In China’s rural west, embedded in the crumpled mountain range that rises up to the Tibetan plateau, is a small town called Baoxing. Here, daily life is dominated by the mining -industry. Rusty trucks bring in vast hunks of raw marble, freshly hewn from the surrounding mountains. Factories along the roadside cut them into -perfect worktop slabs destined for distant designer kitchens. A thick film of white dust coats everything, including the huge Baoxing River, which carries the dust off through a seemingly infinite series of hydro--electric dams towards the Yangtze.
This much is typical of the frenetic pace of industry across China, a country whose economy has been growing at a staggering pace for -decades. But Baoxing deserves special attention, for the steep, bamboo-clad slopes above the town are part of the best-preserved panda habitat on earth. Roadside artisans reflect this, fashioning miniature pandas from small chunks of marble, stone models of the live animals that dwell in the hills. In Baoxing, two sides of China are on show: one determined to extract prosperity from the natural world and another intent on conservation even at the expense of development.
As an exclusively Chinese animal and one that has, since the 1950s, emerged as the country’s “national treasure”, the giant panda tells us much about the progress of modern China. It was through this valley, in June 1935, that the Communist Party of China’s Red Army passed on its “Long March” to escape the Chinese Nationalist party. One of the few to survive the year-long, 6,000-mile ordeal was Mao Zedong, who carried the CPC to power in 1949. Within a decade, the giant panda was well on its way to becoming a national ambassador. It was perfect for the job: rare, beautiful and, importantly for Mao, it carried no imperial baggage whatsoever.