I Heart China

Hǎinán (海南), is a tropical island province in the extreme south of China. The island is popular with Chinese tourists and is becoming a new secret holiday hide-away for westerner's who want to have a beach holiday with a difference. In fact, Hainan is more than one island. While the main island of Hainan accounts for 97% of the landmass of the province, and almost all of the population, Hainan also contains many hundred other small islands, atolls and reefs in the South China Sea. These consist of the Paracels, Spratlys, and Zhongsha Islands. Though many of these islands are teratorially disputed with neighboughing countries, they are under de-facto Chinese control. The perminent population of the smaller islands comes to just 14 people while the main island of Hainan has a population of 8,640,700.

Hainan is separated from the mainland by the 30km wide Qiongzhou Strait. Transport to and from the island is either by ferry across the strait or else by air through Haikou Meilan International Airport. In 2012, work is due to start on a road and rail bridge which will link across the straits. Construction is budgeted at 20 billion yuan.

Hainan is China's largest Special Economic Zone. Prior to the creation of this zone, the island was largely untouched by modern industry. The number of factories have developed but the island remains relatively undeveloped compared to other provinces of China. The economy of the island is largely based on agriculture and the growing tourist sector. In 2007, it was announced that Hainan would be home to China's fourth space port, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre. The site is due to begin operating in 2014. 

Hainan Island was called the Pearl Cliffs (珠崖 Zhūyá), Fine Jade Cliffs (瓊崖 Qióngyá), and the Fine Jade Land (瓊州 Qióngzhōu). The latter two gave rise to the province's abbreviation, Qióng (琼 in Simplified Chinese), referring to the greenery cover on the island.

Hainan first enters written Chinese history in 110 BC, when the Han Dynasty established a military garrison there. The Han people started the movement around that time together with the military and officials to Hainan Island from Mainland China. Among them, there are offspring of those who were banished to Hainan for political reasons. Most of them moved to Hainan Island from places like Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi in the southern part of Mainland China.

Li People are the original inhabitants of Hainan. They are believed to be the descendants of the ancient Yue tribes of China, who settled on the island more than 3,000 years ago. The Li ethnic group of China mainly inhabits the nine cities and counties in the middle and southern part of Hainan - the cities of Sanya, Tongza and Dongfang, the Li autonomous counties of Baisha, Lingshui, Ledong, Changjiang, and the 'Li and Miao Autonomous Counties of Qiongzhong and Baoting'. Some others reside elsewhere on Hainan with other ethnic groups in Danzhou, Wanning, Qionghai and Tunchang. The area inhabited by the Li ethnic group totals 18,700 square kilometers, about 55 percent of the province's total.

In Eastern Wu of the Three Kingdoms Period, Hainan was the Zhuya Commandery (珠崖郡).

Under the Song Dynasty, Hainan came under the control of Guangxi Province, and for the first time large numbers of Han Chinese arrived, settling mostly in the north. Under the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1206-1368) it became an independent province, but was placed under Guangdong Province during the Ming Dynasty in 1370. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Han 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 government, which responded by bringing in mercenaries from the Miao people regions of Guizhou Province. Many of the Miao settled on the island and their descendants live in the western highlands to this day.

In 1906, the Chinese Republican leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hainan become a separate province.

Hainan was historically part of Guangdong Province and Guangxi Province, being as such, it was the Ch'iung-yai or Qiongya Circuit (瓊崖道) in 1912 (the 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.

During 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 over one third of the male population were killed by the Japanese. 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. From March to May 1950, the Landing Operation on Hainan Island captured the island for the Chinese communists. 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 on Jinmen, Dengbu, and Taiwan. Hence, while many observers of the Chinese civil war thought that the fall of Hainan to the Communists would be followed shortly by the fall of Taiwan, the lack of any communist guerrilla force on Taiwan 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.

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. 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.

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, Hai-nan became a focus of attention.

In 1988, the island was again made a separate province, and was designated a Special Economic Zone in an effort to increase investment.

During the mid-1980s, when Hainan was still part of the Guangdong Province, a fourteen-month episode of marketing zeal by Hainan Special District Administrator Lei Yu 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 C¥ 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.

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.

The Old Haikou (old architectures) was mostly the rich Chinese from the mainland and some oversea Chinese who came back to their ancestor’s land, Hainan, and decided to build these houses with a delightful mix of a Portuguese, French & South East Asian style. These streets used to be divided like this: a street for the pharmacy and Chinese & Western medicine, a street for silk and tailor-make clothes, one for the fresh fish & other kind of meat, another for incense, candles, paper, ink, etc. The life in the old times used to be very colorful & animated with people riding bicycles, local merchants selling fresh tropical fruit, fresh seafood & fish, the hair dresser on the sidewalk giving a haircut, the baker frying some fresh buns.

Nowadays, the Old city has been transformed into an old and grey area, still very busy but the aspect of the streets changed a little to offer now a very antic feeling while walking in those old places.

Some projects are still under discussions at the moment, to decide of the best way to restore and preserve these historical wonders.

