Narrator following the attacks of september 11, china drew at least temporarily closer to the u. S. The reason beijing fears separatist forces in their islamic western provinces. China has a delicate relationship with its ethnic and religious minorities. To understand the interactions between two asian cultures, we travel to the frontiers of han and muslim china in the city of lanzhou. But lanzhous location and its future on this frontier have much to do with the regions physical geography and Natural Resources. blowing heavily narrator for centuries in this part of china, rafts like this were an important means of transportation. Made of sheepskin, inflated and tied together, these rafts, called yangpi fazi, navigated the huang he, or yellow river. By looking only at the huang he, you might think lanzhou is a wet place. In fact it only receives about 12 inches of rain a year. Geographer chai yangwei, in the green, follows these farmers to see how they cope with such low rainfall. Pecu