BanglaBhoot
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FROM rooms facing the sea at the Sanya Marriott Resort and Spa, guests can look out along a sweep of luxury hotels that have sprung up in recent years by what is now Chinas most famous beach. Officials proclaim that no fewer than four Miss World competitions have been held on Sanyas palm-fringed shore this decade. They are distinctly quieter about the huge new naval base whose concrete breakwater looms beyond the parasailors and jet-skiers out in Yalong bay.
Dont go near it. Its a military areavery dangerous, says a man renting kayaks. A taxi driver laughs nervously and says he knows nothing about it. Early this year the publication of commercial satellite imagery explained the coyness. It revealed a Jin-class nuclear submarine berthed there. This is a newly developed vessel that can carry a dozen nuclear missiles. The photographs also showed what appeared to be the entrance to an underground harbour that would do credit to a James Bond set. Analysts say submarines can shelter there.
The unannounced construction of the new base, a few kilometres from an older one at Yulin, had long been known about. Yet the pictures attracted considerable media attention. To some, the large-scale facility suggested a menacing ambition. Sanya is on the southern coast of Hainan island and faces the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by several countries, China among them. The sea would be the conduit for any projection of Chinese naval power into South-East Asia and (as officials in Delhi fear) the Indian Ocean, as well as into the Pacific.
The obsession with military secrecy sits oddly with Chinas efforts to turn Hainan, which is about the size of Sri Lanka and sits on Chinas southernmost fringes, into an international tourism hotspot. Officials proudly describe the island as Chinas Hawaii. From the beach, this correspondent clocked a couple of Luyang-class destroyers and a missile frigate. One of the destroyers emerged from the base and steamed cheerfully up and down in front of the hotels.
Strategically vital though Hainan is, in the 1980s Chinese leaders decided that tourism was Sanyas best bet. It was the minister of defence then, Zhang Aiping, who persuaded military commanders to let Yalong bay, then a training ground for marines, be turned into a beach resort. Local officials were dispatched to Honolulu to see how it should be done.
Over the next few years Hainans tourism industry might open a window on another of the armed forces preserves. Plans have been announced for the construction of a satellite-launch centre at Wenchang on the islands north-east coast, to be completed in 2012. Chinas space facilities, including three existing launch centres, are under military control and are usually off-limits to foreigners. In September, when China staged its first spacewalk, a handful of foreign journalists were invited to the launcha first.
At least as civilian officials see it, the Wenchang centre will break new ground. The local government is planning a $1 billion space theme park alongside it. It wants to turn the little-known area into a tourism destination to rival Sanya. Chinese tourists have already been allowed to view some of the launches at inland facilities, but Wenchang is hoping to turn itself into a bigger draw. One local official was quoted in the Chinese newspapers proclaiming the future launch centres distinctive qualities of commercialism, internationalism and openness.
This might sound familiar to officials in Jiuquan on the edge of the Gobi desert in north-eastern China. They too had big plans a few years ago for a tourism spin-off from the launch centre about 200km (125 miles) away, deep in the desert, from which the recent spacewalk mission was launched. They were disappointed. The centres military controllers were not keen on visitors. A planned theme park on the edge of Jiuquan remains a wilderness.
The military v tourism on Hainan island | Naval gazing | The Economist
Dont go near it. Its a military areavery dangerous, says a man renting kayaks. A taxi driver laughs nervously and says he knows nothing about it. Early this year the publication of commercial satellite imagery explained the coyness. It revealed a Jin-class nuclear submarine berthed there. This is a newly developed vessel that can carry a dozen nuclear missiles. The photographs also showed what appeared to be the entrance to an underground harbour that would do credit to a James Bond set. Analysts say submarines can shelter there.
The unannounced construction of the new base, a few kilometres from an older one at Yulin, had long been known about. Yet the pictures attracted considerable media attention. To some, the large-scale facility suggested a menacing ambition. Sanya is on the southern coast of Hainan island and faces the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by several countries, China among them. The sea would be the conduit for any projection of Chinese naval power into South-East Asia and (as officials in Delhi fear) the Indian Ocean, as well as into the Pacific.
The obsession with military secrecy sits oddly with Chinas efforts to turn Hainan, which is about the size of Sri Lanka and sits on Chinas southernmost fringes, into an international tourism hotspot. Officials proudly describe the island as Chinas Hawaii. From the beach, this correspondent clocked a couple of Luyang-class destroyers and a missile frigate. One of the destroyers emerged from the base and steamed cheerfully up and down in front of the hotels.
Strategically vital though Hainan is, in the 1980s Chinese leaders decided that tourism was Sanyas best bet. It was the minister of defence then, Zhang Aiping, who persuaded military commanders to let Yalong bay, then a training ground for marines, be turned into a beach resort. Local officials were dispatched to Honolulu to see how it should be done.
Over the next few years Hainans tourism industry might open a window on another of the armed forces preserves. Plans have been announced for the construction of a satellite-launch centre at Wenchang on the islands north-east coast, to be completed in 2012. Chinas space facilities, including three existing launch centres, are under military control and are usually off-limits to foreigners. In September, when China staged its first spacewalk, a handful of foreign journalists were invited to the launcha first.
At least as civilian officials see it, the Wenchang centre will break new ground. The local government is planning a $1 billion space theme park alongside it. It wants to turn the little-known area into a tourism destination to rival Sanya. Chinese tourists have already been allowed to view some of the launches at inland facilities, but Wenchang is hoping to turn itself into a bigger draw. One local official was quoted in the Chinese newspapers proclaiming the future launch centres distinctive qualities of commercialism, internationalism and openness.
This might sound familiar to officials in Jiuquan on the edge of the Gobi desert in north-eastern China. They too had big plans a few years ago for a tourism spin-off from the launch centre about 200km (125 miles) away, deep in the desert, from which the recent spacewalk mission was launched. They were disappointed. The centres military controllers were not keen on visitors. A planned theme park on the edge of Jiuquan remains a wilderness.
The military v tourism on Hainan island | Naval gazing | The Economist
