Prep notebook: Libby spikers building toward big momentPrep Extra: All state scoring duo drawing state's attentionBills' Carpenter kicks way to AFC honorCoyotes wary of Griz weaponsSource: Rice elevator video sent to NFL office in AprilBitterroot Forest offers Full Moon Walk at Hamilton's Kiwanis ParkGREG TOLLEFSON: Idea of wilderness will never get oldMARK WARD: Bowhunting underway, and trout biting on HolterDeer population rebounds in southeastern MontanaOutdoors briefs for Thursday, September 11A Missoula organization that looks back on billions of years of natural history to make the modern world a better place has done some significant evolution of its own.What began as a call to pay more attention to how plants and animals solve problems that bedevil human society, has grown into a 30 person operation with global ambitions."We'd been watching the field grow, and soon we had companies that wanted to do this in real time," Benyus said in a phone interview from her Stevensville home. "We've created an ecosystem of services to support that emerging discipline. We're pulling together a network of people interested in this all around the world. We're connecting them and equipping them with tools."But as the business focused Biomimicry Guild and the education focused Biomimicry Institute worked to grow audiences in each field, the backstage effort in Missoula grew too complicated. It was hard to disentangle the nonprofit and for profit finances, staff needs, computer systems and related details. Transforming to Biomimicry 3.8 put all of those activities under one legal and social umbrella."Our scale of activity has increased dramatically," said Bryony Schwan, who directs the nonprofit portion of the organization at its Missoula headquarters. "We're all over the world in ways we couldn't have managed before."The education wing offers classes ranging from several hours to two years, training people to think about looking to nature for solutions to human needs. The business wing works with companies including Boeing, Natura and Nike to develop new concepts."We're not interested in designing a widget to be sold in Walmart," Schwan said. "We ask what are the world's big challenges? It's a different way of thinking."Benyus offered the example of a company like Proctor and Gamble asking how to make a better detergent. Her reply was: "What do you really want to do?" And the answer was: "Clean surfaces.""So if you move away from detergent, it becomes a different question," she said. Plant leaves have to stay clean to absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide, but they don't use detergent. Instead, they've developed a bumpy surface that makes water ball up into droplets, which in turn lift up and remove dirt particles.So she advised looking at a spray that creates a self cleaning surface on fabrics or glass. Then looking further into how that spray gets manufactured, transported and how it can be recycled."You mimic the ecosystem," she said. "What's the life cycle of the product? There's a large palate of areas we work in."The Cooper Hewitt Design Mind award honored Biomimicry 3.8 and Benyus for creating a paradigm shift in the way designers look at their work. Benyus said it combined her book with all the advancements the company had brought about, including education outreach, training programs, product development and web pages."It really marks our coming of age, where biologists and educators are asked by the design community how to make better designs," Benyus said. Passionate views, pointed criticism and critical thinking are welcome. Comments can only be submitted by registered users. By posting comments on our site, you are agreeing to the following terms:Our guidelines prohibit the solicitation of products or services, the impersonation of another site user, threatening or harassing postings and the use of vulgar, abusive, obscene or sexually oriented language, defamatory or illegal material. You may not post content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification. It's fine to criticize ideas, but ad hominem attacks on other site users are prohibited. (Link to it instead, using a headline or very brief excerpt.)No short policy such as this can spell out all possible instances of material or behavior that we might deem to be a violation of our publishing standards, and we reserve the right to remove any material posted to the site. Air Jordan 7 Retro Raptor 2012 ,Air Jordan 12 Retro Playoffs Air Jordan 6 Retro Olympic 2012 Air Jordan 4 Retro Fire Red 2012 Air Jordan 10 Steel Grey Air Jordan 3 Infrared 23 Air Jordan 5 Laney Air Jordan 10 Charlotte Bobcats Air Jordan 13 Bred 2013 Air Jordan 10 Powder Blue 2014 So, is there a rule that the only quotes allowed are the ones that make Limbaugh look bad? 17.201.38.216 23:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)There are, of course, no such rules, and though there is a need for a cleanup and more standard organization of the quotes, it seems that the people who have thus far been most involved in adding to the page have been most interested in adding such quotes. As with all Wikiquote pages anyone is welcome