by Kyle Haddad-Fonda
China File - May 5, 2016
In May 2016, the Emirates airline inaugurated
its new direct service to the Chinese city of Yinchuan. Yinchuan joins
Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou as destinations served by Emirates,
meaning that a passenger who boards a plane in Dubai is now able to fly
nonstop to China’s first, second, third, or 71st most populous urban area.
Yinchuan, situated on the loess-covered floodplain of the Yellow
River in the autonomous region of Ningxia, nearly 600 miles west of
Beijing and far from China’s booming coastal cities, is a peculiar
destination for international tourists. But that remoteness has not
deterred Chinese officials from pouring resources into a quixotic plan
to turn the city into a “cultural tourism destination” for wealthy Arabs.
To look the part, Yinchuan is undergoing an ambitious makeover. All
of its street signs have been repainted to add Arabic translations and
transliterations to the existing Chinese and English. Across from
People’s Square in the city center stands an imposing convention center
that has hosted the China-Arab States Expo, a biennial event that brings
together businessmen from China and the Middle East. South of downtown,
a 23 billion-yuan (U.S.$3.6 billion) project to build a “World Muslim City” is slated to be completed in 2020. At Yinchuan Hedong International Airport, construction continues on a nearly 900,000-square-foot terminal to accommodate the anticipated surge in air traffic, including future direct flights from Amman and Kuala Lumpur.
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