It's official: this month Kunming will launch direct flight services to Dubai, joining a small handful of other Chinese cities with air links to the Middle East.

China Eastern Airlines announced last week that it will launch flight services between Kunming and Dubai on February 22. The thrice-weekly flights include one direct Kunming-Dubai flight and two with stopovers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The direct service, MU755/6, will depart Kunming at 4 pm and arrive seven hours later in Dubai. MU2021/2 will also leave Kunming at 4 in the afternoon, arriving in Dubai around eight hours later after stopping in Dhaka.

The new air connection is expected to boost already booming non-oil trade between China and Dubai. Additionally, Yunnan is home to one of China's largest Muslim populations, after Xinjiang, Ningxia and Gansu – which should lead to more Yunnan Muslims visiting the Middle East as leisure and religious tourists.

The addition of flight services to Dubai is another step in Kunming's evolution into an international air hub. Since the end of 2007, Kunming has added flight services to Kolkata, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.

The biggest step forward in Kunming's emergence as an international aviation hub will be the opening of Kunming's new airport. The 12 billion yuan (US$175 million) airport is scheduled to open in 2011.

The airport will be located about 30 kilometers northeast of downtown, just past the town of Dabanqiao (大板桥镇). Considerable progress has been made on the airport since construction began in 2008, with the steel skeleton of the airport terminal nearly completed and base earth layers ready for the runways.

The new airport and other infrastructure projects outlined in Kunming's ambitious 12-year development plan, which was unveiled in 2008, promise to bring major changes to the city. Alongside construction of the airport is a four-lane expressway that will link the new airport with the eastern end of Dongfeng Dong Lu via interchanges at the second and third ring roads.

Also, the timeline for construction of light rail line number six, which will run from downtown Kunming to the new airport, has been pushed forward, with construction beginning next year. The light rail was originally going to be extended to the airport by 2020 and is now projected to be completed within five years.

Photos of the new airport expressway and airport construction site:



Dubai image: Dubai Travel Guide

The most significant confidence-building exercise between neighbors China and India – the annual joint military training operation known as 'Hand in Hand' which was to be held in China later this year – will not take place, suggesting that while economic exchanges between the two countries continue to grow, the political relationship could continue to lag in the short term.

"We have not held any meetings to plan out the drill," a senior Indian army officer involved in the exercises told the Kolkata-based Telegraph. "It is unlikely that there will be an episode of the exercise this year when our soldiers would have been expected to visit China since they were here last year."

The first 'Hand in Hand' exercise between the two countries' armies was held in 2007 with the Indian army's 15 Jammu and Kashmir Light infantry joining Chinese counterparts for eight days of war games as well as drinking and dancing in the mountains outside of Kunming.

Last year, a 130-strong contingent from the People's Liberation Army conducted drills with the 8 Maratha Light Infantry in Belgaum, a city in southwest India's Karnataka state.

The reason for the early demise of the confidence-building exercises between the militaries of the world's two most populous countries – which went to war in 1962 – is not fully clear.

Complaints by a senior Indian military official to the Telegraph about the high costs of the exercise hint that maybe there was not enough mutual interest in continuing Hand in Hand to justify the expenditures involved. But it is also possible that a recent cooling in the political relationship between China and India is a factor.

China is India's largest trading partner and India one of China's larger trading partners – bilateral trade between the two reached a new high of US$51 billion last year – but the 3,500 kilometer border separating the two rapidly growing economies has yet to be fully demarcated.

This year there have also been several reports, some confirmed and some unconfirmed, of recent border tensions. Earlier this month Indian general Deepak Kapoor announced that China had been active in areas claimed by India, with a Chinese helicopter landing in disputed territory. India's national government has played down the border issue and has aggressively refuted Indian media reports that shots were exchanged over the border in July.

In August of this year, much to the chagrin of politicians in India's ethnically diverse northeast, New Delhi decided to scrap its plans to rebuild the Indian section of the Stilwell Road, a World War II supply route connecting Assam state with Kunming via northern Myanmar. Some Indian politicians viewed the renovated road as the most viable option for injecting dynamism into the laggard economy of the country's northeast.

For some Kunming businesspeople, political and military tensions need not get in the way of expanding China-India business ties. Guo Hongbo, leader of a 12-member trade delegation from Kunming visiting Kolkata, Bangalore and New Delhi last week, told Express India while in Kolkata that business was the only thing on the delegation's mind.


Despite a large Chinese population in Kolkata and the Indian city's only direct air link to China being direct flights to Kunming, Guo's delegation was unable to meet with any high-ranking officials from the government of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital. The same delegation also had a lukewarm reception in Bangalore, where it was attempting to attract Indian IT investment in Kunming.

One year after its postponement due to Olympic jitters, the global congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) is being held in Kunming from today through Friday, July 31.

This week more than 4,000 academics from more than 100 countries will be in Kunming to discuss developments in anthropology and ethnology. The five-day event will cover topics including cultural diversity, the environment, social change, immigration, language, education, the family, women and children's issues, architecture and corporate social responsibility.

The Kunming congress is the fourth global congress organized by the IUAES, which is headquartered at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Previous editions have been held in Kolkata, India; Pardubice, Czech Republic and Cape Town, South Africa.

