Stop this planet: The Chinese are already moving the mountains.

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4 years ago

For many years China has been moving mountains for its people - in the literal sense of this phrase.

Over the past decade, the mountains, which stretched for hundreds of kilometers, were pulled down to create plains, and this has become common practice in China.

It is estimated that a fifth of China's population lives in mountainous areas, and although cities are growing rapidly, there is not enough land for development. Local officials believe that the destruction of the mountains and the sale or lease of new land will bring billions of yuan and ease the pressure on agricultural or culturally important land elsewhere.

Therefore, China will smooth another 700 mountains for a new metropolis in the desert.

The new district of Lanzhou is planned to start with a "mountain project", but the financial and environmental wisdom of the project is questioned.

As part of the largest project in China's history "moving mountains" one of the largest construction companies in China will spend 2.2 billion pounds sterling to level 700 mountains, which will allow developers to build a new metropolis.

The new district of Lanzhou, an area of 500 square miles (130,000 hectares), could increase the gross domestic product of the region to 27 billion pounds sterling by 2030. It has already attracted almost 7 billion pounds of corporate investment.

Behind the initiative is one of the largest private companies in the country, headed by Yang Jie. 52-year-old former teacher depicted in China as a kind of home-bred Donald Trump - ultra-ambitious and supernaturally gifted in the management of an extensive network of the country.

Yang was born in the 1960s as the youngest of nine children. A decade later, as a high school teacher and cement factory worker, he founded his construction firm in 1995 and has accumulated a fortune by buying and upgrading state-owned enterprises that are in a difficult situation.

And so his plan caused a healthy dose of scepticism. In Lanzhou, where 3.6 million people live, there are already serious environmental problems near the Yellow River. Last year, the World Health Organization called it the city with the worst air pollution in China. The city's main industries are textiles, fertiliser production and metallurgy.

Projects to create such land are already causing air and water pollution, soil erosion and geological risks such as subsidence. They destroy forests and agricultural land and endanger wild animals and plants.

According to forecasts, a large-scale earthmoving project in Lanzhou City will increase soil erosion by 10 percent and dust particles in the air by 49 percent.

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