THE n ilkrq A Journey From The High Pamirs and Ili ISf Through SiNKiANG AND Kansu ^ ¥fi n $15.00 In The Silk Road, the Myrdals—the first foreigners* in twenty-seven years al lowed to" travel the fabled Chinese trade route—follow the footsteps of Marco Polo through the majestic Chinese Pamirs in the latest of their acclaimed books on Asia. After an interruption of sixteen years, Jan Myrdal and his photographer wife. Gun Kessle, complete their magnificent odyssey over the Asian Silk Road. This last and most dramatic leg of their trip begins in northwest Sinkiang province, D where China meets Russia and Afghanis tan. Embarking firom a remote village of Tadzhiks (a mountain tribe living 12,000 feet above sea level), Myrdal provides breathtaking descriptions of the spec tacular mountains and deserts that flank the Silk Road in western China. This scenery, rarely glimpsed by West- em eyes, is only one focus of their book, which is much more than a travelr^ue. The Silk Road has been for thousands of years a vital trade route and the setting for incessant political and military conflict. Once, nomadic tribes battled with Mon golian and Chinese invaders for control; now, after a disputed border settlement, it is the scene of hostile confrontations between China and Russia—confronta tions that often threaten to erupt into open warfare. Myrdal demonstrates how the history ofthe area is deposited in the architeGture and attitudes of the residents. He emphasizes the massive effects Cff the W49 drinese Revolution upon the tech^ nolc^ and the social relations oif the region. (cmimtionUckfloj^} The Pantheon Asia Library Th6 Silk Road New Approaches to the New Asia The Japan Reader, edited by Jon Livingston, Joe Moore, and Felicia Oldfather Volume I Imperial Japan: 1800-1945 Volume 2 Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present A Chinese View of China, by John Gittings Remaking Asia: Essays on the American Uses ofPower, edited by Mark Selden Without Parallel: The American-Korean Relationship Since 1945, edited by Frank Baldwin Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters, 1956-1971, edited by Stuart Schram A Political History of Japanese Capitalism, by Jon Halliday Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman, edited by John Dower China's Uninterrupted Revolution: From 1840 to the Present, edited by Victor Nee and James Feck The Wind Will Not Subside: Years in Revolutionary China, 1964-1969, by David Milton and Nancy Dall Milton The Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema, by Joan Mellen China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution, by Jean Chesneaux, Marianne Bastid, and Marie-Claire Bergere China's Industrial Revolution: Politics, Planning and Management, 1949 to the Present, by Stephen Andors China from the 1911 Revolution to Liberation, by Jean Chesneaux, Fran^oise Le Barbier, and Marie-Claire Bergere The Pacific War: World War 11 and the Japanese, 1931-1945, by Saburd lenaga Shinohata: A Portrait ofa Japanese Village, by Ronald P. Dore China: The People's Republic, 1949-1976, by Jean Chesneaux Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village, by Isabel and David Crook The Pantheon Asia Library The Silk Road New Approaches to the New Asia The Japan Reader,edited by Jon Livingston, Joe Moore, and Felicia Oldfather Volume 1 Imperial Japan: I800-I945 Volume 2 Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present A Chinese View of China, by John Gittings Remaking Asia: Essays on the American Uses of Power, edited by Mark Selden Without Parallel: The American-Korean Relationship Since 1945, edited by Frank Baldwin Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters, 1956-1971, edited by Stuart Schram A Political History of Japanese Capitalism, by Jon Halliday Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman, edited by John Dower China's Uninterrupted Revolution: From 1840 to the Present, edited by Victor Nee and James Peck The Wind Will Not Subside: Years in Revolutionary China, 1964-1969, by David Milton and Nancy Dall Milton The Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema, by Joan Mellen China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution, by Jean Chesneaux, Marianne Bastid, and Marie-Claire Bergere China's Industrial Revolution: Politics, Planning, and Management, 1949 to the Present, by Stephen Andors China from the 1911 Revolution to Liberation, by Jean Chesneaux, Frangoise Le Barbier, and Marie-Claire Bergere The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 193I-I945, by Saburb lenaga Shinohata: A Portrait of a Japanese Village, by Ronald P. Dore China: The People's