Economy

Hainan's economy is predominantly agricultural, and more than a half of the island's exports are agricultural products. Hainan's elevation to province-level status (1988), however, was accompanied by its designation as China's largest "special economic zone", the intent being to hasten the development of the island's plentiful resources.Prior to this, the province had a reputation for being a "Wild West" area, largely untouched by industrialisation; even today there are relatively few factories in the province. Tourism plays an important part of Hainan's economy, thanks largely to its tropical beaches and lush forests.The central government has encouraged foreign investment in Hainan and has allowed the island to rely to a large extent on market forces.[citation needed]Hainan's industrial development largely has been limited to the processing of its mineral and agricultural products, particularly rubber and iron ore. Since the 1950s, machinery, farm equipment, and textiles have been manufactured in the Haikou area for local consumption. A major constraint on industrial expansion has been an inadequate supply of electricity. Much of the island's generating capacity is hydroelectric, and it is subject to seasonal fluctuations in stream and river flows.[citation needed]Its nominal GDP for 2011 was 251.5 billion yuan (US$39.9 billion), making it the 4th smallest in all of the PRC and contributes just 0.53% to the entire country's economy. At that time, its GDP per capita was 19,166 yuan (US$2,805).By the first quarter of 2010, Hainan had the highest increase in GDP of any province in China, with a year-on-year increase of 25.1%. The GDP of Hainan's Qionghai city grew 58.7%.In December 2009, the government of China announced that it plans to establish Hainan as an "international tourist destination" by 2020.[32] This announcement contributed to a surge in the province's economy, with a year-on-year increase in investment of 136.9% in the first three months of 2010. Hainan's real estate sector accounted for more than one third of the province's economic growth.

Transport

Before 1950 there were practically no transportation links with the interior of the island. The first roads were built in the early 20th century, but no major road construction was undertaken in the mountains until the 1950s. Parallel north–south roads along the east and west coasts and through the interior of the island constitute most of Hainan's road network.Hainan Province has two international airports (Haikou Meilan International Airport and Sanya Phoenix International Airport) and two domestic airports (Qionghai Bo'ao Airport and Danzhou Airport, the latter is under construction.)Today's Hainan is ringed by standard-gauge railways. Since 2004, a rail ferry connects the island's railroad network to the mainland.[46] In 2005, Ministry of Communications allocated 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) to set up a committee to research and study the possibility of a bridge or tunnel link connecting the island to the mainland.[47]From the ferry terminal, located near Haikou Railway Station (west of Haikou), freight and passenger trains arriving from the mainland can proceed on the Hainan Western Ring Railway along the island's west coast, via Dongfang to Sanya. This railway line has been developed over several decades, starting with a few short 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge lines constructed during the Japanese occupation in the early 1940s.The Hainan Eastern Ring High-Speed Railway links Haikou and Sanya along the island's east coast. There are 15 stations in between, either in operation or still under construction. Trains are designed to travel at 250 km/h (160 mph). Travel time from Haikou to Sanya is approximately 1 hour and 22 minutes.The total length of Hainan Eastern Ring High-Speed Railway is 308.11 km (191.45 mi). The in-between railway stations include Haikou East, Changliu, Xiuying, Meilan Airport, Wenchang, Qionghai, Bo'ao, Wanning, Shenzhou, Sun and Moon Bay, Lingshui and Tiandu.[48]The first train run started on 30 December 2010 at the price of 114 RMB for first-class seat and 95 RMB for a second-class seat for a full journey between Haikou and Sanya.[49]The Hainan Western Ring High-Speed Railway is on the west coast of Hainan, roughly paralleling the existing Hainan Western Ring Railway. It links up with the Hainan Eastern Ring Railway at both ends, thus forming a high-speed railway ring around the island.Hainan received 11,000 tons of products via ports November 2010, up 90.1 percent month-on-month. Between January and November 2010, 102,000 tons of products were exported via Hainan, 34,000 tons of which were exported to the US, and 14,000 tons sent to the EU.