The congress was originally scheduled to take place in July 2008, but it was postponed by the China Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in May, with no official reason given during a time when cultural events were being canceled nationwide in the runup to the Beijing Olympics.

In the wake of recent riots in Xinjiang, the Kunming government seems determined to minimize the chance of anything not going according to plan at the congress this week.

Yunnan University, which is hosting the congress, is off limits to the general public – entry is only granted to registered participants who must display passes. Additionally, the university's perimeter is under heavy police watch.

No official explanation for barring the general public from Yunnan University's main campus has been given, there are several possible reasons, including the attendance of Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu at this morning's opening ceremony.

In his address to the congress, Hui said that "pushing forward dialogues and cooperation among different civilizations is a joint responsibility of individuals and governments."

Despite Hui's upbeat statement, the recent ethnic violence in Xinjiang that left hundreds dead is likely a cause for ramped up security. Another potential reason for government uneasiness may be the occasional overlap between anthropology and intelligence gathering operations.

IUAES Secretary General Peter JM Nas has published a statement against the mixing of anthropological research and spying, summed up by his last sentence: "The values of openness and honesty ultimately trump those of deception."

Beginning July 17, it will be possible to fly from Kunming directly to Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, according to a China Hospitality News report.

The thrice-weekly flights to Kathmandu will depart Kunming every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

The Kunming-Kathmandu route is the third direct flight from Kunming to a South Asian city. There are already flights from Kunming to Kolkata, India and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The new route is the third international flight added by China Eastern's Yunnan branch this year. The branch airline has also launched flights from Kunming to Siam Reap, Cambodia and Phuket, Thailand this year.

South Asia is one of the fastest growing trade partners for Yunnan – Kunming now hosts an annual South Asian Commodities Expo alongside the Kunming Fair.

Airfare for the new route has yet to be released. For information about Nepal visas, check the Nepalese Department of Immigration website.

Kathmandu image: journals.worldnomads.com

Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) asked India to open a consulate in Kunming during a meeting with Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni in New Delhi last week, according to Indian media reports.

Direct flights between Kunming and Kolkata, capital of eastern India's West Bengal state, were launched in late 2007, but visa regulations and lack of a Kunming consulate make it difficult for Chinese living in southwestern China to visit India.

In order to obtain a visa, applicants must go to India's embassy in Beijing or its consulates in Shanghai and Hong Kong. For people living in Yunnan, it's often easier to skip the Kunming-Kolkata flight and fly to nearby Bangkok where there is an Indian embassy and more flight options to India.

While meeting with Qin and a delegation of Yunnan officials and entrepreneurs last Wednesday, Soni invited the visitors from Yunnan to invest in India's tourist infrastructure and called for closer cooperation between the two countries.

During the visit, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West Bengal Tourism Directorate, West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation and Travel Agents Association of India Eastern Chapter to "build a mutual bond on tourism practices, exchange and understanding."

Indian tourist visits to China are roughly quadruple the number of Chinese visits to India.

With much of the city's traffic in disarray, travelers leaving Kunming via Kunming Wujiaba International Airport have needed to allow some extra time for their journey to the airport. Now that the airport has tightened security – especially with regards to liquids – it is advisable to give yourself even more time.

According to Kunming media reports more than 60 percent of passengers going through the airport's security check have had their bags searched recently. The increase in security at the airport – which previously had been quite lax – has reportedly led to many travelers missing their flights.

The recent tightening of security comes after Chinese media reported a foiled hijacking of an Urumqi-Beijing flight last week, which quickly and mysteriously disappeared from Chinese media.

On an unrelated note, Indian media is reporting that a China Eastern flight from Kolkata to Kunming this weekend had to dump its fuel and make an emergency landing when the plane's landing gear failed to retract after takeoff.

Kunming will be the starting point of a four-country, 2,500-kilometer car rally next month that is aimed at promoting friendship between China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, according to a Xinhua news report.

The report, citing Myanmar media reports, said that 18 cars from the four countries will set off from Kunming in April – the date of the race's start is still under discussion – and will arrive in Kolkata, India ten days later. Each country will have three cars in the race, which will also include six support vehicles.

The China leg of the race, all of which will be in Yunnan province, will end at the border town of Ruili in western Yunnan, as the cars pass into Myanmar via the town of Muse. Nearly 1,000 kilometers of the rally will be in Myanmar.

As transport infrastructure between the four often uneasy neighbors continues to improve, it is hoped that the rally will promote trade and tourism among the countries, the report said.

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Next month Kunming will host joint military exercises between China and India, a major milestone in relations between the world's two most populous countries. China and India went to war with each other in 1962 over their shared Himalayan border and have only in recent years begun to open up to each other.

December's first-ever Sino-Indian war games will feature 200 personnel from the Chinese and Indian armies and will focus on anti-terrorism exercises. Army officials from the respective armies are scheduled to meet next week in the West Bengal city of Kolkata - headquarters of the Indian army's Eastern Command – to hash out the details of the joint exercises, which were approved in Beijing at the beginning of the month during a meeting of military officials from the two countries.

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