The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 814 Two Backyards
Of course, Southeast Asia and South Asia are the most important.

Make friends with those far away and attack those nearby; this is the wisdom left by our ancestors.

Southeast Asia as a whole includes two major parts: the Indochina Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago. The Indochina Peninsula is named because it is located south of China, while the Malay Archipelago is a vast sea area scattered between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is the largest archipelago in the world, with more than 243 islands and an area of ​​ million square kilometers.

Southeast Asia is located at the "crossroads" of Asia and Oceania, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The Strait of Malacca is the "throat" of this intersection and has a very important strategic position. The Strait of Malacca is located between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, with a total length of 900 kilometers and a narrowest point of only 37 kilometers. It can accommodate giant ships with a load capacity of 25 tons.

The entire Southeast Asia is very rich in resources.

For example, agricultural resources, especially tropical crops, are abundant here. This is the region with the largest rice production in the world, with more than 2000 million tons of rice exported each year. In addition, the production of palm oil, rubber, coffee, coconut, etc. occupies an important position in the world, with annual palm oil production reaching 70 to million tons. At the same time, Southeast Asia is also the largest producer of natural rubber in the world. The combined rubber production of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia alone accounts for more than % of the world's total production.

It is also very rich in fishery resources.

Oil and mineral resources are also very abundant!
This is not only an important source of raw materials for China's development, but also an important market for commodity exports.

In addition to Southeast Asia, South Asia is also worthy of investment of energy and financial resources.

The entire South Asian region covers a vast area between the southern, central and western sections of the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean. It borders the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. The north-south and east-west distances are approximately 3100 kilometers each. There are currently 18 countries in total.

Currently, China’s main transportation link with these neighboring countries is through roads, and there is no railway so far.

Sometimes Liu Tao couldn't help but come up with some wild ideas, which was to blast a hole in the Himalayas to bring the warm current from the Indian Ocean into the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, thus making the northwest humid.

Of course, this is just an idea. Whether it is feasible or not still needs to be scientifically and rigorously demonstrated.

Even if it is feasible, the investment involved will be huge.

Liu Tao drank some tea, cleaned the tea set, and then disinfected it.

Then he took a walk in the yard.

It was late at night and most people had gone to sleep, making the night very quiet.

His mother has officially retired and usually lives here in the courtyard. His elder sister Liu Hongying runs a store for Zhu Lin and usually lives here as well.

With the development of society, the capital is also developing rapidly. Bookstores, flower shops, coffee shops and tea shops are all doing pretty good business. After deducting labor costs, water and electricity costs and other costs in a year, there is still a good profit.

These profits are enough for everyone to live a good life.

I drank a lot of tea in the evening, so even after walking for half an hour, I still didn't feel sleepy at all.

It was not until after one in the morning that Liu Tao went to bed.

The next day, Liu Tao attended a meeting on the protection of Siheyuan.

A few years ago, people began to realize the historical, cultural and artistic value of the Beijing courtyard houses, and work on taking measures to strengthen the protection of the courtyard houses and their historical and cultural protection areas has been ongoing.

It's just a pity that the destruction of the hutong courtyards due to urban development and construction is a foregone conclusion, enough to make later generations feel distressed and heartbroken.

In recent years, Beijing city and relevant departments have introduced a number of policies, adopted a series of measures and invested a lot of money. Although certain achievements have been made in the protection of courtyard houses and their historical and cultural heritage, these achievements are still far from the expected goals.

A very important reason is that there are some problems in the protection concept, protection policy and method positioning, which has affected the scientific and healthy development of the protection of Siheyuan. To be honest, the value of Siheyuan has been clearly revealed.

Many people would rather buy a courtyard house than a commercial house.

At least for people like Liu Tao, he thinks that living in a siheyuan is more comfortable than living in commercial housing. Siheyuan is truly warm in winter and cool in summer. It is not too cold in winter and not unbearably hot in summer.

He was also invited this time and participated with the intention of contributing his part.

This working meeting was quite grand, with experts in ancient architecture, cultural relics protection units, and scholars in historical research attending.

It is obvious that Beijing has put a lot of thought into this.

"The fundamental point of protecting the Beijing Siheyuan and its historical culture is to protect its traditional style, architectural features and cultural characteristics. This protection should be adapted to the development of the city, historical progress and changes in people's living needs. Protection should be active rather than passive." Liu Tao emphasized in his speech, "In addition to the buildings that have been approved as cultural relics protection units, dilapidated houses that have no cultural relics protection value or only have residual value but are already very dangerous and have lost their use value should be rebuilt and renovated."

"Renovation and reconstruction does not mean building a multi-storey building, nor does it mean rebuilding the original building in situ. Instead, it means building a courtyard house in accordance with the traditional courtyard house pattern and model to meet the contemporary functional and regulatory requirements." Liu Tao said, "I think there are two biggest misunderstandings about the protection of courtyard houses: one is that 'everything old is good and should not be moved', and people are opposed to major repairs or reconstruction of old houses."

"The second is that they think 'slums' are actually courtyard houses, and protecting courtyard houses is the same as protecting slums," Liu Tao said.

These two misunderstandings currently exist and are very prominent.

The house is old and there are great safety hazards, so it needs to be rebuilt or overhauled.

There is no such thing as an unchanging truth.

Besides, these courtyard houses in the past were never intended for today’s life, so it is inevitable that there are some lack of facilities, and some minor repairs are normal.

The courtyard house where Liu Tao lives now has not remained unchanged; the interior has also been renovated.

There are also slums, which are a big problem.

This difficult problem is a historical legacy and must be addressed vigorously.

Liu Tao proposed to build a batch of commercial housing, relocate all the residents of the slums to the commercial housing, and then restore the slums to courtyard houses.

This requires a lot of money.

It takes a lot of money to build commercial housing as resettlement housing, and it also takes a lot of money to restore a slum into a courtyard house.

This is not something that can be accomplished with a few hundred million RMB, nor with a billion RMB. Instead, it requires tens of billions of RMB.

And the further you go in the future, the greater the cost.

The sooner it is resolved, the less it will cost.

And it’s better to solve it early than late!

Because as time goes by, people are not short of money, and their desires become greater, and they want more. Coupled with the increase in labor costs, materials, etc., the cost increases exponentially.

(End of this chapter)