"This is not what I know about Yanan in books. "Guan Cang Jiezi, a Japanese student from Xi Jiaotong University, recently visited Yan 'an, the revolutionary holy land of China, and felt strange and fresh.
Today, from McDonald's fast food restaurant to Carrefour supermarket, from the increasingly flat cement road to more and more banknotes, the lifestyle of people in the western region, which accounts for two-thirds of the country, is quietly changing since the China government implemented the development of the western region for three years.
"At first, like many people, I thought that the' western development' might just stay on paper," said Du Xiaobo, a professional manager in Xi 'an in his thirties. But when he took his daughter to eat McDonald's, go shopping in big supermarkets and save money in foreign banks again and again, he realized that "life has changed inadvertently."
On the geographical map of China, there are many plateaus and mountains in the west, but on the map of China's economic and social development, the west is a veritable "valley bottom". Due to historical reasons, the west has been the poorest area in China since modern times.
From 65438 to 0999, China government began to implement the strategy of developing the western region, hoping to change the deterioration of ecological environment and long-term poverty in the western region through large-scale capital investment and policy inclination, and build a new western region with developed economy, rich people and harmony between man and nature.
In the past three years, the China government has invested more than 400 billion yuan in the western region, formulated a large number of preferential policies to attract foreign investment, and implemented a large-scale conversion of farmland to forests to protect the ecology. Four landmark development projects, namely, West-to-East Gas Transmission, West-to-East Power Transmission, South-to-North Water Transfer and Qinghai-Tibet Railway, have a total investment of over 300 billion yuan.
Driven by various national development measures, the economic growth rate of western 12 provinces and cities has been higher than the national average for three consecutive years, and the lives of people in the western region have also changed.
Longtan Power Station with a total investment of 24 billion yuan was built in Tiane County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which excited the local people. Facts have proved that hydropower station construction can provide nearly 60,000 direct employment opportunities and provide living services for tens of thousands of construction teams, which is enough to greatly increase the income of local people. Nowadays, a large number of Tiane farmers have become shop assistants.
What farmers in western China feel most is the change of roads. Han, a Salar farmer in Qinghai, said: "My road that has not been repaired for 40 years has finally been paved with asphalt, and the journey to Xining, the provincial capital, has been shortened by half. In the past, many villagers never traveled far in their lives. It is common to go to Xining to do things and purchase now. "
Last year, the subgrade of Qinghai-Tibet Railway moved forward 100 km, and the economic growth rate of Haixi Prefecture in Qinghai Province, the starting point of this "iron dragon", also increased by 18 percentage point, and the income of urban residents jumped to the forefront of the province.
Qi Tianli, a 70-year-old retired worker from Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, was one of the first builders of New China to support the west in the 1950s. In his impression, the road to Tibet was trodden by yaks, and it took half a year to go back and forth. You can still see the bones of livestock along the way. Later, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway was built and it took more than a week to get to Tibet. "After the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is opened to traffic, it can go back and forth in two or three days."
Land reclamation and grazing in the mountains used to be the main way of life of people in northern Shaanxi. After the China government implemented the project of returning farmland to forests, the farm work of hundreds of millions of farmers in the west has changed, and those who cultivate land have become those who plant trees. In Yan 'an alone, nearly 65,438+10,000 "shepherds" changed their production and became green growers.
Liu, a farmer from Xigouta Village, Wuqi County, northern Shaanxi Province, like other farmers in the village, replanted dozens of acres of sloping farmland at home into trees and grass. Last year, he received a one-time state subsidy of 4,060 Jin of grain, and the maintenance fee was 8 12 yuan.
"'Going to heaven' is a sigh of hard life when people in northern Shaanxi are herding sheep. Now we live and work like plain people, and those old singers can't sing, "Liu said, regretting that" Journey to Heaven "may be lost.
Zheng Mengxiong, an expert on the western region of Shaanxi provincial government, believes that with the rapid development of the western economy, it is inevitable that people in the western region will change their mode of production and their concept of life, and this change is more profound. (beam)
Xinhua News Agency, June 5th, 2002+065438+1October 4th.