In the middle of the last century, there was a "no man's land" on the border between the mainland and India, and it took the mainland more than a decade to build a town in this no-man's land, and after decades of development, this town has changed from a "no man's land" to a popular tourist city.
Where is this town, and how did the mainland build it over a decade?
Difficult to build
The town is called "Shiquanhe Town", which is named after the Shiquan River that flows through the town, and is located in the Ali region of Tibet on the mainland. Shiquanhe Town is a tourist town, and most people who travel to Ali will choose to rest and recuperate before continuing to set off.
Now the brightly lit Shiquanhe Town was a "no man's land" in the 50s of the last century, with only Shiquan River and Hongliutan, there was no family around, and there were no transportation facilities, so it was very difficult to enter here.
So how did the mainland build Shiquanhe Town?
In the early 50s of the last century, the mainland sent an advance company to Ali and other places to carry out the liberation mission. These fighters became the "workers" who were the first to build the town of Shiquanhe.
In that year, many soldiers died here, and Shiquanhe Town built a martyr's cemetery for them, and 63 martyrs of the advance company were buried here.
By the mid-50s of the last century, people sandwiched a simple wooden bridge on the Shiquan River, the whole bridge only has a few large logs, but it is extremely stable, people and vehicles can pass on the bridge, which is the "traffic" of the early Shiquan River.
But no matter how stable the wooden bridge is, there are more cars and people walking by, and the wooden bridge will collapse. By 1958, the wooden bridge connecting the two banks of the Shiquan River had been repaired three times, but it was barely enough to meet everyone's daily needs.
In 1965, the state officially approved the construction of Shiquanhe Town. At that time, Xinjiang sent a construction team and a 308 bridge team.
If you want to build a house, you have to have materials such as bricks and stones, but at that time, the Shiquan River only had Hongliutan and vast wasteland, and the materials for the construction team had to be purchased from outside. The carts staggered along the dirt road, one by one, transporting the building materials to the town of Shiquanhe.
The Xinjiang construction team built an auditorium for the prefectural committee and the special office in Shiquanhe Town, and also built a road several hundred meters long to connect the Xin-Tibet Highway with this road. In addition, the construction team also built a row of adobe houses to serve as dormitories for government officials.
In 1966, the construction of Shiquanhe Town began to take shape, and the state required Ali's party and government organs to relocate to Shiquanhe Town as soon as possible.
After investigation and research, the experts of the 308 bridge team sent by Xinjiang overcame the problems of soil quality and drew a design plan for a reinforced concrete bridge.
According to the design drawings, the bridge team built the first reinforced concrete bridge on the Shiquan River and installed street lights, which is one of the first transportation facilities in Shiquanhe Town.
The bridge was demolished in 2000 and a second reinforced concrete bridge was rebuilt, and since then, new bridges have been seen over the Shiquan River.
In 1988, the Gar County Party Committee and the county government also moved into Shiquanhe Town, the scale of the town was further expanded, all kinds of infrastructure were continuously improved, and some Tibetans in Ali area also moved into Shiquanhe Town, as of 2020, Shiquanhe Town has a permanent population of 24,000.
If we count from the first wooden bridge in Shiquanhe Town to the time when Ali's party and government organs moved into Shiquanhe Town, it took only more than ten years for the mainland to build a town in a "no man's land" in Ali, creating a miracle.
So, why did the mainland go to such lengths to build a town on the Shiquan River?
cause
The town is just over 70 kilometers away from Indian-controlled Kashmir, bordering India, and the Shiquan River is still the upper reaches of the Indus River, and if the Shiquan River is cut off, the Indus River is estimated to be overhanging.
In addition, Shiquanhe Town is also a transportation hub and a small town on the Xin-Tibet Highway. All of this is enough to show that the strategic location of Shiquanhe Town is very important.
In 2012, Indian media published a report that the mainland would build an observatory observatory in the town of Shiquanhe. Some people may wonder, what does the construction of an observatory observatory on the mainland have to do with India?
From a continental point of view, it really has nothing to do with India, but from an Indian point of view, it has a lot to do with it.
In the 60s of the last century, India, with the support of the United States and the Soviet Union, did a lot of things on the Sino-Indian border, and the mainland also launched a war of self-defense and counterattack against India for this purpose.
The mainland won this war, but it also left a big question mark for the world, because from other perspectives, this war did not change India's behavior of invading the mainland's Tibetan territory, and after our troops retreated, India was still doing things on the Sino-Indian border, and even caused bloodshed, and even part of the southern Tibet region of the mainland was forcibly occupied by India.
In fact, there is one place that has been neglected by the world that is firmly under the control of the mainland, and this place is "Aksai Chin". Aksai Chin is located at the intersection of Xinjiang and Tibet, most of which is under the jurisdiction of Xinjiang, and a small part is under the jurisdiction of the Ali region of Tibet, and is a necessary place for the Xin-Tibet Highway.
India claims to have "sovereignty" over Aksai Chin on the mainland, and in their eyes, Shiquanhe Town naturally has something to do with India, and Shiquanhe Town is relatively close to India, so the mainland wants to establish an observatory observation station in Shiquanhe Town, and India will make a big report.
Today, Ali Shiquan River Astronomical Observatory has become a unique tourist spot and one of the best stations of the Astronomical Observatory in mainland China. There are many international projects that have been built here, and researchers have also achieved a lot of scientific research results here.
In general, the first reason why the mainland spent a lot of effort to build a town in Shiquan River was because of its strategic advantages, proximity to India, and rich mineral resources, such as gold, copper, sulfur and so on.
The second is that Shiquanhe Town can contain or "supervise" India very well, so that India will have less toss, and the third is that the environmental conditions here are beneficial to some astronomical scientific research, and scientific research can be carried out well.
Today, Shiquanhe Town has become a tourist attraction in Ali, and a large number of tourists enter Shiquanhe Town every year, and then set off from here to other attractions in Ali area.
At present, the mainland is vigorously developing the construction of Tibet, and Shiquanhe Town has also become the largest central city in Ali Prefecture.
The emergence of Shiquanhe Town has demonstrated to the world the ability of the mainland, and it is estimated that there is no second country in the world that can build a town in the Gobi Desert in more than ten years.
Resources:
[1] Economic Information Daily, "Vicissitudes of Life: Ali - The Oral Accounts of Two "Old Ali"s", 20161123
[2] Observer.com, "Indian Media Reveals China's Invitation to Japan and South Korea to Build an Observatory on the Shiquan River", 20120417