[Opinion] On July 10, the Qinghai Subsession of the Seminar on Inheriting and Carrying Forward the Spirit of Builders of the Two Plateau Highways and Changes of Transportation and Modernization of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau was held in Xining. The participants made speeches around the two highways. Let's take a quick look at the highlights of the seminar.

Mu Xiaofeng talked about his father’s love of the plateau: “Scatter my ashes along the Qinghai-Xizang Highway after I die. I can sleep for a long time happily only after I hear the sound of rolling wheels.” On December 9, 1957, General Mu Shengzhong was arranged to report relevant problems of the Qinghai-Xizang Highway to Chairman Mao. When Chairman Mao asked how he dared to imagine building this road, Mu Shengzhong answered: “First, I was forced to do so. Second, I explored bravely, practiced boldly, sought truth from facts, and investigated.” Chairman Mao questioned closely: “There are no human beings. Who did you investigate?” General Mu Shengzhong answered: “I investigated the nature. I cut down the rose willow as thick as my thumb on the bank of the river and peeled off 80 layers, which indicated that it had grown for more than 80 years. We can infer that there has been no mountain torrent here for at least 80 years.” Chairman Mao praised repeatedly after hearing it: “It is scientific.”

The relevant person in charge of the Xizang office in Golmud said that it would be impossible to visit the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau today without Mu Shengzhong and other revolutionary predecessors and tens of thousands of people building the road who carried forward the “Two Highways” Spirit of being not afraid of hardship and death.

Professor Jia Wei of Qinghai Minzu University School of Ethnology and Sociology said that the road was a perspective with reference significance in the historical investigation of communication, exchange, and integration between ethnic groups. Qinghai-Xizang Highway holds important significance for forming a common cultural identity, promoting deeper derivation and expansion of communication, exchange, and integration between ethnic groups along the roads, and rebuilding the relationship between ethnic groups.