100 Places You Will Never Visit (25 page)

The Gobi desert stretches across northern China and southern Mongolia, covering more than 1.25 million square kilometers (500,000 sq miles). It is, in short, a perfect location if you require a lot of space and privacy, and as such, it has become something of a hub for several Chinese defense and space programs.

In 2011, the curiosity of the international community was piqued by a series of aerial photos showing several curious and vast structures that had sprung up in the desert. The images show:

• A series of reflective rectangles with sides up to a mile in length

• A network of intersecting white lines in a seemingly random pattern

• A set of concentric circles, at the center of which sat three jet planes

• A circle of bright orange blocks, each the size of a shipping container

• A grid system extending 29 kilometers (18 miles) in length

• Metallic squares covered in unidentified debris

• A large man-made body of water.

There are no major permanent settlements or obvious military facilities particularly close to the affected area, but some observers have noted that the Ding Xin military airbase (with a reputation for secret development programs) and the salt lakes of Lop Nur (site of many nuclear tests until the mid-1990s) both lie within 600 kilometers (370 miles) of the site. Meanwhile, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, a major base for the burgeoning Chinese space program is less than 150 kilometers (90 miles) away.

Some have suggested that the structures are designed to simulate street grids, perhaps acting as targets for missile tests. Others have pondered the possibility of a huge water purification plant or solar energy facility. But the truth is that no one outside China really knows. What is left is a truly modern-day mystery, though it is appealing to speculate that the whole thing may turn out to be a mischievous practical joke dreamed up in Beijing to occupy the international intelligence community.

86 Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center

LOCATION Borders of Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia, China

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Jiuquan

SECRECY OVERVIEW Operations classified: secretive center of China’s space program.

In 2003, Yang Liwei became the first man launched into orbit by China. When he took off from the Jiuquan Launch Center, China became only the third country to manage the feat. Largely hidden from the glare of attention in its isolated desert location, the Center’s South launch site is the focus of the nation’s space program. However, much of the huge complex remains off-bounds to outside observers.

Construction of a rocket facility at Jiuquan began in 1958, with assistance from the Soviet Union. In its early years, Jiuquan’s principal purpose was to test launch surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, a fact that greatly disturbed Washington when it became aware of the facility in 1963. Originally known as Base 20, it was China’s chief site for missile development and testing until at least 1980. This work was largely carried out at what is known as the North Launch Site, a facility that was officially decommissioned in 1996.

The South Launch Site, with its 105-meter (344-ft) launch tower, sprouted from the sands of the Gobi Desert in the 1990s to serve as the headquarters of China’s expanding space program. The region’s weather conditions ensure that launches are possible for around 80 percent of the year, while the isolated location reduces the risk of failed rockets falling back to Earth over populated areas. Jiuquan saw its first launch at the end of the decade, and in 2003 came Yang Liwei’s momentous mission, designated Shenzhou 5. After orbiting the planet 14 times, the first “taikonaut” returned to terra firma to find himself a popular hero and Jiuquan firmly fixed in the national consciousness.

Just as the space race had been for the Cold War superpowers of the USA and the USSR in the second half of the 20th century, space exploration for booming 21st-century China is not simply about pushing back the boundaries of science. Perhaps just as important is the role a space program can have in establishing China’s credentials as a new superpower (particularly when its only rival to such a status, the US, has recently struggled to find the dollars to fund its own missions).

Such ambitions have been fermenting for a long time. For instance, Deng Xiaopeng, the country’s de facto leader from 1978–92, is reported to have remarked: “If China had not developed a nuclear bomb and had not launched a satellite, then China would not be able to call itself a great power.”

A second manned mission, Shenzhou 6, was launched from Jiuquan in 2005, this time sending up two taikonauts. Shenzhou 7 followed in 2008, and took the project another step by incorporating extra-vehicular activity (a space-walk, in layman’s terms). While the American and Soviet pioneers of the space race tested each new stage of development with frequent multiple missions, the Chinese approach is more sporadic, but each new mission, when it comes, involves another giant leap forward. Ultimately, China makes no secret of its ambitions to put a permanent manned station into orbit, to establish a base on the Moon, and perhaps even to send a manned mission to Mars.

