Word: westerners
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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 of Beijing's $585 billion stimulus package, which helped accelerate...
Though he doesn't know it, shop manager Zhu Baohua is on the front lines of the battle to reform the global economy. Zhu's three-floor electronics store, crammed with Sony TVs, Motorola cell phones and HP PCs, is located in a nondescript neighborhood in the western Chinese city of Xi'an. Far from China's dynamic coastal manufacturing and financial centers, Xi'an for decades has been an economic backwater known mainly as the home of China's famed terra-cotta warriors, reminders of the city's glory days as a capital of ancient dynasties...
...rest of the world, the dispute presented a golden opportunity. The Middle East didn't waste time, stepping in with loans and development projects - or as one Western observer put it, "a rain of dollars." In June, the Islamic Development Bank - a lender in which Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran hold the three largest stakes - agreed to build a railroad connecting Turkmenistan and Iran, the first direct rail link between the Islamic Republic and Central Asia. "As of today, our relations with the Islamic bank have really been activated," Tuvakmammed Japarov, the country's deputy prime minister for the economy...
...resold for profit. Not to be outdone, China signed a 30-year deal with Turkmenistan in June to buy up to 1.1 trillion cubic feet of Turkmen gas annually, starting in 2011. Work is expected to be completed on a 4,300-mile-long pipeline connecting Turkmenistan and western China in December. ("How Badly Would Sanctions on Gas Imports Hurt Iran...
...West has other problems to contend with, too. At the October investment conference in Ashgabat, several businessmen said a major obstacle was the fact the Turkmen have little time for Western values of democracy and free-market economics. Berdymukhamedov's regime is one of the most dictatorial in the world, keeping tight reins on the media and political opposition and allowing only the barest beginnings of private enterprise. "The reaction to our proposals is always, 'Thanks but no thanks,'" says one Western diplomat, who requested anonymity for fear of hurting his operations in the country. "It comes down to trust...