Articles > Comments

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Wow.
I mean it's quite an accomplishment, but to my eyes over the years it seems to have gotten worse rather than better.
What with hundreds of thousands of newer cars over the years, how does this happen? Does that fall under this 2.5 particulate matter?

Did they happen to mention which city had the overall worst air quality in China?

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Hey everyone Mikes Family ask you to attend a good bye or farwell to mike at 10 am at Yunnan 3rd hospital on Beijing Lu Road Sunday 23rd August 2009.
To mikes friends to come and see him off before the cremation. Best wishes the Dawson Family

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should anyone coming over for the ride turn up this post, here's a few pointers:

road surface: the east side of the lake is unknown to me. i was there last october, and it was unsurfaced and definitely mountain bike terrain. a friend of mine was there february, and said the road was still unsurfaced. however, as NordicWays is suggesting this as being a suitable ride for a road bike, i presume it's now been surfaced. so, expect brand new blacktop.

the west side has plenty of concrete surface, which can get slick in the wet.

weather: it's rainy season in Yunnan, so assume it's going to rain. the plus side is that it doesn't get too cold in the summer rain here, unless you're doing mad descending. i would bring a rain cape or a long sleeved jersey though.

route: from yuxi over to the lake appears to be on the highway, which is usually closed to bikes, so no direct info there. as it's highway, i'm expecting it to be fairly level and well-surfaced.

west side, generally flat, but getting bumpier as you get more north. chances are we'll have a steady tail wind. up near jianshan (the peak you can see in the photo above) there's a fairly steep but short lived climb, followed by some nice descending - but watch out for the tight switchback (clear on the KMZ file from the organizers).

east side, also lots of flat, but there's a climb shortly after chengjiang, and one right after haikou zhen, which is about halfway down the east side.

fuxian lake is beautiful, the water clean, and the air over there is unpolluted. it should be a great day out.

[UNF] •

Just for the record this stupid essay has been floating on the internet with no name attributed since 2005. Make you wonder the wonders of the India "Free" press. Sound very familiar with any student of history aware of the Weltpolitik of another age.

[UNF] •

i believe you can take the 98 to xiaoximen (the walmart stop) and transfer to the 52 at the same station. There is a Kunming International Convention & Exhibition Center stop. I've never been there, but this is what i was told, so good luck!

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According to what they've told us, the outdoor music/BBQ thing will start later than usual at 6:00 - I originally wrote 3:00. Thanks for catching that.

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In connection with this, an interesting story from today's FT:

Chinese essay sparks outcry in India

By James Lamont in New Delhi and Kathrin Hille in Beijing

Published: August 12 2009

Indian academics are up in arms over what they regard as provocative incitement of the country's demise by a Chinese essayist.

"China can dismember the so-called 'Indian Union' with one little move!" claimed the essay posted last week on China International Strategy Net, a patriotic website focused on strategic issues. The writer, under the pseudonym Zhanlue (strategy in Chinese), argued that India's sense of national unity was weak and Beijing's best option to remove an emerging rival and security threat would be to support separatist forces, like those in Assam, to bring about a collapse of the Indian federal state.

"There cannot be two suns in the sky," wrote Zhanlue. "China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously." The article suggested that India should be divided into 20 to 30 sovereign states.

Such was the outcry about the article that the Indian government issued a statement reassuring the country that relations with China were calm.

"The article in question appears to be an expression of individual opinion and does not accord with the officially stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions, including at the highest level, most recently by State Councillor Dai Bingguo during his visit to India last week," the foreign ministry in New Delhi said in a statement, referring to mutual pledges to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The publication of the article coincided with talks between Beijing and New Delhi over disputed Himalayan border areas. Earlier this year, China held up funding for an Asian Development Bank project in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state claimed by China as "south Tibet". India has also banned some Chinese imports as it tries to protect its economy from the global downturn.

Officials in Beijing and Delhi hew to rival visions of the future, each seeing themselves as pursuing the more durable political and social model of development. The presumption in New Delhi is that China's unified, one-party state is bound to break down.

DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, brought the essay to his countrymen's attention. "It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices," he said. "Its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting."

China International Strategy Net is run by Kang Lingyi, who took part in hacking into US government websites in 1999 following US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Sites such as his are part of the Communist party's strategy to allow nationalism to grow to strengthen its political legitimacy.