The article below, written by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez for the Morning Star, describes the recent milestone success scored in China’s Great Green Wall with the announcement that Xinjiang’s Taklimakan Desert – China’s largest desert and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert – has been completely surrounded with a green belt composed of drought-resistant tree species. Carlos notes that this forest belt “constitutes the world’s longest green ecological barrier”.
The article goes on to discuss the dangers of desertification, which is a major environmental problem in China, and the world more broadly, as well as describing how “China has been proactively engaging with countries around the world to combat desertification, sharing its experience and helping other developing nations implement desertification control strategies”.
Comparing China’s cooperative approach with the US’s orientation towards war and hegemony, Carlos concludes:
China’s commitment to international co-operation stands in stark contrast to the hegemonism of the US and its allies, reminding humanity of the urgent choice it faces between a Global Community of Shared Future and a Project for a New American Century.
IN 1978, China launched its Three North Shelter Forest (Green Great Wall) Programme, aimed at creating a forest chain extending from Xinjiang in the far north-west to Heilongjiang in the far north-east, to prevent further expansion of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts. This multi-generational project is scheduled for completion in 2050.
According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the programme “has greatly increased the forest coverage and effectively combated desertification in the programme area, improved the overall situation of serious wind-sand hazards and soil erosion, enhanced the resilience and adaptability to natural disasters and climate change.”
Further, “thanks to the development of forest and fruit-related industries, tens of millions of local people have been pulled out of poverty.”
The Great Green Wall scored a milestone success in November 2024 with the announcement that the Taklimakan Desert (in Xinjiang) has been completely surrounded with a green belt stretching 3,046 kilometres, composed of drought-resistant tree species like red willows, saxaul and desert poplar.
Taklimakan is China’s largest desert and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert, meaning that its sand dunes constantly shift, causing erosion of grasslands and expansion of the desert. The forest belt now surrounding it constitutes the world’s longest green ecological barrier.
China has, for the last few decades, been the world leader in forestation. Its forest coverage in 1980 was just 12 per cent; as a result of a systematic greening campaign, coverage has now reached 24 per cent.
President Xi Jinping has often emphasised the importance of forest development: “Forests are the mainstay and an important resource for the land ecosystem. They are also an important ecological safeguard for the survival and development of mankind. It is hard to imagine what would happen to the earth and human beings without forests.”
One particularly interesting innovation developed in Xinjiang has been the use of photovoltaic sand control, whereby large solar farms are installed in arid and semi-arid regions. The solar panels act as physical barriers, reducing wind speed at ground level and thereby hindering erosion.
Further, the shade provided by the panels helps reduce surface temperature and aids moisture retention. This dew can even be used for growing grasses and herbs under the panels.
Desertification — the creeping transformation of fertile soil into arid land — poses a major threat to China, affecting over 27 per cent of the country’s land and around 400 million of its people.
A Forbes article from 2017 notes that “the Gobi is the fastest-growing desert on Earth, transforming nearly 2,250 miles of grassland per year into an inhospitable wasteland. This expansion eats away at space that was once fit for agriculture and creates unbridled sandstorms that batter cities near the edge of the desert.”
Indeed, desertification has accelerated worldwide in recent decades. A recent UN report labelled it as a “global, existential peril,” pointing out that three-quarters of Earth’s land was drier in 2020 than it was in 1990. This is, to a significant degree, a function of climate change, with rising temperatures leading to higher rates of evaporation and reduced soil moisture.
War, instability and poverty all have a mutually reinforcing effect on desertification. One of the most successful water projects of the 20th century was Libya’s Great Man-Made River (GMMR), which transported fresh water from ancient underground aquifers in the Sahara Desert to coastal cities and agricultural lands.
The largest irrigation project in the world, it helped to prevent soil degradation, reduce desert encroachment, and enable agriculture in desert regions. The GMMR was dubbed by Muammar Gadaffi as the “eighth wonder of the world,” and even Newsweek grudgingly admits that “this title is not without justification.”
Tragically, the GMMR was deliberately targeted during Nato’s regime-change war in 2011, and given the ongoing political instability in the country, it has yet to be properly restored.
Mustafa Fetouri writes: “The entire project’s infrastructure is under threat. Political instability, negligence, illegal connections to its pipelines and badly maintained water networks are among the biggest problems. In July 2011, Nato bombed the biggest pipe-making plant at Brega in eastern Libya, killing six of the facility’s security guards. In a press release, the alliance claimed it was responding to ground fire coming from the facility.”
Nichole Barger, chair of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification’s science-policy interface, insists that “by embracing innovative solutions and fostering global solidarity” humanity can meet the challenge of desertification and thereby avoid “a future marked by hunger, displacement, and economic decline.”
Thankfully, while Nato countries spread war and instability, China has been proactively engaging with countries around the world to combat desertification, sharing its experience and helping other developing nations implement desertification control strategies.
China has contributed to vast tree-planting programmes throughout Africa and Asia. It provides financial aid, equipment and technical assistance to countries struggling with desertification, as well as sharing technologies for sand fixation, water-saving agriculture, and afforestation. China is working closely with the African Union to support Africa’s own Great Green Wall initiative.
The scale of China’s Great Green Wall shows once again the importance of its people-centred, socialist governance and the country’s commitment to the long-term wellbeing of its people.
China’s commitment to international co-operation stands in stark contrast to the hegemonism of the US and its allies, reminding humanity of the urgent choice it faces between a Global Community of Shared Future and a Project for a New American Century.
