hkiib

URUMQI, Xinjiang — China’s massive environmental engineering effort to halt the expansion of the Taklimakan Desert has reached a new milestone, effectively stabilizing sand dune migration with a 3,046-kilometer ecological barrier. Marking its first anniversary, the project, recently recognized among the “2025 Top 10 Global Engineering Achievements” by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), serves as a model for blending extensive ecological restoration with sustainable economic development in arid regions.

Dubbed a “green scarf” encircling the nation’s largest desert, this barrier—the world’s longest of its kind—is actively protecting critical oases, farmland, and grasslands in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Over the past year, 21 key counties and cities expanded the barrier by 593,400 hectares, enhancing its width and reinforcing its sustainability with improved infrastructure, including water and electricity supply networks.

Reversing the Tide of Desertification

The core strategy involves a sophisticated shift from the historical “desert advancing, people retreating” scenario to one where “green is advancing, and desert is retreating.” This success stems from integrating engineering, biological, and industrial solutions carefully tailored to the region’s extreme conditions, such as high winds and water scarcity. Innovative techniques, including grass checkerboard stabilization and the strategic planting of drought-resistant vegetation like saxaul and rose willow, have transformed mobile sand dunes.

In Yutian County, a region prone to severe gales, the combination of grass checkerboards and a “terraced desert” model significantly reduced land leveling costs while achieving an 85% vegetation survival rate. Furthermore, the 436-kilometer shelterbelt along the Tarim Desert Highway features over 20 million drought-tolerant plants, supported by advanced smart pipeline systems championed as the “Tarim solution” for desert control and regional planning.

Technology plays a crucial role in these efforts. In Shaya County, photovoltaic desert control technology utilizes solar power to extract brackish groundwater for drip irrigation, creating sustainable green zones. According to Song Ye, director of the Shaya forestry and grassland bureau, more than 30 distributed photovoltaic water-pumping systems have helped convert 63,000 mu of desert into productive land.

Ecological Restoration Fuels Economic Prosperity

Beyond environmental gains, the project has transitioned desertification control into a sustainable economic engine, creating a “golden necklace” of prosperity along the desert’s edge. This integrated approach, which includes engineering and industry, has been widely applauded for linking ecological health with local livelihoods.

For residents like Tursunbaq Mahmuthet and Sudiumay Tursun from Hotan County, the return of ecology has spurred entrepreneurship. Inspired by the thriving sand date tree saplings, the couple co-founded a cooperative, cultivating crops on reclaimed desert land and benefiting from the revitalized ecosystem. They recalled the dramatic change: “We never imagined we’d be able to cultivate these trees here… In the past, the village environment was so harsh.”

The burgeoning sand industries now span 10.8 million mu of desert land, generating an annual output value of approximately $4.1 billion, and engaging over 360 processing enterprises. High-value crops such as roses and cistanche—a parasitic plant highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine—are leading this economic shift. Yutian County, for instance, produces 80% of China’s cistanche, providing stable employment for over 10,000 residents.

This comprehensive model has also significantly boosted tourism. Attractions like the Shaya Poplar Forest and Yuli Lop Nur Village now draw more than 15 million visitors annually. By 2025, the expansion of sand industries is estimated to have increased the average annual incomes of 300,000 farmers and herders by $420 to $630, establishing a powerful feedback loop where environmental commitment directly leads to widespread economic benefit.

As Peter Gilruth, a senior advisor at World Agroforestry (ICRAF), noted, this massive undertaking requires a profound, long-term commitment, blending political will, financial investment, and multi-stakeholder collaboration, creating a scalable model for addressing global desertification challenges.

China has rolled out a comprehensive national strategy aimed at optimizing the match between the supply and escalating demand for consumer goods, a critical initiative designed to unlock the full potential of its massive domestic market and provide sustained vitality for the world’s second-largest economy. The plan, jointly unveiled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and five other key government agencies on November 28, outlines detailed measures to energize consumption sectors, promote industrial modernization, and enhance the quality and diversity of available products through 2030.

This policy reflects Beijing’s sustained focus on making domestic demand the primary engine of economic growth, particularly as final consumption expenditure contributed 53.5% to China’s economic growth in the first three quarters of this year, significantly up from 44.5% for all of 2024. The strategy emphasizes a coordinated approach to expanding domestic demand while deepening supply-side structural reform.

Fostering New Consumption Ecosystems

The core of the new plan centers on cultivating emerging consumption categories and elevating product standards. Key measures include fostering novel sectors such as smart homes and green construction materials, promoting the upgrading of consumer durables in rural areas, and increasing the availability of specialized items, ranging from winter sports equipment and popular toys to essential supplies for infants and the elderly.

MIIT deputy head Xie Yuansheng recently noted that China’s consumer goods industry has entered a new phase where quality is intrinsically linked to value. He stressed that improving supply-demand synchronization is the most effective way to unleash the nation’s immense spending power.

