Human settlement, civil engineering and silk road – Xi’an Jiaotong University, 120-year anniversary

I, your editor, have been visiting Xi’an Jiaotong University since May 2009. I was then appointed Adjunct Professor for five years and ever since, I have been coming to Xi’an every year, the ancient capital of China. Professor Zhaolin Gu, who is the Executive Dean at the School of Human Settlement and Civil Engineering, would like me to take a more active role in the university to provide lectures to the undergraduate and graduate students; to collaborate with the research and to mentor two of his young lecturers at the school, particularly on Atmospheric Pollution, Historical Relics Preservation and Urban and Built Environments. I was later successfully appointed ‘Overseas Distinguished Professor’ in 2011 for three years funded by the Ministry of Education/State Administration of Foreign Experts in China. This was a great honour, and the university further awarded me the title ‘Honorary Professor’ in 2012. I was the University’s second Overseas Distinguished Professor! The appointment has been renewed and approved in 2015, by the Ministry of Education for another three years, which is another first in the university. I am now becoming very much part of the furniture at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and I have been fascinated and impressed by the subject areas which I have been involved in and contacted with at Xi’an Jiaotong University. The ancient city of Xi’an was the oldest capital of China (Zhou, 1046 BC–256 BC; Qin 221–206 BC; Han 206 BC–AD 220; Zeon, 312–316; Sui, AD 581–618 and Tang Dynasties, AD 618–907) before Sung from 960 AD (capital: Kaifeng), and before the Jin (Kam in Cantonese and Kim in Korean) (North-eastern people from Manchuria and Northern Korea); and then Mongo invasion of China. Xi’an is where the earliest human settlement of Chinese civilization was reportedly found, and where the earliest commercial trade centre-route to the west, known as the Silk Road. Here, is the origin of Chinese culture, literature, military strategies, sciences, agricultural engineering, trades and various forms of religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity). Since the 1990s, Xi’an has been becoming an important strategic economic centre for economic development in China as Xi’an serves a significant position in the north-western China. The city of Xi’an has re-emerged as an important cultural, industrial and educational centre for the central-northwestern region, with impressive facilities for research and development on materials, energy technology, electronics and computing, information and communication technology, mechanical, aeronautical and electrical engineering, national security and space’s exploratory programme and also significantly, as the research hub in this region for commerce and business management, human settlement, climate change, dust storm, monsoon and paleoclimatology, atmospheric, soil and earthen environment and preservation of ancient relics. Xi’an will increasingly become a significant centre to service China’s policy of reviving the ‘Silk Road’ in government’s ‘One Belt-One Road’ initiative of developing trade and transport links from China to Central, Western Asia and Europe. Civil engineering, built environment infrastructure, energy, resource management, communication technology, culture, social and human settlement environments as well as finance, business administration and trade will be important dialogues and developments within the ‘One-Belt-One Road’ initiatives, forming social, economic and environmental as well as technological network throughout Asia connecting with Europe. These initiatives will provide the fundamental growth in sustainable development in most parts of Central Asia, which have so far been left behind in the global economic development. Also, the development will sustain economic growth in China, extending the rich development in the coastal regions of China to the Western reaches of inner China. The infrastructure construction will provide the ready market for China’s