In 2000, the ethnic groups of Hainan included the Han Chinese, known as the Hainanese, who currently make a majority (84% of the population); the Li (Hlai) (14.7% of the population); the Miao (Hmong) (0.7%) and the Zhuang (0.6%). 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.

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.

There are 90,000 Buddhist Hainanese, and 6,500 Muslims. Most, if not all, of the Muslims are Utsuls living near Sanya. Because Hainan was a point in the travel route of missionaries, there are many Christians: 35,000 Protestants and 4,100 Catholics.

Language

The Han Chinese of Hainan speak a variant of the Min Nan Chinese language, known as Hainanese. In addition, the national standard Putonghua is understood and spoken by most people, and Standard Cantonese is understood by many local Hainanese. The Li people have their own language, as do the Miao and Zhuang. The latter three groups would usually speak Standard Mandarin as a second language.

The villagers in Huihui and Huixin can all speak their native language Cham fluently. The adults have quite high literacy skills in Chinese. Most of the adults speak several Chinese dialects, and some also speak Li. In old Yacheng City and its vicinity as well as for several dozen miles west of Huihui and Huixin, the so-called military speech (the official language of the southwest among the northern Chinese dialects) is spoken. In Yanglan Village to the northeast, two Yue dialects, both closely related to Cantonese, are spoken: the Mai dialect and the Danzhou dialect, spoken in Haipo Village in the south, which is the same dialect as the dialect spoken in Danzhou in Dan Country in the northern part of the island. From the east to the west along the seashore, the Hainanese dialect is used. In Sanya City itself one sometimes finds speakers of Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese.

The general public can also use Mandarin Chinese to communicate with mainlanders. When Chams interact with the Hainanese dialect speakers from within Hainan Province, they use the Hainanese dialect, though youngsters generally use Mandarin Chinese. Not many can communicate in Li when interacting with the Li, so the Hainanese dialect or Mandarin is often used. In the market place and within the Sanya Municipality, the Cham speakers use Cham among themselves, and when they interact with speakers of other languages, they mostly use the Hainanese dialect. However, in the market places near the government seat of Yanglan Township, the Chams either use the Hainanese dialect or the Mai dialect. Some of the Cham speakers also speak the Danzhou dialect, a Cantonese dialect

Cusine

Hainan cuisine is said to be "lighter, with mild seasonings." A lot of local taste is mixed with the Han Chinese taste. Seafood predominates the menu, as shrimp, crab, fish and other sea life are widely available.

Wenchang Chicken is a dish known throughout the province of Hainan. Although there are many varieties of this dish, the name is usually used to define a type of large, free-range chicken from Wenchang county, located on the east coast of the province. As opposed to battery chickens, its meat has more texture and is somewhat drier.

Hainan chicken rice is a famous dish in Southeast Asia bearing the region's name. However, whilst many restaurants use chicken fat to quickly add flavour to the dish, the proper local method is to 'marinate' the rice with chicken soup to add a more full flavour.

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.

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.

Its nominal GDP for 2008 was 145.9 billion yuan (US$21 billion), making it the 4th smallest in all of the PRC and contributes just 0.5% to the entire country's economy. Its GDP per capita was 17,175 yuan (US$2,472).

Wenchang Satellite Launch Center (WSLC) 

Wenchang Satellite Launch Center (WSLC) (Chinese: 文昌卫星发射中心; pinyin: Wénchāng Wèixīng Fāshè Zhōngxīn) located near Wenchang City 19.617°N 110.744°E on the north-east coast of Hainan Island, is a former sub-orbital test center and currently under upgrade. It is the fourth and southernmost space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) of the People's Republic of China. It has been specially selected for its lowest latitude, only 19 degrees north of the equator, which would allow a substantial increase of payload mass, necessary for the future manned program, space station and deep space exploration program. Furthermore, it will be capable of launching the new heavy lift CZ-5 booster currently under development. Rail tracks of inland Space Centers will not allow the delivery of the new 5 meters core boosters, which Wenchang will, as it is served by a sea port. Initial launches of the CZ-5 booster from Wenchang were, as of early 2008, expected in 2014, one year after the intended commissioning of the Wenchang CenterPolitical considerations have postponed the construction of a large space center in the Hainan island many times, being too vulnerable to foreign attacks. It is only after the end of the Cold War that new projects for its development have been submitted.

To date, five launches have taken place from this center, starting from 1988 with the Zhinu-1（“织女一号”火箭）suborbital launch vehicle.

According to the CCTV's report on 22 September, 2007, the construction of the new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center has been officially approved by the State Council and the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China.

In late October 2007, the Mayor of Wenchang City announced that 1,200 hectares would be obtained for the center and more than 6,000 people, mostly from the villages of Longlou (龙楼, 19.652°N 110.963°E) and Dongjiao (东郊, 19.567°N 110.867°E) would be relocated as a consequence.

A subsequent article in November 2007 indicated that the actual launch site would be near Longlou, while a space-science theme park would be built near Dongjiao. Comparison of satellite photography with a picture accompanying the article suggests that the launch site will be located near 19.68°N 111.01°E, at the base of Point Tonggu.