High-value, specialized markets are targeted for rapid expansion. By 2027, the plan aims to form three consumption sectors, each exceeding a trillion yuan (approximately $141.24 billion): elderly care products, intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs), and consumer electronics. Furthermore, the government intends to foster ten additional consumption hotspots, each projected to reach 100 billion yuan in value, covering areas such as smart wearables, cosmetics, fitness equipment, and pet-related goods.

Driving Industrial Upgrading and Virtuous Cycle

Analysts view the policy move as vital for long-term economic health. Liu Xiangdong, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, emphasized that aligning supply and demand will spur industrial upgrades. This, he argues, will create a “virtuous cycle” where new demand stimulates supply-side innovation, ensuring positive reciprocal actions between consumption and investment.

Boosting consumption is a central pillar of China’s policy agenda for 2025 and is reinforced by preliminary recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). These documents indicate that Beijing aims to substantially increase the share of household consumption in GDP, solidifying domestic demand’s role as the principal driver of growth over the next five years.

Previous government efforts to stimulate spending have already yielded results. An expanded consumer goods trade-in program, coupled with increased consumer finance and enhanced employment support, has stimulated significant sales. The trade-in program alone has driven over 2.4 trillion yuan in cumulative sales of products like new energy vehicles and home appliances during the first ten months of this year. Supported by these initiatives, retail sales, a key indicator of consumption health, maintained a stable 4.3% year-on-year growth during the January-October period.

The latest plan signals a proactive pivot toward targeted, high-quality growth, ensuring that China’s manufacturing base is better equipped to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of its rapidly evolving consumer base.

A groundbreaking exhibition in Beijing is illuminating the intertwined history of global anti-fascist resistance, tracing the journey of the International Brigades from the Spanish Civil War to China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Titled “For a Common Cause,” the display at the Museum of the Communist Party of China (CPC) synthesized two seemingly disparate battlefronts, underscoring the enduring spirit of international solidarity that defined the mid-20th century struggle against totalitarianism. Launched in August 2025 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance, the exhibition presents a comprehensive narrative through more than 260 photographs, 150 artifacts, and historical footage.

The exhibition, which will run through the end of 2025, marks the first time China has explicitly contextualized these two theaters of war within a single space, according to exhibition planner Zhao Jiaojian. The display opens with the plight of the International Brigades, the collective of over 40,000 volunteers from 50 nations who mobilized between 1936 and 1939 to defend the Spanish Republic against fascist forces led by Francisco Franco, often supported by Italy and Nazi Germany.

Chinese Volunteers in Spain

While the battles of Madrid and Jarama are widely celebrated, the exhibit highlights a lesser-known facet: the participation of over 100 Chinese nationals, many of whom were CPC members. A key figure featured is Xie Weijin (alias Lin Jishi), a multilingual veteran who served as the political commissar of an artillery brigade. Xie, who fought in pivotal Spanish engagements and established an orphanage for war-orphaned children, encapsulated the global nature of the fight.

“The Spanish and Chinese peoples are in a very tense phase of struggle,” Xie famously stated in 1938, underscoring the revolutionary wars for national and social liberation occurring concurrently across continents. The exhibition displays a replica of the red banner sent by CPC leaders to the Spanish volunteers that bore the inscription: “Unite the peoples of Spain and China! Down with the common foe of mankind — the Fascists!”

Jiang Ying, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, emphasized that the actions of figures like Xie demonstrated “a commitment to justice that crossed national borders, and constituted an indelible chapter in the global fight against fascism that should never be forgotten.”

The Eastern Shift of Solidarity

As the Spanish Civil War concluded, the anti-fascist momentum shifted eastward. Chinese volunteers returned home to join the resistance, while other international fighters redirected their efforts to China, which had emerged as the primary Asian theater of the World Anti-Fascist War.

The exhibition dedicates significant space to these international contributors, perhaps none more recognizable than Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune. After his pioneering mobile blood-transfusion service in Spain, Bethune arrived in North China in 1938, where he streamlined battlefield medicine and became a celebrated figure for his tireless dedication to saving lives near the front lines.

The story of international support extends far beyond medical aid. It includes Hungarian-American photographer Robert Capa, who captured the war’s harsh realities in 1937, and Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, whose 1938 documentary The 400 Million was instrumental in galvanizing Western sympathy for China’s struggle.

Visitors, such as doctoral student Lin Tao, expressed profound appreciation for the dual narrative. “In this exhibition, I can clearly see how the Chinese people assisted foreign revolutionaries and how foreign revolutionaries assisted the Chinese people,” Lin noted, reflecting the reciprocal nature of the global anti-fascist front.

The display reinforces China’s enormous contribution to the Allied victory, noting that China was the first nation to take up arms, tying down over half of Japan’s overseas forces at the cost of 35 million casualties. By highlighting this global tapestry of resistance, the exhibition seeks to deepen the understanding that China’s sacrifice received extensive, yet vital, international support. As planner Zhao Jiaojian stated, China will continue to cherish these contributions and “strive tirelessly to build a brighter future for humanity,” working hand-in-hand with the world.