In September, a group of young delegates and journalists from Central Asian countries participated in a four-day exchange program in Xining, a city often referred to as China's 'summer center'. The event, titled 'Together for the Future: Central Asian Youth in China's Summer Center,' took place from September 17 to 20 and brought together participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in Qinghai Province.
Xining is the administrative center of Qinghai Province and one of the largest cities on the Tibetan Plateau. Located in the Huangshui Valley at an altitude of about 2261 meters above sea level, the city is known for its relatively cool summer seasons. The Huangshui River, a tributary of the Yellow River, flows through Xining, and it remains an important hub for transport, education, and culture in northwestern China.
The organizers of the event were the Propaganda Department of the Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China in Xining, as well as the Information Office of the People's Government of Qinghai Province, the Foreign Affairs Bureau of Qinghai Province, and the China News Service branch in Qinghai.
Opening the program on September 18, Sun Haidong, Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China in Qinghai Province, welcomed the delegates. He noted that autumn in Xining greeted the guests with 'high skies, light clouds, and a refreshing breeze.' Sun placed the visit in a broader historical context, recalling that the ancient Silk Road, once accompanied by the sounds of caravan bells, created routes for trade and cultural exchange between China and Central Asia more than two thousand years ago. He emphasized that Qinghai remains a living crossroads where these connections continue to develop.
The mention of the 'Source of Three Rivers' refers to the Sanyuan area, which literally means 'source of three rivers.' Here, the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers originate, known outside China as the Mekong. This region is often called the 'water tower' of China due to its critical importance for the water supply of vast parts of the country and neighboring Asian regions. The Sanyuan National Park covers an area of about 190,700 square kilometers and is among China's largest protected areas.
During the second welcoming address at the beginning of the tour of Xining, the historical theme was raised again: for millennia, the Huangshui Valley served as a place where peoples of the East and West coexisted, enriching each other culturally along the ancient Silk Road routes. The opening ceremony concluded with the presentation of a flag, as the organizers handed over the program flag to the youth representatives, including a student from Kyrgyzstan, symbolically placing the responsibility for preserving these ties on the next generation.
The first stop after the opening ceremony was the Xining City Exhibition Center, located in the northern part of the city's central square. According to the organizers, this center is one of the key places through which the city presents itself to the outside world, uniting its history, current development, and urban planning vision in one space. Inside, delegates were shown the city's development, infrastructure, and master plan of Xining through models, maps, and interactive displays. The models illustrated the interconnection between residential areas, transport corridors, public spaces, industrial zones, and natural areas. For guests visiting this high-altitude city for the first time, the center served as a starting point: first, the delegates 'studied' the city through models, and then they compared the presented concept with the real streets, squares, and new districts of Xining.
At the Wildlife Zoo on the Tibetan Plateau in the Chensi area of Xining, delegates saw animals rarely found in captivity. The zoo specializes in species inhabiting the high plateau, including snow leopards, Pallass' cats, Chinese desert cats, and lynxes. According to the organizers, the zoo houses 15 snow leopards, which constitutes one of the largest captive populations of this species globally. The facility also serves an environmental protection function, attracting specialists involved in rescuing injured animals, breeding programs, and ecological education. The snow leopard is considered one of the most elusive and difficult-to-observe predators in Eurasia. It lives in harsh mountain conditions at high altitudes and requires extensive territories with a stable food source. Thus, the zoo's work goes beyond simply showing animals to visitors and includes specialized training, research, and support for nature conservation initiatives. In recent years, Xining has been actively promoting its image as the 'snow leopard capital.'
Visiting the Provincial Museum of Tibetan Medicine and Culture allowed the delegates to delve deeper into the intangible cultural heritage of the region. The museum's exhibits cover Tibetan medicine, religious art, traditional clothing, architecture, and the history of cultural contacts along the Silk Road. A central exhibit is a giant thangka, measuring 618 meters in length and about 2.5 meters wide. It is considered one of the longest works of its kind in the world. The scroll contains hundreds of narrative and decorative motifs, as well as tens of thousands of images depicting medical knowledge, mythology, history, geography, and the daily life of the Tibetan people. Visitors walked along the entire scroll, tracing the development of Tibetan medicine through a single continuous work of art. In adjacent display cases, surgical instruments previously used by Tibetan doctors, as well as materials on medicinal plants, diagnostics, and traditional treatments, were presented.
