We should do things that are most unsuitable for socialism. It's already corrupt everywhere anyway. Along the road to the airport, another major plank of the Go West campaign is being attended to. To try to stave off further desertification, work units have been assigned to plant trees. Traffic is often blocked by collapsed slopes.
Soldiers stand in lines up the hills, shoveling away sand and planting more trees.
In Sichuan, China's most populous province, everyone is talking the talk. Although its infrastructure is probably the best in the West, it loses out to both Yunnan and Shaanxi in terms of tourists and foreign-exchange earnings. A foreign diplomat in industrial Chongqing says the municipality is immersed in a study campaign on western strategies. Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, has even established a research institute dedicated to the subject. Chongqing, meanwhile, must oversee the rehousing of about 1.3 million rural poor, courtesy of the Three Gorges dam.