BLAST OFF A Long-March II-F carrier rocket launches from Jiuquan on September 25, 2008, carrying the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft. This was China’s third manned space mission, sending a crew of three into orbit. Controversy ensued when Shenzhou passed within just 45 km (28 miles) of the International Space Station.

In gestures largely uncharacteristic of Beijing, international journalists have been occasionally invited to share in the state-of-the art work going on at Jiuquan—or at least, they have been invited to see certain specified areas such as the South Launch Site and Donfeng Space City, which is home to several tens of thousands of employees (both military and scientific) and their families. With modern facilities including schools, cinemas, beauty parlors and fast-food joints, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the entire project is some sort of elaborate space theme park, and indeed, even tightly controlled tourist groups have been welcomed into certain corners of Jiuquan. The Chinese space program, it seems, operates with unusual openness.

Yet the fear remains that there is more going on at Jiuquan than simply space exploration. The Center is a vast operation, with a footprint of some 2,800 square kilometers (1,100 square miles) and its own railway that links to the national network. While the South Site serves to highlight mankind’s continuing determination to become masters of the universe, what goes on elsewhere at the Center is rather more mysterious. Much of it is closed to visitors, with military personnel patrolling to ensure that its exclusion zones are not breached. Those parts where prying eyes are not welcome are said to include an airbase, radar tracking stations and missile testing ranges still in operation. As the US and the Soviet Union discovered, space technology throws up a lot of “transferable” science, and many observers believe that Jiuquan’s role in China’s military endeavors may well turn out to be as important as its more widely heralded space projects.

1 DESERT OUTPOST An overhead view of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the beating heart of the fast-expanding Chinese space program. The image was captured by the IKONOS observation satellite, the first commercial satellite to collect data at 1-meter (40-in) resolution.

2 SOUTH LAUNCH SITE Jiuquan’s Launch Area 4, operational since 1999, incorporates a Vehicle Assembly Building with twin 82-meter (268-ft) tall assembly halls. Completed rockets travel 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) to the launch pad’s Umbilical Tower on a mobile launch platform.

87 The Tomb of Qin Shi Huang

LOCATION Shaanxi Province, China

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Xi’an

SECRECY OVERVIEW Site of historic mystery: the legendary tomb of China’s first emperor.

From 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang ruled over a vast empire of once-disunited states, laying the platform for the modern Chinese state. Keen to build a suitable monument to himself for after his death, he ordered the construction of one of history’s most spectacular mausoleums. While parts of the complex—including the incredible Terracotta Army—have been revealed in recent decades, much of it still lies buried.

Qin Shi Huang came to the throne of the Chinese state of Qin in 246 BC when he was only 13 years old. A figure of vast ego and ambition, he spent a good deal of his life planning for his legacy, and building of his mausoleum began soon after he ascended to the throne. He somehow also found time to unite a disparate group of previously warring kingdoms, imposing order in the form of vast infrastructure projects (including a forerunner of the Great Wall of China), as well as sweeping economic and political reforms, including the standardization of currency, weights and measures. For this, he is generally acknowledged as the First Emperor of China.

The more successful he became as a leader, the more ambitious his plans for his afterlife seem to have become. It has also been speculated that, in a bid to discover the elixir of life, he consumed all manner of substances that slowly drove him insane. Regardless, on the advice of his trusted geomancers (who offered spiritual guidance by interpreting geographical features), he hit upon Li Mountain as a particularly auspicious site. Today it is roughly equivalent in size to the Great Pyramid at Giza, but it was considerably larger in Qin Shi Huang’s time. It is located about 35 kilometers (22 miles) east of Xi’an, between the Lishan Mountains and the River Wei. The Emperor decreed that an area several kilometers wide around the mountain was to be given over to his grand project. The mausoleum complex was designed to echo the plans of his great dynastic capital, Xianyang, with his “palace” at the center and the “city walls” enclosed by outer walls. We have a relatively contemporary account of the tomb’s construction in the form of Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, written about a hundred years after the Emperor’s death. In it, Sima Qian reports that 700,000 workers were tasked with building the tomb. Some experts have concluded that this must be an exaggeration, but it nonetheless gives an idea of the scale of the work.