The theme continued at the Xining Intangible Cultural Heritage Center. Tradition bearers demonstrated manual weaving of Tibetan carpets, paper cutting, clay modeling, and the characteristic Qinghai embroidery 'Cinsu'. Delegates were invited to try some of these techniques, not only as a tourist activity but also as a way to understand how artisanal skills are passed down through generations. Organizers emphasized that such practices are increasingly linked to cultural tourism in the Huangshui region. With this approach, traditional crafts are viewed not merely as museum exhibits but as a living economic sector capable of creating jobs, supporting local communities, and attracting young artisans.
Delegates examined another aspect of provincial development at the Qinghai Provincial Clean Energy and Green Computing Distribution Center. Organizers describe it as the first center of its kind at the provincial level in China. Guests were shown how the center monitors the generation of solar, wind, and hydropower and matches it with the needs of data centers and computing enterprises. The system is designed to help Qinghai leverage the advantages of its high-altitude environment—abundant solar radiation, significant wind potential, and available land—to develop the digital economy. The center's work includes forecasting renewable energy generation, monitoring energy consumption and carbon emissions, tracking the origin of 'green' electricity, and coordinating the energy system with computational loads. Qinghai is already implementing several projects aimed at using clean energy to power computing infrastructure and data centers. For the delegation, this served as an example of how ecological policy can be combined with technological progress. While the traditional image of Qinghai is associated with pastures, monasteries, and mountain landscapes, the region's new strategy also includes data centers, smart energy grids, and low-carbon industry.
At the Shengyuan Carpet Group Co., Ltd. enterprise, delegates saw how traditional craftsmanship has transformed into an export-oriented business. The producer from Xining was founded in 2007 and manufactures handmade Tibetan carpets and tapestries, as well as carpeting for hotels, cruise ships, and large public venues. The company integrates several stages of production: from spinning and dyeing to design and weaving. Its production capacity allows it to produce both traditional handmade products and modern commercial interior carpets. Delegates were shown the design process, dye selection, and hand-weaving techniques, and learned how the company combines commercial production with the preservation of Tibetan patterns and traditional methods. Its products are supplied to markets in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Australia, and other regions. The story of Shengyuan shows that artisanal craftsmanship can remain competitive not only because of its cultural value; it has found new applications in architecture, the hospitality industry, interior design, and transportation infrastructure decoration. Consequently, young professionals can find opportunities not only in workshops but also in industrial design, logistics, marketing, and international trade.
The last scheduled event of the program was the youth dialogue 'Youth Connects the Future,' held on September 20 at Qinghai Normal University. Delegates from Central Asia joined the youth and entrepreneurs from Qinghai for seminars on the technique of thangka painting, as well as on working with silver and copper. They tasted Chinese tea and learned about local traditions. The discussion focused on the role of youth in developing the Silk Road Economic Belt and prospects for cooperation in environmental protection, digital technologies, and cultural tourism. The dialogue format combined a formal agenda with practical interaction, as participants discussed how traditional industries are adapting to new markets and what role social media, universities, and youth entrepreneurship play in this process. In closing remarks, the organizers described this week not just as a tour, urging participants to become 'young ambassadors' who will bring back to their countries what they saw and heard in Qinghai. Thus, the program was intended not only to introduce participants to the Chinese region but also to establish horizontal connections between young journalists, students, entrepreneurs, and civil society organization representatives from Central Asia.
After the university dialogue, the final stop on the route was Qinghai Lake—China's largest inland brackish lake. With an area exceeding 4,600 square kilometers, its ecosystem is vital for migratory birds, rare fish species, and wetlands in northwestern China. In Chinese tradition, the lake is known as the 'bird island' and the 'fish warehouse.' Delegates learned about the ecological restoration of coastal areas, visited an observation platform for the spawning migration of the endemic Qinghai bleak, *Gymnocypris przewalskii*, and had the opportunity to observe birds in the coastal wetlands. The Qinghai bleak is a rare endemic fish adapted to the cold, brackish water of the lake. Restoring its population has been one of the region's notable conservation goals. Alongside restrictions on fishing and the restoration of spawning grounds, attention is paid to protecting the rivers through which the fish migrate to reproduce. The trip to the lake served as a symbolic conclusion to the program. Over several days, participants witnessed many interconnected aspects of Qinghai: the historical heritage of the Silk Road, Tibetan medicine and art, the conservation of rare animals, clean energy, modern production, and the restoration of aquatic ecosystems.