Along with the great development of China��s west and enthusiasm for tours, Dunhuang, the oriental city of fine arts is daily becoming internationalized. According to the researches of related materials the phenomenon has come to appear not only in nowadays but long ago of over 1000 years in the Tang Dynasty, and even earlier, Dunhuang has been a city showing a relatively high vestige of internationalization.

The vestige revealed more prominent in the field of commerce and trade said Prof. Zheng Binlin, Dean of the Institute of Dunhuangology with Lanzhou University and doctorate tutor. Judging from the ledgers or book-accounts exhumed from the Buddhist Scripture Storing Cave left over from the Later Tang and the Five Dynasties the commercial activities carried out in Dunhuang then were not limited to the regional economic activities alone but rather internationalized with many mission groups and businessmen to stay permanently in the city conducting business transactions. Therefore, the city was affluent with all sorts of commercial goods, commodities for production and daily life.

In exception of the business and trade that was already internationalized the size and scale of Dunhuang and the languages used at that time were also a reflection to indicate that it has already become an ��internationalized city��. According to the reckoning of related experts the residents at Dunhuang then came to over 30,000 in all. The figure, though seeming to be thin, was enough to suggest the size of city for a county seat then in the frontier areas of China��s northwest. In addition from among a large number of preserved national documents and papers we can come to know that except the people of Han Nationality conducting activities in the area there were some ethnic nationals such as Uygur and Sute and other tribes. In order to carry on trades and transactions a batch of professional interpreters emerged then in the area. All these are the vestiges to indicate that Dunhuang has been an internationalized city.

For over thousand of years, Dunhuang, due to its important location and prosperity of Buddhism Culture, has beyond doubt become a shining pearl studded on the Eurasian thoroughfare.

By People��s Daily Online