There have been various efforts to turn the tunnels to good uses. More than 3,700 hotels have been opened in tunnels around the country, according to the liberation Army Daily. Tunnels house morethan 13,000 warehouses (some of Wuhan's famous caves are now used to store bananas). Nearly 4,000 restaurants, shops or "recreation venues" have been carved out of others.
One warren in Shanghai is used as a karaoke club, in which the nooks and crannies provide plenty of privacy for hired hostesses and their customers while the passageways' twists and turns allow ample warning for those engaged in questionable activities if the police come to call.
In Beijing, for all the sweat that local residents or their grandparents expended to build the tunnels, few Chinese citizens are allowed into the underground complex.
Some of the tour guides say that local residents are not permitted into the tunnels because the network is considered a "military secret," though it is not clear why a military secret would be advertised to foreigners.
A woman who would identify herself only as Li, who works in the local civil defense administration, which manages the network, confirmed that Chinese citizens are not allowed in, saying mysteriously that military considerations are "part of the reason." But a bigger consideration, she said, is that "domestic travelers are not as cultured as overseas tourists."
"Strictly speaking," said Wang Mingqi, the district's director of civil defense and Li's boss, "few domestic travelers would be interested in the souvenirs they sell in the underground city and if we admit more groups, the cost of maintenance will go up.
The vehicle for this ambitious agenda is the so-called Shanghai Five, a Central Asian organization formed five years ago to reduce tensions along the former Sino-Russian border. But as China emerges as a political and economic powerhouse, the group's mandate is taking on a regional dimension, highlighting Beijing's aspirations for greater influence in Asia.
To that end, the group is changing its name to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. On Thursday, it added Uzbekistan to the original five-country collective, which includes the former Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. More nations, such as Pakistan, India and Mongolia, could join later.
With President Bush in Europe this week shopping his controversial missile defense system to his NATO allies, Central Asian leaders here are expected to endorse China's strong opposition to it.
China and Russia, former rivals for leadership in the Communist bloc, are now joined against a unipolar world driven by the American agenda. They share the claim that Bush's missile plan interferes with the affairs of sovereign states and has the potential to trigger a new global arms race.
Chinese officials are touting the formation of the regional organization as a landmark event ushering in a new era of post-Cold War cooperation. But a more realistic goal for the group is the vow to crack down on the spread of Islamic militancy and separatist movements, many receiving arms and training from the Taliban, Afghanistan's extremist Islamic rulers.
China is determined to prevent any radical influence from inflaming separatist tendencies already percolating among ethnic minorities in Xinjing, which borders several Central Asian republics, including Afghanistan. It is strategically important because, like the other politically unstable desert nations around it, the province sits on a wealth of resources, including oil and natural gas.
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I wonder if their mandate has been altered since September 11th?