to add whatever quotes they deem significant or interesting, but use of a more standard organiztion, more definite sourcing and the inclusion of a more extensive range of quotes is encouraged. Kalki 01:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)I'm not exactly suprised, but a little disappointed at how it seems this Wikiquote article is nothing more then a childish attempt at hacking on Limbaugh. My personl feelings aside, I can't help but cringe when I see these quotes; there is absolutely no professionalism at all in demeaning someone through some cheerfully taken out of context quotes. I was more then a little excited at a prospect of a Wikiquote, but it seems it has quickly turned into some second rate pseudo revolutionary site where the lax rules and vision has made every page into a soap box for such places like Media Matters. The name is duly noted as ironic. Eichelberger 19:57, March 11th 2008 (UTC)Context is the issue here.[edit]These "quotes" are a silly political hatchet job. The reponse to "add more quotes" does not deal with the problem. The words may well have been used (although as a regular listener, some sound very suspicious). However, one of Limbaugh's primary techniques is "illustrating absurdity with absurdity." In other words, he uses satire. Did Jonathan Swift really advocate eating chidren? A sane person knows better. I would suggest a disclaimer especially seeeing that the Leftist website Media Matters is the source for most of the half quotes.World Trade Center Rebuilding[edit]This quote may be exactly what Limbaugh said, however I believe this was Limbaugh paraphrasing Mayor Ray Nagin. Nagin at the time was undergoing scrutiny for the rebuilding efforts of New Orleans and gave a similiar response to the public. Some research should be done here for proper context.Media Matters Link[edit]The link to Media Matters challenges the neutrality of this Wikiquote article. Media Matters has an agenda simply by definition of their creation and existence and therefore lends a bias to this article. I do think it is important to include Media Matters in reference to Limbaugh; however, I think it is out of place in Wikiquote and belongs in proper perspective in Wikipedia Main.Wikipedia can be a common starting point for many searches for facts on the internet, and so can Wikiquote; Wikiquote is a separate Wikimedia project, including its own material, and there should not be any dependence on Wikipedia in providing links to relevant external sites. Accountability 19:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)When looking up quotes about the "Phony Soldiers" issue, I wanted to add accurate quotes from Limbaugh. However, someone added quotes from other parties that do not belong in this article, and also removed a quote from Limbaugh. I undid those changes, and then someone put those quotes into a "Quotes About Limbaugh" section. However, they are still quotes discussing a particular topic, and not quotes about Limbaugh himself. They are not notable, and they are trying to turn Wikiquote into a discussion forum. If you think the quotes are relevant to the issue, add them to Wikipedia or to the pages of the people who said them. However, they should not be part of this article. 75.17.119.115 06:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)It is long standing practice here that all articles on people and works can have a section for quotes about them as well as from them, and this was pointed out clearly in the comments I made in restoring the section.The relevant comments during edits occurred in this order:I can agree with observations made that this article is skewed largely against Limbaugh, and some positive comments about him would be appropriate, but the quotes that have been repeatedly deleted are by famous people commenting on a highly publicized dispute, and they fulfill every requirement of notability and relevance to an article on Limbaugh. Trying to split hairs to exclude some comments as not "about" Limbaugh but about what he said or did remains ludicrous, as does the statement that the quoting of people other than Limbaugh is an attempt to "turn Wikiquote into a discussion forum". It has always been to some extent a "forum" for the exposition of ideas, as expressed by various famous people, with various points of view, and with no regard to censoring relevant points of view, but has never been one focussing on the discussions that occur among editors. Accountability 21:49, 6 October 2007 (UTC)This Wikiquote entry is already largely skewed against Limbaugh, but up until this point, the quotes included have at least been (as far as I can tell) factually accurate quotes by Limbaugh. If we start allowing quotes from anyone who has an issue with Limbaugh's position on various topics, then this article will spin out of control. I do not think it is the intention of Wikiquote to include quotes by anyone debating specific topics by the person in question. The quotes by others should be included in their pages, as appropriate. 