Shaanxi Province, a vital national energy base in northwest China, has been leveraging technological innovation to drive industrial upgrading and expand its industrial chains, injecting new momentum into traditional energy resources industries.
As China's first coal transportation pipeline and the world's longest coal pipeline, the Shenwei Coal Pipeline in Shaanxi Province is able to transfer 10 million tons of coal annually. Spanning 727 kilometers from Shenmu City to Weinan City, it traverses 18 counties and districts in four cities across the province.
The project transports coal slurry made from premium raw coal from the Yushen mining area to the coal chemical base in Guanzhong Plain in the province via high-pressure pump stations that increase pressure along the route.
A portion of the coal slurry is fed directly into coal chemical plants, while another portion is dewatered into solid coal and transported to thermal power plants for combustion. This approach enables green, low-carbon, and efficient coal transportation.
"Currently, the costs are about two-thirds of rail transport and half of road transport, fully leveraging the economic and social benefits of the pipeline. In the next step, we will further research and innovate pipeline technologies, and give full play to the pipeline's production capacity advantages, to achieve comprehensive industrial development," said Xie Yihua, deputy manager of the Production and Operation Branch of Shaanxi Shenwei Coal Pipeline Transportation Co. Ltd.
Similarly, in the mining sector, Xi'an Tianzhou Mining Technology Group is using cutting-edge technologies to tackle high consumption and low efficiency.
The ore dressing process that the company has developed independently can significantly reduce resource waste and solve challenges in processing complex ores.
The company, specializing in high-tech mining solutions, has recently relocated to an innovation-driven base. It will tap into the innovation ecosystem that the base provides to build an international full-chain mining service platform.
"Our clients include those from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and many other countries. Through our research, we have achieved a mineral recovery rate of 97 percent, which should be considered world-leading. Not only can mining enterprises gain huge benefits, but resources can also be fully utilized," said Li Tian'en, chairman of Xi'an Tianzhou Mining Technology Group Co. Ltd.
Shaanxi harnesses technologies to revitalize coal, mining industries
Ronny Herman de Jong, a Dutch-American survivor of Japanese-run internment camps in Southeast Asia during World War II, has recounted the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army against women and children, urging the Japanese government to issue a formal apology to the victims and survivors.
Born in 1938 on the island of Java in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), de Jong was just a toddler when Japanese forces invaded in 1942.
Along with her mother and younger sister, she was forcibly interned in a concentration camp for women and children, where they endured nearly four years of starvation, disease, and brutal treatment, narrowly escaping death on multiple occasions.
"In the women's camps, they would put bamboo sticks under the fingernails. They put burning cigarette butts on women's breasts. That did not happen to my mom, but it happened to a lot of the people. They were severely maltreated. Even little babies were just killed. In the end, there were so many deaths. The mortality rate on Java [Island] was more than 10 times normal, and there were no longer coffins provided anymore. People that died just had to be taken out of the camp and dumped into a big pit that the women had to have dug, or they were just dumped over the fence," de Jong recounted.
After the war, her family emigrated to the United States. Decades later, she published a book based on her mother's secret diary -- smuggled out of the camp -- which chronicled their harrowing ordeal.
First released in Canada in 1992, the book met with significant resistance in Japan. According to de Jong, a Japanese journalist in Canada who had agreed to translate the work was later murdered, halting efforts to bring the account to Japanese readers.
To this day, de Jong stressed that Japan has never issued a formal apology to the victims or survivors of its wartime aggression across Asia.
"Japan has never offered an apology to any of the survivors or victims. Now, Japan is starting to change their democracy by changing that Article 9 [of the Japanese Constitution] that says Japan should not have any armed forces ever again that can start war. And now, the [Japanese] prime minister is trying to change that by reinforcing the Japanese arms," she said.
In 2001, de Jong realized how little the world knew about the Japanese-run internment camps in Southeast Asia during WWII. Declassified documents from the U.S. National Archives revealed a chilling plan: Japanese authorities had intended to systematically exterminate all remaining camp internees beginning in September 1945, just weeks after Japan announced its unconditional surrender.
Since then, de Jong has dedicated herself to compiling testimonies from WWII veterans and former child internees, publishing more books to ensure this history is never forgotten nor denied.
"What I want to say to the generations of now and to come, you have to remember this war -- the Second World War in the Pacific. It was the most cruel and expensive war ever. That is not a war that you can say 'oh, it did not happen'. It does not. That is not true. You have to remember this war," she said.
Concentration camp survivor recounts Japanese army's atrocities during WWII
