Economy

View of partial Xining skyline from the northThe GDP per capita was 49,200 RMB (US$7,897) in 2015. Its main industries are wool spinning and textiles, fur, meat, milk, salt, and light processing industries.Economic and Technological Development ZonesXining Economic & Technological Development ZoneXining Economic & Technological Development Zone XETDZ) was approved as state-level development zone in July 2000. It has a planned area of 4.4 km2 (1.7 sq mi). XETDZ lies in the east of Xining, 5 km (3.1 mi) away from downtown. The XETDZ is the first of its kind at the national level on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is established to fulfill the nation's strategy of developing the west.XETDZ enjoys a convenient transportation system, connected by the Xining–Lanzhou expressway and run through by two main roads, the broadest roads of the city. It is 4 km (2.5 mi) away from the railway station, 15 km (9.3 mi) from Xining Airport.It focuses on the development of following industries: chemicals based on salt lake resources, nonferrous metals, and petroleum and natural gas processing; special medicine, foods and bio-chemicals using local plateau animals and plants; new products involving ecological and environmental protection, high technology, new materials as well as information technology; and services such as logistics, banking, real estate, tourism, hotel, catering, agency and international trade.

History

Xining has a history of over 2,100 years and was a chief commercial hub on the Hexi Corridor caravan route to Tibet, handling especially timber, wool and salt in ancient times. The trade along the Hexi Corridor was part of a larger trade corridor along the Northern Silk Road, whose use was intensified in the 1st century BC after efforts by the Han dynasty to control this route.Under the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) a county called Linqiang was established to control the local Qiang tribesmen. It was again a frontier county under the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties; during the 7th and early 8th centuries it was a center of constant warfare with Tuyuhun and Tibet. In 763, it was overrun by the Tibetans and while under Tibetan control was known to the Chinese as Qingtangcheng. Recovered by the Song dynasty in 1104, it received the name Xining (meaning "peace in the west") and has been the seat of a prefecture or superior prefecture under that name since that time. In the late 16th century, the Ta'er Monastery was founded some 19 km (12 mi) to the southeast, establishing Xining as an important religious center for the Yellow Hat sect of Buddhists.A major earthquake occurred May 22, 1927, measuring at a magnitude of 7.6. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes in China with a total count of over 40,000 deaths. It also caused large land fractures.Xining was the extraterritorial capital of the Koko Nor territory and remained in Gansu until 1928, when it became the provincial capital of the newly established independent province of Qinghai.Xining was subjected to aerial bombardment by Japanese warplanes in 1941 during the Second-Sino Japanese War. The bombing spurred all ethnicities in Qinghai, including the local Qinghai Mongols and Qinghai Tibetans, against the Japanese. The Salar Muslim General Han Youwen directed the defense of the city of Xining during air raids by Japanese planes. Han survived an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes in Xining while he was being directed via telephone from Ma Bufang, who hid in an air raid shelter in a military barracks. The bombing resulted in human flesh splattering a Blue Sky with a White Sun flag and Han being buried in rubble. Han Youwen was dragged out of the rubble while bleeding and he managed to grab a machine gun while he was limping and fired back at the Japanese warplanes and cursed the Japanese as dogs in his native Salar language.Ma Bukang and Ma Bufang were having a discussion on Ma Biao when Japanese warplanes bombed Xining.Xining was given municipal status in 1945.Under the rule of Governor Ma Bufang, Xining, like the rest of Qinghai, underwent industrialization and modernization. In 1947 the USA sold Ma Bufang a piped water (sewage) system which was installed in Xining. Ma Bufang also promoted education. He made businessmen methodically clean up Xining by serving as insect exterminators, killing flies and neatly throwing them away.Since the late 1950s, when the Liujia Gorge Dam and hydroelectric project came into operation in neighboring Gansu province, Xining has been linked by a high-tension electrical grid to both Liujia and Lanzhou. It also uses local coal from mines at Datongxian to the north. A modern woollen mill was installed at Xining before 1957. The city also has a leather industry and is a market for salt from the Qaidam region. During the late 1950s medium-sized iron and steelworks were built there, supplying metal to Lanzhou.Construction of a highway to the mineral-rich Qaidam basin, and completion in 1959 a link to the Chinese rail network via Lanzhou in Gansu province, has spurred industrial development. This effort was part of a plan of the central government to rapidly exploit oil and pasturage in the Xining area beginning in the 1950s.