75.17.119.115 09:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)The reasoning employed here continues to be absurd. It is standard practice here to have a section for quotes about people on their pages. From some of the many articles where they exist, one could just as easily say the statement "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity." by John Adams, doesn't qualify as a quote about Jesus but merely one about his "divinity" and it being used as a "convenient cover for absurdity."Absurd" remains the proper word for the argument that statements in a public dispute about the character of what Limbaugh said or did not say shouldn't qualify to be considered a quote "about Limbaugh". One could just as easily say a statement about a comedian's performances aren't about a comedian, or about some ruthless dictator's deeds and atrocities aren't about a dictator. Even statements most plainly and unambiguously made about a person's character or his acts would not qualify by such criteria so long as they referred to merely acts, words, or even qualities of a person, or controversies about them and not explicitly that "person" in some very abstract and perhaps undeterminable sense devoid of all identifying elements other than name. It exceeds the bounds of rationality.Applying such narrow definitions as to what can be quoted as relevant, and to further extend it with examples, such as those indicated in the above link to the Michael Moore page: "It's a free country, so he's free to say whatever he wants, but I don't appreciate it. I don't like it." by George H. W. Bush. This obviously isn't to be considered a statement about Moore at all, but about it being a free country and Moore being free to say what he wants, and Bush not appreciating it or liking it. And again, "To have to answer anything about what that slimeball says is just too much." This too is not about Moore, but about having to answer to anything that he says. Wikiquote would have a very cleaned up, extremely sanitized and very sparse sections about everyone if we applied those criteria! But maybe that could be "squeezed in" as qualifying simply because he calls him a slimeball? Yet such a comment as that of Lajos Kossuth on George Washington plainly wouldn't qualify: "Let him who looks for a monument to Washington look around the United States. Your freedom, your independence, your national power, your prosperity, and your prodigious growth are a monument to him." because he is merely talking about "those who look for a monument to Washington" and about the nation's freedom, independence, power, prosperity and growth being monuments to him, and not a single thing specifically said about the man himself! What was anyone thinking to think that this was a quote about Washington!But no, I don't seriously believe that the freedom to edit and add material to Wikiquote should be so narrowly defined by such criteria as these that are proposed here, apparently in the interest of keeping material that might be embarrassing to Limbaugh or his most loyal "dittoheads" off of the page. The page should be cleaned up and organised chronologically as most pages for people are, and more positive comments on him gathered. I personally have no great inclination to gather material either for or against the man, but have just posted the first quote I've actually added to this page (rather than restored) from a supporter of his in the recent controversies. I really have very little interest in working on it beyond this. Accountability 14:08, 7 October 2007 (UTC)If I wanted to "narrowly define" what was added to this quote page, wouldn't I be removing all of the various quotes that are supposed to make Limbaugh look bad? But I'm not. The quotes in the "Quotes About" section were originally added inline with Rush's "phony soldiers" comments, as if the person adding them wanted to prove Limbaugh wrong. I removed them as inappropriate, and then a new section was added to specifically house those quotes about one particular topic. Note that the quotes against Moore are also targeted at him in general, and not about one particular argument or statement that he made.Again, if you feel like arguing about the "phony soldiers" comment, take it to Wikipedia or something. This page is already cluttered enough as it is, and plainly biased against Limbaugh. But of course, any effort to remove quotes that are only peripherally related to Limbaugh is met with accusations of being a "dittohead" and not wanting material that is "embarassing to Limbaugh" to be allowed here. The liberal bias of this page is already bad enough; please don't make it worse by allowing arguments by other people to be shoehorned onto a page where they don't belong. 