August 24, 2009 | Broadcast News
China’s Ancient Silk Road City Of Kashgar Facing Threat Of Bulldozers
The ancient Silk Road trading hub of Kashgar, in China’s northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is being threatened by an ambitious government redevelopment plan that some say has a hidden political agenda. Kashgar’s old city has survived the centuries, and remains an important Islamic cultural center for the Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang.
According to Matthew Hu Xinyu, an adviser to the nongovernmental Beijing Cultural Protection Center, the densely packed houses and narrow lanes of old Kashgar are the best-preserved examples of a traditional Islamic city in all of China. But the government’s reconstruction plan, Hu says, is threatening to destroy the picturesque labyrinth that makes up old Kashgar….
more via Antoine Blua, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
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JJ is the co-founder of 5ft Creatives and is presently enrolled as a graduate student at the Yale School of Architecture.
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