Sima Qian also tells of how three rivers were burrowed through and filled with bronze. A map of the entire Qin empire was carved into the floor, while the roof was encrusted with precious gems to resemble the night sky. Rivers of mercury flowed through mountains and hills of bronze. To add a bitter aftertaste to the story, it is said that in a bid to preserve secrecy, the Emperor had every one of the laborers who worked upon it executed, many by burial within the mound itself. It all sounds somewhat implausible, yet more than 4,000 soil samples have shown notably high levels of mercury vapor, suggesting that the tales could be rooted in fact after all.

The general public’s first inkling of what might be contained in the tomb came in 1974 with the serendipitous discovery of a pit by a party of well diggers. They had uncovered the first evidence of the terracotta warriors, a life-sized sculpted imperial honor guard. This remarkable army—with some troops on foot and others in horse-drawn chariots—is estimated to total 8,000 figures. Further pits have since been found containing figures of actors, dancers, musicians, acrobats and civil servants—all the staff you might need in the Next World. Subsequent archaeological investigation has revealed around 180 different sites of interest within the tomb complex, from towers and gardens to offices.

New rooms, pits and other features are regularly added to the list. The tomb itself is believed to be encased in copper, residing within a purpose-built, treasure-filled chamber. To deter intruders, the Emperor had the mausoleum extensively booby-trapped. A network of crossbows is said to be rigged to fire at anyone who manages to break in.

HONOR GUARD The magnificent Terracotta Army, comprising in excess of 8,000 warriors, 650 horses and 130 chariots, was rediscovered in the mid-1970s after being hidden for more than 2,000 years. They provide a taste of the excess in which Qin Shi Huang seems to have specialized.

Somewhat remarkably, non-invasive ground surveys indicate that the main vaults are indeed largely undisturbed—quite a feat in a country where grave-robbing is a lucrative and organized business. In 2010, for instance, it was found that the grave of Zhuang Xiang, father of Qin Shi Huang, had been broken into. The Tomb of the First Emperor may well be one of the world’s most important archaeological treasures, on a par with (if not surpassing) the tomb of Tutankhamun. As such, the site has been put under the highest security and it would take a skilled or reckless robber to attempt to breach it today.

Requests by academic teams to excavate the main tomb area have so far been resisted by the Chinese authorities, not least because earlier attempts at excavating imperial tombs ended badly as a result of poor working methods. For the foreseeable future at least, it seems the Emperor can rest in peace.

ULTIMATE MYSTERY Reconstructions of the tomb’s interior must rely on a handful of historic sources that often contradict one another, and sometimes fail to agree on basic features such as the mound’s height. However, all are agreed that the mound was never breached, even by ancient tomb raiders

1 NEVER FORGOTTEN Today, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang still forms an imposing mound some 43 meters (141 ft) high. External structures have long since vanished, and the ancient pyramid is overgrown with trees. But while the tomb and its surroundings now draw hordes of tourists, attempts at amateur archaeology are strictly forbidden.

88 Hainan submarine base

LOCATION Hainan Province, Southern China

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Haikou

SECRECY OVERVIEW Operations classified: site of an underground submarine base.

Despite rumors circulating since 2002, it was only in 2008 that satellite images confirmed that the People’s Liberation Army Navy was constructing a base on Hainan Island. Hainan lies off the south coast of the Chinese mainland, offering a gateway to the South China Sea, and it is widely believed that the base is being built as a home for a large part of China’s nuclear submarine fleet.