75.17.119.115 09:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)I believe that an absurdly strong bias is showing when one can say that the "the quotes against Moore are also targeted at him in general, and not about one particular argument or statement that he made" and not recognize that the rationalizations that are being applied to excluding these comments about Limbaugh or his comments apply just as much to those made about Moore, or about Washington.You state "if you feel like arguing about the "phony soldiers" comment, take it to Wikipedia or something." Personally I do not feel like arguing about it at all, but I do feel quotations from others about it do belong here. If you truly believe that the section and the quotes do not belong on the page, take it to the Wikiquote:Village pump, and argue either that quotes about people don't belong on Wikiquote, or that these quotes should not be considered to be quotes sufficiently about Limbaugh to be included. I think the merits of such a case are entirely imaginary. Accountability 19:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)If you don't see the difference between a quote that says something general about Moore and his views, and a vote that addresses one particular thing that Limbaugh said, then I don't know how to explain it more clearly.As for "absurdly strong bias," I think it is significant to note that for a long time, there were no quotes from others about Limbaugh on this page. People were simply happy to provide as many quotes as possible that they felt made Limbaugh look bad. Then when the "phony soldiers" comment came along, I thought it would be appropriate to includes quotes from Rush that explained the context of what he said and why he said it. Almost immediately, people either removed the quotes I had added, or posted quotes by others excoriating Limbaugh. And after a back and forth, those quotes are now firmly ensconced in the "Quotes About" section, proving once and for all that any positive comment about Limbaugh will be immediately met by someone ready to bash him. It sure is nice to see that the bias against Limbaugh continues unabated, even in this supposedly objective look at him. 17.201.38.216 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)It is plain that you believe my inability to discern some vitally important distinction you claim to exist between the comments about Moore and those about Limbaugh stems from some lack of mental acuity on my part, and it is plain you are failing to discern that I am arguing whatever narrow or obtuse rationalizations might be made to exclude either those against Moore, or those against Limbaugh are simply hogwash. There were extensive arguments made about the Moore page that it was extremely biased against him, and I believe that was hogwash as well. I do actually agree that this page as a whole has been added to by those who are opposed to Limbaugh's views, but I don't believe removing legitimate quotes of famous people on the controversial issues of some of Limbaugh's comments is the proper way to reduce the imbalances that I acknowledge exist. Adding more quotes by those who agree with him, or adding more that are actually admirable by Limbaugh would be. Accountability 21:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)My concern is that once these floodgates are opened, this page will become a repository for every single quote that is related to any topics that Limbaugh has discussed, which covers quite a lot. If the quotes are limited to those BY Limbaugh, or those ABOUT Limbaugh, then the scope becomes much more manageable. I do think there is a distinct and significant difference between a quote like, "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot," and "Rush Limbaugh was wrong when he said." (In case it's not clear, I think the first quote should be allowed, and the second should not.) As it is now, these pages are a good cross section of a person's statements and beliefs. But if you allow the "Quotes About" section to contain any quotes about topics that were once argued by the subject of the article, then the page turns into a grandstand for anyone's political arguments. I can not see how that is a good thing. 17.201.38.216 00:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC) Air Jordan 7 Retro Raptor 2012,The Lady Bowmen, after suffering through a slow start, rallied late but came up short in a 47 37 loss to Pendleton in a Les Schwab Bracket consolation quarterfinal game of the Nike Interstate Shootout, held Friday at Lake Oswego High School. still a work in process, Sherwood coach Liz Barrett said after the game. seems like we taken one step forward and two steps back, but this was a step forward. The girls didn give up, and that was a big step. Now, we need to take the next step. just let it slip away. But we didn give up. That will help our confidence. We want to keep getting better. With the loss, the Lady Bowmen moved to 1 6 on the season to that point. Pendleton improved to 4 6. Sherwood took a 2 0 lead in Friday game after Hendryx sank a 12 foot jumper with 5 minutes and 25 seconds left in the first quarter. But the Lady Bowmen got only three more points two coming on free throws by Hendryx and the other on a foul shot by freshman Gabrielle Johnson in the remainder of the first quarter, which ended with Pendleton holding a 9 5 lead. The Buckaroos, getting three point baskets from junior Reeghan Lehnert and sophomore Darian Lindsey, scored the first 12 points of the second quarter to up their lead to 21 5 with 5:16 left in the period. But Sherwood came storming back. Lady Bowmen sophomore post Mallory Shields scored on a layup off a full court pass