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To: BubbaFred who wrote (23930)	2/18/2005 7:33:47 PM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Earliest use of diamonds by Chinese found (Agencies/China Daily) Updated: 2005-02-18 00:48 LOS ANGELES: Ancient Chinese crafts-men might have learned to use diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago, US researchers said on Wednesday. Researchers at Harvard University have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques. The finding, reported in the February issue of the journal Archaeometry, places this earliest known use of diamonds worldwide thousands of years earlier than they are known to have been used elsewhere. Scientists had put the earliest use of diamonds around 500 BC. The latest work also represents the only known prehistoric use of sapphires. The photo shows a jade bracelet polished by the Liangzhu cultrue which dates back to as early as 5300 B.C. The stone worked into polished axes by China's Liangzhu and Sanxingcun cultures around 4000 to 2500 BC has as its most abundant element the mineral corundum, known as ruby in its red form and sapphire in all other colours. Author Peter J. Lu said: "It's absolutely remarkable that with the best polishing technologies available today, we couldn't achieve a surface as flat and smooth as was produced 5,000 years ago." Lu's work may eventually yield new insights into the origins of ancient China's Neolithic artifacts, vast quantities of finely polished jade objects. Lu studied four ceremonial axes, ranging in size from 13 to 22 centimetres, found at the tombs of wealthy individuals. Three of these axes, dating to the Sanxingcun culture of 4000 to 3800 BC and the later Liangzhu culture, came from the Nanjing Museum in China; the fourth, discovered at a Liangzhu culture site in Zhejiang Province. Using an atomic force microscope to examine the polished surfaces on a nanometer scale, he determined that the axe's original, exceptionally smooth surface most closely resembled although was still superior to modern polishing with diamond. The use of diamonds by Liangzhu craftsmen is geologically plausible, as diamond sources exist within 300 kilometres of where the burial axes studied by Lu were found. These ancient workers might have sorted diamonds from gravel using an age-old technique. "I imagine that Neolithic craftsmen were constantly experimenting with new tools, materials and techniques," Lu said. chinadaily.com.cn

To: BubbaFred who wrote (23930)	2/18/2005 10:09:54 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Here are some of the data mentioned in this report (The China Modernization Report 2005): In 2002, China’s economy ranked as 69th among the 108 nations in the world. Even though in the last 2 decades, China has had a high total growth rate, due to the extremely low base of per capita GDP, the absolute gap bet. Chinese per capita GDP and that of other developed nations is actually increasing. Measured by PPP purchasing power, China in 2001 had per capita GDP of $3,580. The US has had per capita GDP of that amount in 1892, Netherlands, in 1897. If measured by the percent of agricultural labor, the gap bet. China and Britain is more than 200 years. In 2000, 50% of Chinese labor was farm labor, while only 34% of all the British labor force was farm labor in 1801. It is estimated that by the year of 2050, the economy of China will be reaching to the level of the US in 2002. This is to say the gap bet. China and the US will be shortened from 100 years (as of 2001) to 50 years. By the year of 2100, the gap bet. the US and China will be shorten for 10 years, and the modernization of the Chinese economy will be among the top 10 in the world by then. In order to reach the above goal, China has to have an average annual growth rate of 8% for their transportation industry, 6% for energy, 5% for phone, and 3% for knowledge-based equipment. As a conclusion, China has to keep a cool head, and face the reality. China cannot ignore his average standard of GDP of the entire country and only focus on the couple of more developed big cities.