1500-mile long elevated roadway a top the wall running west from Beijing.  (Click here for the article: Page 1 and Page 2)

After giving a bit of Great Wall history and fun facts (including an interesting map of the Wall superimosed on the US) the article gushes:

With a smooth motoroad laid on top of the wall its value to China would be enormous; for besides its unquestioned military value, enabling the government to stamp out incessant banditry in the provinces (Ed. Note: I wonder who that might be…), it would do much toward the rehabilitation of those who are isolated in this mysterious interior country, and who sometimes starve to death because food, plentiful on the coast, cannot be transported inland in time.

h/t CDT.

 

日历

September 2008
M T W T F S S
« Aug   Oct »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930