from Hendryx to end the Pendleton scoring spree. Hendryx then scored seven straight points sinking four consecutive free throws and then drilling a three pointer from the top of the circle to cut the lead to 21 14 with 2:01 left in the half. Hendryx got another basket in the period, coming on a layup off a pass from Shields, with 18 seconds left in the quarter, leaving Pendleton with a 23 16 advantage at the intermission. Pendleton pulled away again to start the third quarter. The Buckaroos scored the first seven points of the period to up their lead to 30 16. But a pair of three pointers by Hendryx and a pair of layups by junior Emily Harris trimmed the margin to 32 26 with 2:06 left in the third quarter. Sherwood, which got an 18 foot jumper from sophomore Jennah Stobie with 18 seconds left in the period, found itself trailing 35 28 going into the fourth quarter. The Lady Bowmen then opened the final stanza with a basket by sophomore Abigail Muller, on a drive to the hoop, and a short range bank shot by junior Jaelyn Funk, coming off an assist from sophomore guard Kira Jedan, to climb within three, at 35 32, with 6:41 left in the game. But Sherwood couldn get any closer. Pendleton scored six straight points to up its lead to 41 32 with 6:01 left to play. The Lady Bowmen kept fighting, getting a basket by Funk and another three pointer from Hendryx, but they couldn catch up to Pendleton, which held on for the 47 37 win. improving, Barrett said. we had too many turnovers. In addition to her game high 22 points, Hendryx also had six steals, five rebounds and a pair of assists in the contest. Funk had four points and four rebounds for the Lady Bowmen. Shields had a team high six rebounds and Jedan had three steals and a pair of assists. Muller added three steals. Sherwood, as a team, made 13 of 43 shots from the field. Senior Rayne Spencer, Lindsay and Lehnert each scored 10 points to lead Pendleton. The Lady Bowmen opened the tournament last Thursday with a 37 32 loss to Lake Oswego. Shields led Sherwood in that game with 13 points. Funk and Hendryx each scored eight. On Saturday, Sherwood was edged 56 50 by Sunset. Sophomore Jessica Thiel topped the Lady Bowmen with 11 points in that game. Jedan had 10 points and Johnson scored seven. The Lady Bowmen ended their tourney stay Sunday with a 52 38 loss to Salt River, Ariz. Funk had eight points in that game. Hendryx and Muller each scored six.
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Yet again Sony has led the way producing a high performing high quality television at an affordable price. The Sony KDL46EX723 looks great in any home and will suit most budgets. Air Jordan 7 Retro Raptor 2012 Editor Note: This is a three part series on China evolving strategic interests in Central Asia and in its own far northwest, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Part 1 looks at Xinjiang history as a "buffer region" protecting China core and linking it to Eurasia. This installment also examines recent efforts by Beijing to adapt the region legacies to new uses. Read more in Part 2 and Part 3. In mid September Chinese President Xi Jinping rounded out a 10 day tour of Central Asia that included state visits to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well the G 20 summit in St. Petersburg and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek. At each stop, the new president made hearty pledges of financial support and calls for further diplomatic, security and energy cooperation. In Turkmenistan, Xi inaugurated a natural gas field. In Kazakhstan, he agreed to invest $30 billion in energy and transportation projects. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, he made similar promises to increase investment and cooperation in the coming years. Xi tour can be examined as part of China struggle to reduce its exposure to security risks and supply disruptions off its coast by developing new overland transport routes for goods, energy and other natural resources. China eastern seaboard, and the maritime realm beyond it, have dominated Chinese political, economic and military planning in recent decades, and in many ways it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The coast will remain central to China role in the global economy, facilitating the flow of Chinese goods to overseas markets, as well as the imports of seaborne energy and raw materials relied upon heavily by coastal provinces to feed their oversized manufacturing bases. In recent years, however, anxiety within the Chinese Communist Party over the security implications of the country dependence on coastal trade has taken many forms. China aggressive efforts to modernize its navy and expand energy, resource and infrastructure projects overseas are perhaps its most visible attempts to cope with the geopolitical implications of its economic and energy needs. Xi tour, along with several other recent events, has highlighted China enduring need to focus on westward development as well. Establishing a Border China consists of three shelves that radiate up and outward from east to west like the steps of an amphitheater. The first and second shelves essentially