China-Arab forum reviving Silk Road trade route | Economy | Worldbulletin News
▻http://www.worldbulletin.net/headlines/131066/china-arab-forum-reviving-silk-road-trade-route
Ningxia has been chosen as an ideal location to help China reach out to the Muslims world, as well as mend relations with Muslims within its own country. The provinces Hui Muslim population make up around 34% of its population, and although they were the subject of much oppression in the late-nineteenth century by the Han Chinese, they a ethnically and culturally more tied to China than the Uighur Muslims of the East Turkestan (Xinjiang) province.
China hopes to set a good example of Chinese-Muslim relations to Muslims in their own country as well as bring investment to the Ningxia region by playing the Hui Muslim card to Muslim investors across the Asian continent. At the same time, China is working to revive the dead Silk Road by using the forum to promote the Trans-Asian Railway project along the ancient trade route.
Good relations with the Muslim world, in particular Arab countries, is vital for the success of this project, which promises to spread prosperity along with greater Chinese economic influence in the Middle-East.