Republic, 1949-1976, by Jean Chesneaux Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village, by Isabel and David Crook Also by Jan Myrdal The Silk Road Report from a Chinese Village Confessions of a Disloyal European A journey from the High Pamirs and Hi Also by Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle through Sinkiang and Kansu Chinese Journey Angkor: An Essay on Art and Imperialism China: The Revolution Continued Jan Myrdal Gates to Asia Translated from the Swedish by Ann Henning Photographs by Gun Kessle Pantheon Books, New York English Translation Copyright © 1979 by Ann Henning and Jan Myrdal To the memory of my uncles Folke Reimer and Stig Reimer. They All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conven made a dark childhood lighter and more bearable. In their home at tions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random Kvicksta I began reading about the Silk Road one summer afternoon House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of when I was eleven. As I came home from my journey forty years later Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Sweden asSidenvagen by P. they had but a couple of short months more to live. A. Norstedt & Soners Forlag, Stockholm. Text Copyright © 1977 by Jan Myrdal. Photographs Copyright © 1977 by Gun Kessle. Maps between pages 41 and 42 and pages 233 and 234 by Roland Klang. 91^.]to L 5 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Y R C A L 9 JA Myrdal, Jan. 1009274 The silk road. AR Translation of Sidenvagen. Includes index. 1. Sinkiang—Description and travel. 2. Kansu, China—Description and travel. 3. Myrdal, Jan. I. Kessle, Gun. II. Title. DS793.S62M9413 915.1'6'045 78-51796 ISBN 0-394-48231-X Manufactured in the United States of America First American Edition Contents List of Maps ix Foreword to the American Edition xi Preface xv 1 Tashkurghan, the Old Gateway to China on the Roof of the World 5 2 Where Three Empires Meet 22 3 A Border That Does Not Exist 28 4 The Haunted Consulate 37 5 Sinkiang 41 6 It All Began with the Horses 45 7 Roads and Years 48 8 The Uighurs—Are They Chinese? 60 ^ The Grave of the Saint 66 With Regards from Chairman Mao 74 11 The Despot Had Eighty-two Rooms in His House 80 12 The Empty Grave 83 13 Yipek Yoli 108 14 Let Us Talk of Silk 112 15 A Walk in Khotan 122 16 Party Secretaries Li and Liu Talk of Khotan 130 17 For What Is Khotan Famous? Silk, Jade, and Rugs! 135 15 Kenya, or the Pulse of History 144 10 With Our Own Strength 157 20 The Politics of Sand 166 21 Turfan 172 viii Contents 22 The New Monuments 178 23 Staiin's*^ Cleft Shadow 184 24 The Russian Game 192 25 People's Defense in Dzungaria 202 Maps 26 The Production and Construction Corps 221 27 The Revolution Marches On in Nylon Stockings! 227 28 Kansu 233 Sinkiang (drawn by Roland Klang) 29 Crescent Lake 235 between pages 41 and 42 30 It Rains in the Corridor 243 The Silk Routes Between the Mediterranean 31 At the Western Gate 250 and the Yellow River page 111 32 The Kansu Iron Combine 256 Kansu (drawn by Roland Klang) 33 The Reclining Buddha 259 between pages 233 and 234 34 Toward the Divide 263 35 The Yellow River 268 36 Where the Roads Separate 274 Glossary 279 Index 281 Foreword to the American Edition Sinkiang is still the pivot of Asia. The great game continues even though the British left the table decades ago and the Empire is receding into history. But what is so striking as you travel through what formerly was know as East Turkestan is that Russian policy has been consistent since the days of Peter the Great. Now and then a forced halt; once or twice a diplomatic—and even, as in the case of Hi, a military—retreat; but then after some decades a new thrust forward. The Revolution seemed to change the situation. Many of us believed that there had been a change for good and that only some traits were left from czarist days. After all, Lenin had said that czarist policy was ended. But then the game continued as before. Stalin played for Sinkiang and Manchuria. He was outwitted by Mao Tse-tung and forced to relinquish his hold. And maybe he was even prepared for some kind of peaceful and social ist coexistence with the new China. His successors were not. And now in February 1979, during the border war between China and Vietnam, I was talking to a Chinese friend about the Russian countermeasures. "They won't make a major strike," he said. "They are not quite strong enough to try for Manchuria. Their communication lines are still bad. But they might try for Hi. After all, they do consider it Russian. They were forced to leave only a century ago." Russia is still playing the great game for Asia.