hover over the Han core, where more than 90 percent of China roughly 1.3 billion people live. Surrounded by plateaus, mountains, deserts and steppe, the core historically has been vulnerable to attack whether from Mongolian horsemen riding down through the Central Eurasian plains, the Manchu descending from Eastern Siberia or the Japanese (in 1592 and again during World War II) through the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria. To defend the Han from overland invasion, successive Chinese dynasties have sought to push the core boundaries north and west by capturing and pacifying as much of the frontier highlands as possible. As a result, the history of Han China engagement with the sparsely populated, inhospitable lands on its periphery is defined by cycles of incorporation with these regions transformed into protective buffers and dispersal, whenever the core has fragmented and lost control of the frontier. In many ways, Xinjiang represents the outer edge in this pattern. It is far more remote than other traditional buffer regions such as Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. Urumqi, the provincial capital, is more than 3,100 kilometers (1,920 miles) from Beijing, while Kashgar, the westernmost Chinese city and historically a major Silk Road trading hub, is nearly 4,400 kilometers from the coast. Xinjiang has also played a less prominent role in Chinese history than the other buffer regions. Over the past 2,500 years, the region has broken away from China repeatedly, and it was not fully incorporated into the Chinese empire until the 18th century, taking the name Xinjiang, or "New Border," a century later. China conquest of Xinjiang under the Qing Dynasty (1644 1911) was in part a response to the rise of Russia as a Eurasian power during the same period. Prior to then, there had been little threat of invasion from Central Asia and hence little reason to formally annex all of Xinjiang. Moreover, Xinjiang is largely a desert wasteland cleaved in two by the Tianshan Mountains. The majority of its 22 million inhabitants live clustered in one of three sub regional cores: the Uighur dominated Tarim Basin to the south (centered in Kashgar), the majority Han Chinese Junggar Basin to the north (home to Urumqi), and the smaller Ili River Valley wedged in between. Today, Xinjiang accounts for 17 percent of China total landmass an area roughly half the size of India but less than 2 percent of its population. The physical environment of the region is simply too harsh to support large populations (by Chinese standards), even with modern agricultural and industrial technologies. But Xinjiang is not entirely cursed by geography. It is the only major overland route from China to Central Asia and thus was historically part of the Silk Road trade routes. Long before Xinjiang became a military buffer for China, narrow passageways such as Alashankou, the Dzungarian Gate and the Karakoram Pass along the region borders with modern day Kazakhstan and Pakistan shaped its economic, cultural and political identity as a commercial gateway to high end goods such as silk, jade, spices and precious gems. The importance of trade along the Silk Road ebbed and flowed with changes in the Chinese economy and those of its major trading partners, and it has never accounted for more than a fraction of the Chinese Empire total economic output. Nonetheless, Xinjiang has long been important as a conduit for facilitating the exchange of ideas and technologies between China and the rest of Eurasia. Modern Day: Building Trans Eurasian Ties In a speech in Astana, the Kazakh capital, on Sept. 7, Xi framed his tour as an effort to create a "Silk Road Economic Belt" through Xinjiang and the Central Asian states it borders, as well as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Talk of re establishing the historical trade route was promptly echoed by national and regional leaders in Xinjiang, who emphasized the region unique role as a land bridge to South and Central Asia. Indeed, Xinjiang history as a trade route and protective buffer is still shaping Beijing interests and policies in the region today, especially as the Party looks to expand overland energy and trade ties with Central Asia. For Beijing, the challenges and opportunities presented by Xinjiang are manifold: As an energy transport corridor and resource base, the province will be critical for efforts to industrialize the interior and reduce China exposure to possible supply disruptions in the South and East China seas. At the same time, Xinjiang remoteness and terrain, as well as persistent security concerns about the region restive Uighur Muslim population, will constrain Beijing most ambitious visions of trans Eurasian road, rail and pipeline systems. Nonetheless, there are already an unprecedented number of cross border projects under various stages of development. Many, such as a proposed agricultural free trade zone along the Xinjiang Tajikistan border, are small and expected to have a limited long term impact. Others, such as a long discussed overland transport corridor linking Kashgar (which was made into a special economic