Geography

Hainan, separated by the Qiongzhou Strait from the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong, is the largest island administered by the People's Republic of China. The area of Hainan Island (32,900 km2 (12,700 sq mi), 97% of the province) is similar to that of Belgium. To the west of Hainan Island is the Gulf of Tonkin. Wuzhi Mountain is the highest mountain on the island at 1,840 m (6,040 ft).Hainan Island measures 155 km (96 mi) long and 169 km (105 mi) wide.Wetland covers 320,000 hectares, 78,000 hectares of which were created artificially. Most of this is located in the eastern and northern part of Hainan.Most of the rivers in Hainan originate in the central area of the island and flow radially in different directions. The Wanning River in the southern part of the island is the largest river surrounding Hainan. It is 350 km (220 mi) long. The Nandu River in the northern part of the island is 314 km (195 mi) long, and its tributary, the Xinwu River, is 109 km (68 mi) long. The Changhua River in the west is 230 km (140 mi) long, and the Wanquan River in the east is 162 km (101 mi) long. Evaporation during the dry season around the coastal areas greatly reduces the flow of the rivers.There are very few natural lakes in Hainan. There is a well-known artificial reservoir, the Songtao Reservoir, in the central-north area.

Demographics

The population density of Hainan is low compared to most Chinese coastal provinces.In 2000, the ethnic groups of Hainan included the Han Chinese, known as the Hainanese people, who are the majority (84% of the population); the Li (Hlai) (14.7% of the population); the Miao (0.7%) and the Zhuang (0.6%).[citation needed] The Li are the largest indigenous group on the island in terms of population. Also found on the island are the Utsuls, descendants of Cham refugees, who are classified as Hui by the Chinese government. There is a Tanka community that live at Sanya Bay.[23]Although they are indigenous to the island and do not speak a Chinese language, the Limgao (Ong-Be) people near the capital (8% of the population) are counted as Han Chinese.

