Word: recentering
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...much of China's recent history, this difference was a liability. The country's vast, mostly agrarian West was isolated from the international economy and lagged badly behind the booming east coast in progress and prosperity. Nine years ago, Beijing sought to begin closing this development gap by investing heavily in highways, airports and other infrastructure across the western region. This has helped to kick-start growth. So has geography: Xi'an's lack of exposure to crashing global markets means it has barely been singed by the crisis. In fact, the city has benefited. It's received $230 million...
...today, Xi'an is experiencing a renaissance. The locals who frequent Zhu's store have cash - and they're spending it like never before. On a recent Wednesday in late October, hospital worker Hao Jie, 40, is gleeful after dropping $1,200 on a 52-inch LCD TV for her new apartment, the keys to which she received only days earlier. Nearby, a soon-to-be-married young couple, Zhang Guopeng and Luo Xi, sizes up washing machines using a measuring tape. The two engineers are also shopping to fill up a new apartment, their first home together...
...That fact was obvious one recent Wednesday morning at a Wuling minivan dealership in Xi'an. Customers streamed into the showroom, briefly opened and closed the doors of the displayed minivans, and then marched over to the front desk to plop down their money, often within mere minutes of arriving. Xu Zhanrong, the dealership's deputy general manager, can barely keep the Wulings in stock. Sales of the minivans - manufactured by a joint venture between General Motors, Liuzhou Wuling Motors and Shanghai Automotive Industry - are up some 40% this year, Xu says, with about 50 purchased each...
...those important people want a conversation? In recent months, Mullah Omar, the one-eyed veteran Taliban leader, seems to have distanced himself from al-Qaeda. In a September statement, Omar assured foreign nations that Afghanistan would never again be used as a launching ground for international terrorism, as it was before 9/11. "We assure all countries," he said, "that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as a responsible force, will not extend its hand to cause jeopardy to others." Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network and author of a recent book on the war, is convinced that...
...tens of thousands of Iraqi insurgents were persuaded to lay down their weapons in exchange for cash and jobs, usually as part of local militias fighting their former al-Qaeda allies. Building on that example, General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan, wrote in his recent assessment of the Afghan war that NATO "must identify opportunities to reintegrate former mid- to low-level insurgent fighters into normal society by offering them a way out." Lieut. General Graeme Lamb, a former head of Britain's special forces who was asked by McChrystal to head the program, which...