Xining builds industrial park dedicated to Tibetan plateau

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Xining, Qinghai, China

This is the fourth article in a series based on a visit by six Indonesian journalists, including The Jakarta Post, to China courtesy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of China.

As a result of the "go west" policy of 1999, a 4.3 square- kilometer industrial park has materialized itself this year in a suburb of the usually quiet but scenic town of Xining, capital of the western province of Qinghai.

China has hundreds of industrial parks across the country, but this newly finished park is unique; it is the only scientific estate garden devoted to Tibetan medicine.

"We offer a three-in-one preferential policy," said Guo Tianming, director of the park, "Companies enjoy preferential treatment from the state, provincial and local level." One example of this preferential treatment is a tax holiday for 11 years.

Already, 54 enterprises have set up their offices in the park which has capacity to house up to 80 firms. With less than 100 staff, the park boasts a US$30 million per year profit.

Close proximity to the nearby highland, the Tibetan plateau, is the unique characteristic of the park. Companies operating here plan to exploit special plants from the plateau, often referred to by ecologists as the world's "third pole" (besides the North and the South poles) for its tremendous height.

Only 10 percent of Qinghai province lies outside of the plateau. More than half of the plateau rises 4,000 meters above sea level including China's biggest Qinghai salt lake.

The plateau is famous for its unique climate, such as extreme cold, oxygen deficiency, strong sunshine and non-polluted air that contributes to the unique characteristics of the medicinal herbs growing in this land, as well as the animals.

Over 70 percent of the enterprises devote themselves to developing healthy food and pharmaceuticals derived from the herbs and animals in the resource-rich plateau, Guo said.

China recognizes 33 types of traditional medicine, including those of Han, Tibetan, Uygur and Mongolia. The Han, or Chinese, medicine is the most famous, but Tibetan medicine is unique for its vitality since it is derived from rare plants and animals found on the Tibetan plateau, Guo said.

"Since they are different from other domestic plants, the effect of Tibetan medicines are acute," he said.

If so, why has Tibetan medicine yet to gain world-wide popularity? Guo said there were two reasons for this. First, Tibetan medicine lacks a theoretical basis.

"We only know which medicines cure which illnesses, like, for example, headaches, but we don't know why they cure the illness," said Guo.

Second, Tibetan medicine is often promoted under the banner of Chinese medicine, he said.

The park works in tandem with the Arura Tibetan Medicine Group (Tibetan Pharmaceuticals of Jin He) which was set up in 2000, in downtown Xining nearby a Tibetan hospital. The group is at the center of the most comprehensive research ever conducted into Tibetan medicine.

Rare plants and animals from the Tibetan plateau are put into glass tubes for research purposes. In the multi-layer shelves are hundreds of volumes of Tibetan medicine books. A huge scholarly task is taking place here to translate ancient books into modern Chinese.

"The government has just realized how important the legacy of Tibetan medicine is," a government source said, "hence the opening of the center."

With the establishment of the industrial park and the Tibetan medicine center, the importance of the Tibetan plateau gains new heights.