zone in 2010 and has since emerged as a focal point for state led investment in Xinjiang) with the Chinese operated Port of Gwadar in Pakistan, could be much more geopolitically significantly, albeit while facing enormous logistical, political and security constraints in the near term. One of the most promising developments in overland transport is the China Europe railway. On July 17, Beijing inaugurated a direct rail line from Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province and the largest inland manufacturing base for Taiwanese electronics firm Foxconn, to Hamburg, Germany. Six round trips are expected to be made on the Zhengzhou Hamburg line in 2013, each one ferrying approximately $1.5 million worth of mostly electronic goods to Europe. It takes around 21 days to reach the Continent by rail, while seaborne transport between China and Europe takes around five weeks, with much longer average delay times. Transport from inland China to Europe by rail costs approximately 25 percent more than by sea, but for companies such as HP (which has been shipping Chinese assembled laptops to Europe from its Chongqing factories since 2011) and DHL (which now runs weekly express trains to Europe from Chengdu), the benefits of speed outweigh the extra costs. Trade Booming, but Challenges Remain The Chinese and Kazakh governments expect the volume of overland trade through the region to Europe to grow from 2,500 forty foot equivalent units (a measurement of cargo capacity) this year to 7.5 million by the end of the decade, according to The New York Times. If value grows at the same rate, then overland trade between China and Europe could reach $4.5 billion still only a small fraction of overall China Europe trade, but one that will have tangible benefits in the inland cities most directly affected. Still, efforts to develop overland transport routes to and through Central Asia will be constrained by distance, terrain and political and security risks not only in the Eurasian states that new lines would pass through but within Xinjiang as well. Projects such as the Kashgar Gwadar corridor will be easy targets for local separatists or jihadist elements with ties to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang and Pakistan Waziristan region. Meanwhile, the China Europe line will be vulnerable to shifts in Russian policy or in Moscow relations with other countries along the route, especially Kazakhstan, Belarus and Poland. Similar political, geographic and security challenges will complicate another long discussed project, the Trans Asia Railway (known colloquially as the Iron Silk Road) linking China to Europe via the Middle East. China Growing Interest in Central Asia Even if the large scale development of trans Eurasian transport links is ultimately constrained, Beijing support for such projects is telling nonetheless and indicative of China broader strategic concerns. As a transport corridor, Central Asia is unlikely to ever account for more than 5 7 percent of Chinese European trade by volume, but it will support the Party broader goal of curtailing, to whatever extent possible, China overreliance on sea lanes in the South and East China Seas. Similar to planned oil and natural gas pipelines that will run from the coast of Myanmar to Yunnan and like the prospective Gwadar Kashgar transport corridor, overland railways could serve as possible lifelines for arms, munitions and energy in the event of a security crisis on the coast. However remote this possibility, China leaders are not insensitive to it, especially given the modern legacy of war and invasion from the east. Next: Part 2 of this series examines more closely Beijing expansion of energy ties to Central Asia, as well as its efforts to transform Xinjiang into a resource supply hub. Read more: China Ambitions in Xinjiang and Central Asia: Part 1 Stratfor Follow us: Taiwanese missile boats patrol the Taiwan Strait during a military drill in May. (SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images) More than six decades after Taiwan estrangement from mainland China, the Taiwan Strait still represents the most physically formidable and symbolically inaccessible barrier to Beijing objective of eventual reunification with the island. Over the course of its history, Taiwan switched hands from European and Japanese colonial occupiers before becoming the prospective battleground between China and Taiwan in the second half of the 20th century. 5 that in its recently approved National Highway Network Plan for 2013 2030, the State Council included two highway projects linking Taiwan to the mainland. One involves the long proposed Beijing Taipei Expressway, which would start in Beijing and pass through Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang and Fujian Fuzhou before crossing the strait and reaching Taipei. Another inland route would start in Chengdu and pass through Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian Xiamen, and cross the Taipei administered Kinmen archipelago before eventually ending at Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.
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