History

Hainan island was originally attached to the Northeastern part of what is now Vietnam; however, the island was formed after it physically broke away from Vietnam due to volcano eruption and drifted southeast near China after the Mesozoic period, millions of years ago.Hainan Island first entered written history in 110 BC, when the Han dynasty of China established a military garrison there following the arrival of General Lu Bode. In 46 BC the Han court decided that the conquest was too expensive and abandoned the island. Around that time, Han Chinese people together with military personnel and officials began to migrate to Hainan Island from the mainland. Among them were the offspring of those who were banished to Hainan for political reasons. Most of them arrived in Hainan Island from the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi.Li people are the original inhabitants of Hainan. They are believed to be the descendants of the ancient tribes from the mainland, who settled on the island between 7 and 27 thousand years ago.[6]The Li people mainly reside in the nine cities and counties in the middle and southern part of Hainan – the cities of Sanya, Wuzhishan and Dongfang, the Li autonomous counties of Baisha, Lingshui, Ledong, Changjiang, and the 'Li and Miao Autonomous Counties of Qiongzhong and Baoting'. Some others live elsewhere on Hainan with other ethnic groups in Danzhou, Wanning, Qionghai, Lingshui and Tunchang.The area inhabited by the Li ethnic group totals 18,700 square kilometers (7,200 sq mi), about 55 percent of the province's total.[7]Haikou, the capital of the province as seen looking south from Evergreen Park, a large park located on the north shore of the cityDuring the Three Kingdoms Period (184−280), Hainan was the Zhuya Commandery (珠崖郡) under the control of Eastern Wu.At the time of the Song dynasty (980−1279), Hainan became part of Guangxi, and for the first time large numbers of Han Chinese arrived, settling mostly in the north. Under the Mongol Empire (1206–1368) the island became an independent province then in 1370 was placed under the administration of Guangdong by the ruling Ming dynasty. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Han people from Fujian and Guangdong began migrating to Hainan, pushing the Li into the highlands in the southern half of the island. In the eighteenth century, the Li rebelled against the Qing Empire, which responded by bringing in mercenaries from the Miao regions of Guizhou. Many of the Miao settled on the island and their descendants live in the western highlands to this day.During the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers referred to the island as "Aynam",[8][9] which remains the pronunciation of its name in the local Hainanese dialect.In 1906, the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hainan should become a separate province although this did not happen until 1988.Hainan was historically part of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces and as such was the Qiongya Circuit (瓊崖道) under the 1912 establishment of the Republic of China. In 1921, it was planned to become a special administrative region (瓊崖特別行政區); in 1944, it became Hainan Special Administrative Region with 16 counties containing the South China Sea Islands.Hainanese residents in the countrysideDuring the 1920s and 30s, Hainan was a hotbed of Communist activity, especially after a bloody crackdown in Shanghai, the Republic of China in 1927 drove many Communists into hiding. The Communists and the Li natives fought a vigorous guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation of Hainan (1939–45), but in retaliation the Japanese launched numerous number of massacres against Li villages. Feng Baiju led the Hainan Independent Column of fighters throughout the 1930s and 1940s. After the Japanese surrender in 1945 the Nationalist Party (KMT) re-established control. Hainan was one of the last areas of China controlled by the Republic of China during the Chinese Civil War when it lost the mainland from 1946-49.From March to May 1950, the Landing Operation on Hainan Island captured the island for the Chinese communists. Hainan had been left to the command of Xue Yue after Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. Feng Baiju and his column of guerrilla fighters played an essential role in scouting for the landing operation and coordinated their own offensive from their jungle bases on the island. This allowed the Hainan takeover to be successful where the Jinmen and Dengbu assaults had failed in the previous fall. The takeover was made possible by the presence of a local guerrilla force that was lacking also on Taiwan. Hence, while many observers of the Chinese civil war thought that the fall of Hainan Island to the Communists would be followed shortly by the fall of Taiwan Island, the lack of any communist guerrilla force on Taiwan Island and its sheer distance from the mainland made this impossible, as did the arrival of the US 7th fleet in the Taiwan Strait after the outbreak of the Korean War in June.The capital city of Haikou, although highly populated relative to many other international cities, is geographically quite small, with almost no urban sprawl. Much of the city limits end abruptly with forest or farm land.On 1 May 1950, under the PRC, the Special Administrative Region became an Administrative Region Office (海南行政区公署), a branch of the Guangdong provincial government.The Communists resumed development of the island along the lines established by the Japanese, but the results were limited by the island's isolation, its humid and typhoon-prone climate, and its continuing reputation as a place of danger and exile by mainland Chinese. With China's shift in economic policy at the end of the 1970s, Hainan became a focus of attention.During the mid-1980s, when Hainan Island was still part of Guangdong Province, a fourteen-month episode of marketing zeal by Hainan Special District Administrator Lei Yu[10] put Hainan's pursuit of provincial status under a cloud. It involved the duty-free imports from Hong Kong of 90,000 Japanese-made cars and trucks at a cost of ¥ 4.5 billion (US$1.5 billion), and exporting them – with the help of local naval units – to the mainland, making 150% profits. By comparison, only 10,000 vehicles were imported into Hainan since 1950. In addition, it involved further consignments of 2.9 million TV sets, 252,000 videocassette recorders & 122,000 motorcycles. The money was taken from the 1983 central government funds destined for the construction of the island's transportation infrastructure (roads, railways, airports, harbours) over the next ten years.[citation needed]On October 1, 1984, it became the Hainan Administrative Region (海南行政区), with a People's Government, and finally as province separate from Guangdong four years later. In 1988, when the island was made a separate province, it was designated a Special Economic Zone in an effort to increase investment.The central government funds were deemed insufficient by the Hainan authorities for the construction of the island's other infrastructures (water works, power stations, telecommunications, etc.) and had taken a very liberal interpretation of the economic and trade regulations for Hainan and thirteen coastal cities; the regulations did not mention on prohibiting the re-selling of second-hand goods. Some of the proceeds, from unsold units, were later retrieved by the central government to re-finance the special district.