China's first subtropical rainforest highway (Simao-Xiaomengyang) opened to traffic on April 6,2006.	The ancient Tea-Horse Trail.	Caravans carrying Pu'er tea from Yunnan Province traveled 4,000 kilometers to the Chinese capital.

There is an indissoluble bond between Yunnan and me. I first went there in 1970 after graduating from university in the coastal metropolis of Shanghai. I left for Beijing eight years later, when the reform and opening-up policy was in its infancy. It was not until March 2006 that the opportunity arose to revisit Yunnan’s rural areas. I was prepared for dramatic changes after my 28-year absence. Those that I saw in the provincial capital of Kunming were only to be expected, but I was totally unprepared for the transformation I witnessed in the rural areas isolated from Kunming by the Hengduan Mountains, most notably in Simao City where I embarked on my career. Some were beneficial, others less so. It was a journey of happy revelations tempered with a few misgivings.

Expressway Shortcut

It was wne I scanned my work schedule upon arrival in Kunming that I realized how much more accessible Yunnan’s rural areas are to its capital now than when I lived in the province. I was scheduled to leave for Simao City at 08:30 the following morning, and to arrive at 14:30 that afternoon. This six-hour journey along the 600-kilometer winding mountain road from Kunming to Simao formerly took a full three days.

Upon asking local rural residents about improvements to communications, they told me of the provincial government’s bold moves to open Yunnan up. It had adopted the strategy of building roads from loans that would be repaid by toll fees. It in effect: “Borrowed hens to lay eggs.” With the central government’s support, between 1998 and 2003 the total length of highway construction in Yunnan more than doubled that accomplished between 1950 and 1995. By the end of 2005, the total mileage open to traffic amounted to 167,600 kilometers – a national number one. Yunnan’s roads have since been reassessed from the nationally lowest to the highest quality in southwestern China.

Highways have accelerated the province’s urbanization and raised living standards in remote villages, as well as promoting the smooth flow of personnel, material and information. Prior to road construction, residents of mountainous Xibeile Township, Mengzi County relied on mules and their own backs to transport farm produce to the urban markets. By the time it had left the village two-thirds would be unfit for sale. Within one year of building the highway, villagers’ incomes increased eight-fold, partly by virtue of the economic belts that it engendered. The highway also enabled more people to leave the mountains and emerge from poverty.

My host and guide, Mr. Dai, told me, “The China-ASEAN Economic and Free Trade Zone currently under construction brings opportunities to Yunnan equal to those made available to Shenzhen when China adopted the reform and opening-up policy almost 30 years ago. Yunnan will now have road access to seven of the 10 ASEAN members. But it is imperative that Yunnan accelerates its construction of the Kunming-Bangkok international thoroughfare as this will make Yunnan a vital pivot in the free trade zone.” This road, I know, will be a hard-earned benefit achieved only after cliffs have been blasted, tunnels dug, gullies filled in and bridges built.

Our delegation’s transferring to four-wheel drive vehicles gave me an idea of what traveling to a 1,000-year-old tea plantation in Pu’er County would entail. Sure enough, upon leaving the county town of Pu’er, our motorcade proceeded along a bumpy gravel road, raising a wake of dust billows so dense that none of the drivers could see the vehicle in front of them. The road was narrow, and in certain sections looked about to cave in. We were obliged to proceed at a snail’s pace for the hour and a half hour it took to travel 30 kilometers. Yunnan’s transport and communication problems are, therefore, a long way from being resolved. Upon surfing the Internet that evening, I discovered that although Yunnan ranks first nationwide as regards lengths of road open to traffic, it is bottom in its proportion of Class A highways. More than 100,000 kilometers of the province’s roads are unsurfaced, and 50,000 kilometers do not meet national standards. I believe that accelerated construction of trunk expressways should continue, and that it is imperative to speed up highway construction in rural areas in order to build a new countryside and improve farmers’ living standards.