Description: " Southwest China includes the Szechwan Basin and the Yunnan — Kweichow Uplands — two contrasting regions that differ in physical character, history development, and in population density and composition. They are alike, however, in that they share a common and difficult terrain. Their consequent isolation, modified only by limited transport, has complicated their economic and political integration into the mainstream of the nation.
The Szechwan Basin — sometimes called the Red Basin because of the predominant color of its soil — is surrounded by mountains and drained by four major tributaries of the Yangtze (the name Szechwan, in fact, means " four rivers " in Chinese). One of the most densely settled and productive agricultural regions of China, it has hot summers, mild winters, and adequate rainfall for an almost year-round growing season. Much of the land in the Basin is hilly — a notable exception being the ChÕeng-tu Plain — but many slopes are gentle and easily terraced; approximately 35 percent of the total area is under cultivation.
ChÕeng-tu located in the most productive agricultural part of the Basin, was established as SzechwanÕs political and cultural center by about 300 B.C. The ChÕeng-tu Plain and the city of ChÕeng-tu mirror the agricultural systems and urban designs of early North China civilization. As a result of this contact with the north and subsequent Han settlement, the Basin has remained a distinctive region that has historically maintained at various times considerable administrative independence.
The Yunnan — Kweichow Uplands include most of the provinces of Yunnan and Kweichow as well as the mountains of southern Szechwan. Interspersed within the rugged, sparsely inhabited highlands are numerous saucer-shaped and densely populated intermontane basins. The high proportion of steep slopes and high elevations has restricted the amount of cultivated land to only 10 percent of the total, although reclamation of fertile lake basins in central Yunnan and the terracing of forested highland areas are expanding the cultivated area.
Large-scale Han Chinese settlement of the Yunnan-Kweichow Plateau did not begin until the Ming rulers (1368-1644 A.D.) encouraged people in the area of the Yangtze Delta to migrate into the Yunnan and Kweichow. As the Chinese expanded into the fertile basins of the uplands, they displaced indigenous ethnic groups, forcing them to migrate into remote valleys and highlands. Despite a large influx of Han Chinese in recent decades, the provinces of Yunnan and Kweichow still have large numbers of these minority peoples, who comprise an estimated 30 percent of the population. In each of these provinces much effort has been directed toward political and economic integration of these minority groups.
The modern economic development of Southwest China began shortly after the eruption of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. As the Chinese Nationalists retreated into the Southwest, they brought industrial plants piecemeal from eastern China; some indispensable parts of the Chinese machine industry, for example, were moved from Shanghai and Han-kÕou into KÕun-ming and ChÕung-chÕing (Chungking), which became the wartime capital. By 1938 KÕun-ming had doubled and Kuei-yang, the capital of Kweichow, tripled in population. The relocation of industry to the Southwest rather than to the Northwest was largely determined by the extent, relative location, and quality of coal and iron ore deposits. The movement of the industries and the subsequent migration of students, craftsmen, skilled labor, and technicians laid the foundation for the industrial expansion that has taken place in Southwest China since 1950.
The key to economic development of the Southwest has been the construction of transportation lines that link areas of heavy industry to their sources of raw materials and to the markets of eastern China. Szechwan was the focus of early railroad construction, initially with the linking by rail in 1952 of its two major industrial cities — ChÕeng-tu and ChÕung-chÕing. The first external rail link from the province was completed in 1956 when Pao-chi, located in the Wei Ho Valley to the north, was connected to ChÕeng-tu. Subsequently, several other railroads have been build that connect the three provinces of the Southwest and serve the developing heavy industrial areas around Kuei-yang, KÕun-ming, and ChÕung-chÕing. In addition, numerous roads have been built, particularly in the frontier regions of Yunnan bordering Burma and Laos.
The economic development of Yunnan and Kweichow and the increase in the Han Chinese population of these provinces have resulted in further political and cultural pressures upon the numerous non-Han Chinese ethnic groups. A measure of autonomy of these minority nationalities exists in the form of sub-provincial autonomous administrative units. They have been established over large areas of Yunnan, where the greatest variety of ethnic groups is found and where minorities form a proportionately larger percentage of the population. The heaviest concentrations of Han Chinese are found in the larger lake basins around KÕun-ming and Ta-li; their numbers decrease to the south and west. The Chinese have traditionally shunned the tropical valleys and basins of southern Yunnan and have been equally deterred by the rugged mountain lands to the west. Although the Chinese appear to have succeeded in pacifying most of the southwestern borderlands, some minorities, particularly along the Burma border, with ling traditions of independence and anti-Chinese attitudes still hinder total political consolidation of the Southwest. " — CIA, 1971
Place Names: China, Kweichow,
Hunan,
Yunnan,
Kwangsi,
Nan Ling,
Hupeh,
Szechwa
ISO Topic Categories: society,
transportation
Keywords: Southwest China, transportation,
physical, physical features,
topographical, roads,
railroads, society,
transportation, Unknown, 1971
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, People's Republic of China Atlas (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971) 22
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman |
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