Silk Road Economic Belt and Development of Local Document Resources in Xinjiang

Lv Juan,Yang Qing

(Lanzhou University Library,Lanzhou,Gansu Province 730000)

Abstract:Taking advantage of strategic position of Xinjiang in building the Silk Road Economic Belt,this paper analyzes the features of local documents resources in Xinjiang and presents some methods and measures about the development of local documents through the humanistic advantages and geography and location in the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt,aiming to actively cooperate with the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and promote cultural exchanges between Xinjiang and neighboring countries.By doing so,the construction and development of the Silk Road Economic Belt can be further strengthened.

Keywords:Silk Road Economic belt;development of local documents;Xinjiang

The so-called Silk Road Economic Belt, a brand-new economic development area,was built on the foundation of Ancient Silk Road,recognized as“the longest and most promising economic corridor in the world”[1].Although Xinjiang is located in the northwest border of China, it has an important strategic hub role in the Silk Road Economic Belt.It is not only an important part of the Ancient Silk Road,but also the most geographical and regional core zone in the construction of modern Silk Road Economic Belt with humanity advantages.

I.Strategic Position of Xinjiang in Construction of Silk Road Economic Belt

Xi'an is the eastern starting point of the Silk Road which covers Xinjiang through the Hexi Corridor.Silk Road consists of Northern,Central and Southern paths,connecting Europe and Africa with Central Asia,West Asia and South Asia.Xinjiang plays an important role in the Silk Road and plays an irreplaceable role in cultivating and guarding border areas as well as safeguarding national security[2].

(i)Important Gateway for Opening up

Xinjiang is an important hub connecting China's mainland and radiating South Asia,West Asia and Central Asia[3].The comprehensive transportation network is convenient and safe.Its regional international trade,export commodity processing and logistics channel construction have begun to take shape.It is an important gateway for opening up to the outside world.

(ii)Strategic Frontier of Eurasian Cooperation

Xinjiang is a key area for the Silk Road to cross the territory[4].As far as China's Ancient Silk Road is concerned,it is the only passage for trade and cultural exchanges between the East and the West.It is China's land passage to the Baltic Sea,the English Channel,Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean and also the core area for cooperation and exchanges among China and Central Asia,West Asia,South Asia,Europe and North Africa, boasting an important strategic frontier for promoting cooperation between Europe and Asia.

(iii)New Growth in Economic Transformation and Upgrading

Xinjiang is rich in natural resources.It also has promising development prospects of export processing industry and strategic emerging industries.The construction of Silk Road Economic Belt provides a rare opportunity for the expansion of opening up[4]and the promotion of new economic growth of Xinjiang.

II.Characteristics of Xinjiang Local Documents

The local documents are all the carriers that record knowledge of a certain region with historical materials and academic value, belonging to the cultural accumulation and historical products[5].It has distinct locality,strong information and diverse form.Xinjiang local documents refer to the records reflecting all natural and social phenomena in Xinjiang.It not only writes the past and present of Xinjiang,but also records the history,politics,and economy, culture of the local areas[6]and the development of society.It also plays a major role to understand the customs, lifestyle and religious culture.It enjoys the epitome and accumulation of local cultural development in Xinjiang,and has the function and value of preserving the regional culture of Xinjiang.

(i)Unique Locality

Xinjiang is the largest province in China.Located in the northwestern border,it has a special geographical position with vast land and abundant resources.Eleven regions (states)and 33 counties(cities) lie in the border areas.From a regional perspective,Xinjiang is at the center of the inland of Eurasia,not only at the junction of Central Asia,South Asia and East Asia,but also at the heart of the Eurasian Continent and the African Continent.The extremely advantageous geographical location and deep cultural foundation nurtures a large number of precious and regional documents.

(ii)Distinctive Nationality

Benefited from its unique geographical location,Xinjiang has long been in the center of China's internal and external exchanges in economy,trade and culture.This unique historicity makes the multi-ethnic settlement happen.Therefore, local documents have distinct national characteristics because of these unique historical factors and the reality of multi-ethnicity of Xinjiang.Xinjiang local history,history books and historical materials have very rich documents and detailed records of its national history.From the perspective of local history,these documents include not only political and economic but cultural and living materials, and preserve the information on economic and economic exchanges between the multi-ethnic areas of Xinjiang.The latecomers can find the contents of various national languages,architectural paintings,religious history, etc, showing the era of the documents as well as the diversification of its writings.It is an important source for studying national culture.

(iii)Multilingualism

Thanks to the unique geographical location of Xinjiang and the characteristics of ethnic groups,these local documents resources not only include rich Chinese documents resources, but also national documents resources of various ethnic minorities.From a historical perspective,these local documents can be traced back to the Han Dynasty,with a time span of more than two thousand years.In terms of national perspective,these local documents consist of at least thirty national languages and nearly twenty national scripts.Among them, nine kinds of characters such as Turkic, Sugda Script, Manes Script,Uigur Script,Brahmi,Sanskrit,and Arabic are used to record Uighur documents.The most commonly used is the Uigur Script.These languages and scripts fully reflect the multilingual nature of local documents resources of Xinjiang.Up to now,there are still many national languages including Russian and Uzbek, as well as various ethnic languages including Uygur and Xibe, which are widely used in Xinjiang.

