Gansu remains in vanguard of global trade

The bronze galloping horse at the Gansu Provincial Museum. [Wang Yuguo/Xinhua]

Bai Yihan, a middle school student from Shanghai, visited Gansu in July with her classmates to learn about Silk Road history and culture. "It was amazing to actually see the things I had learned about in textbooks," the 14-year-old said.

Legend has it that in Dunhuang, Emperor Wudi had a Tianma, or "heavenly horse" — an Akhal-teke, a fabled breed from Turkmenistan that is famous for its speed, endurance and intelligence. The horse's coat has a distinctive metallic sheen, which led to the nickname Golden Horses — as a result, he wrote Tianma Song, a poem that praises the horse's strength.

In 2014, a China-Europe freight train named Tianma sounded the whistle for its maiden journey from Wuwei in Gansu to Germany, carrying goods ranging from kitchen appliances to hardware fittings.

The journey signaled another first for the Belt and Road Initiative, which had been proposed by China a year earlier to improve connectivity and cooperation among countries. Trains pass through the Alashankou Port in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, before finally arriving in Germany within 18 days. The nearly 9,000-kilometer journey takes the galloping "heavenly horse" 30 days less than traditional ocean transportation.