III.Development and Utilization of Xinjiang Local Documents

It is unique geographical location and historical factors of Xinjiang that make its local documents unique in its regional,distinctive nationality and multilingual nature.This has formed a unique advantage of local documents resources and has become an indispensable source of Chinese national documents resources,deepening the study of the Chinese national documents.

(i) Building Silk Road Western Documents Database through Local Documents

The Silk Road is the path of integration,communication and dialogue between the East and the West.It witnessed the farming civilization and nomadic civilization in the Eurasian continent and the Han nationality during the 1800-year period from the 2nd century BC to the 16th century AD.The exchanges between ethnic minorities cover all areas of politics,economy,society and culture.Xinjiang local documents are built on the foundation of historical, political, economic, social and cultural all-round historical exchanges of these national civilizations and national civilizations with rich research value.

The essence of the Silk Road Western Documents Database relies on the expansion of academic research on Silk Road civilization.Making full use of the information resources of regional documents,national characteristics and multilingual characteristics in Xinjiang local documents,people could extensively collect and explore these information resources,effectively organize and form a national information sharing platform to provide information support for libraries, governments,schools and scientific research institutions in Xinjiang or domestic and overseas ones, and to establish a solid local document security system[7]for national politics,economy,science and technology,culture,education services.By doing this people could improve cultural visibility, local tourism economic development,and the use and visibility of local documents,realizing the value of Xinjiang local documents database.

(ii) Constructing a Library with Xinjiang Minority Characteristics in Documents

The ancient books and local documents of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are relatively weak literature, reflecting the original ecological phenomenon of the nation and region.The library should adopt some measures according to local conditions like own manpower,funds,and facilities[8],so that true nature of the nation can be well preserved.Xinjiang national literature is rich in contents, diverse in forms and numerous in quantities.For example,the ancient Uighur literature“Turkic Dictionary”,“Kutat Ghu Bilik”,“History of Kashgar”, etc., have a very high literary and historical value.The digitalization of minority literature in a planned and step-by-step manner can lay a good foundation for the construction of digital libraries in Xinjiang,better promote the excellent culture of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and the cultural exchanges and development of ethnic groups in Xinjiang and surrounding areas, making distinctive documents resources re-emphasize their use value in the network environment.Thus,the Chinese civilization has more chance to be transmitted with the help of Xinjiang cultural information through the network.

(iii)Integrating Regional Documents Resources for Local Documents Sharing

Culture is the blood of the nation and also the blood vein of the Silk Road Economic Belt.It boasts the basis of “five links”including policy communication, road connectivity, trade flow,currency circulation,and people-to-people ties for the realization of the new Silk Road strategy[4].Public libraries,archives,museums and university libraries in Xinjiang are the constituents of local documents resources, reflecting different characteristics and focuses in the construction of documents resources.Specifically,it includes not only physical documents,but also oral and bibliographic documents.From the physical literature, the historical relics in the museum are the best literature materials,while the oral literature and data documents are composed of various multimedia documents and paper and electronic materials.Under the participation and coordination of the government, the documents resources can achieve the agglomeration effect,so that the collection information of each document organization can be shared and the procurement plan can be coordinated, which not only can save procurement maintenance costs, but also further promote the complementary advantages.If the region fully realizes the co-construction and literature resources sharing as well as exploits the complementary action,people are possible to put all kinds of libraries of Xinjiang into the overall environment of the National Library Alliance,forming a Xinjiang Library Alliance Model for information sharing.

(iv) Developing Cultural Resources for Exchanges with Neighboring Countries

The local documents in Xinjiang contains detailed information on historical and historical sites,literary paintings, linguistic characters, religious folklore and other artistic and cultural contents in the region,which is of great development value.During the progress of organization and development of cultural information resources in Xinjiang local document,a transformation platform for scientific research, academic exchanges, advanced technologies,and scientific research achievements should be built in face of Central Asian countries,in a bid to conduct academic exchanges and talent training extensively and provide information support for technological innovation of enterprises,ecological environment protection and resource development[4],which can greatly promote the regional characteristic culture, provide rich and effective for economic development, trade exchanges, maintaining ethnic and cultural diversity in the Xinjiang region as well as document information resource service, and promote cultural exchanges and communication at home and abroad.

In short,the local document is an important part of distinctive library collection,and also an important source of information for the library to provide information services for the social,economic and cultural development of the region.With Xinjiang as an important hub, people will promote the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt in Xinjiang,build a bridge for economic and trade,cultural and scientific exchanges, and improve exchanges and cooperation with countries in Central Asia.However,all of these require Xinjiang to be fully utilized its own local advantages and potentials.The integration of Xinjiang into the Silk Road Economic Belt not only needs to strengthen infrastructure construction and service industries,but also needs to provide rich natural,human,political,economic and other documents from the literature information resources in order to maximize the use of local literature resources in Xinjiang,so that the bridges and central hubs will drive the Silk Road along the central and western regions to promote the prosperity and development of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the cultural tourism industry in the Midwest[4].