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Jiangsu province's Wuxi is often called "Little Shanghai" because of its prosperity. [Photo/China Daily New Media Center] |
Wuxi is known as 'little Shanghai' because of its village and township enterprises that boomed after the reform and opening-up. But unfettered growth produced a blue-green algae bloom that has since pushed the city toward innovative and green development, Erik Nilsson discovers in Wuxi, Jiangsu province.
Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of the six-part Yangtze diaries series based on journalist Erik Nilsson's recent 35-day, 2,000-kilometer journey to 11 cities to discover how the Yangtze River Economic Belt has transformed over the 40 years since the reform and opening-up. Scan the code to watch the video.
I recently joined a fishing crew from Jiangsu province's Wuxi to haul up nets on Taihu Lake.
I later underwent a tai chi physical-therapy routine led by a virtual instructor using the internet of things. And I also picked grapes with a local entrepreneur, who abandoned his chemical company for green agriculture over a decade ago.
I discovered how these seemingly disparate experiences are interconnected in the story of Wuxi's rapid development, environmental crisis and recovery, and industrial transformation since the reform and opening-up.
The 3,000-year-old settlement is today known as "little Shanghai" because of its advanced industries and flourishing businesses.
The second-tier city has become a first-class economy. Its GDP exceeded $145 billion - roughly $7 billion more than Hungary's - last year.
Decades ago, rural residents put down their farming tools to start collective, cooperative and individual enterprises. They became leaders on the road from poverty to prosperity.
Many of these startups were based in the city's hinterlands. Some have grown into conglomerates, largely because of their early-mover advantage.
Wuxi's Shuangliang Group, for example, started as a chiller producer in Jiangyin, a county-level city under Wuxi. It was founded by seven retired soldiers, who invested their pensions.
Today, Shuangliang operates with several businesses, including energy production, dockyard services and hotels.
"Before the reform and openingup, we weren't allowed to set up our own companies," vice-president Ma Fulin says.
"And there was a default policy that employers could hire no more than seven workers. The change motivated people who were willing to start companies like Shuangliang."
Ma moved from Beijing to Jiangyin soon after the reform and opening-up in hopes of grasping its emergent opportunities.
"Many people were surprised I'd leave the relatively developed capital to come here," he says.
"It was very rustic then."
He designed machines that capture and harness excess energy from power plants.
"It initially took us three months to make a small machine," Ma says.
"Now, we can manufacture the biggest one in two weeks. They can power a medium-sized city. We're a world leader in this area."
I also visited the headquarters of Fasten Group, which produces steel cables used in over 800 bridges around the world, including many of the planet's largest.
The company - also founded by seven retired soldiers in what was then rural Wuxi - began by making hemp rope for ships plying the Yangtze. It evolved to become one of China's first fiber-optic-cable manufacturers.
Today, it's involved in the creation of international standards for steel cables and develops and produces much of the equipment it uses to manufacture fiber-optic products.
Wuxi has indisputably boomed since the reform and opening-up.
But, as a Chinese saying goes, "The water that carries a ship can also capsize it."
Indeed, Taihu's water proves this to be true in terms of economic development.
The 1980s folk song, The Beauty of Taihu Lake, describes the water body as a source of fish and rice. Taihu is the largest lake in the Yangtze Delta. And Wuxi is known as its "pearl".
Unchecked growth produced pollution, especially a blue-green algae bloom in Taihu that left a million people without water around 2007.
People began to question "development-at-all-costs" and to consider how to balance economic growth with environmental protection.
This pushed the government to guide local enterprises toward green and innovative sectors.
Fisherwoman Gao Shengqiong explained to me how the pollution and recovery of Taihu has affected her family when I joined them to haul up squirming nets.
"Nobody wanted to buy the fish we caught during the algae bloom," she says.
"Our family has fished in Taihu for generations. In my father-inlaw's time, they could catch hundreds of thousands of kilograms of fish a day. But now we can get tens of thousands at most."
Taihu's three treasures are its "three whites" - whitefish, river shrimp and silverfish.
I later helped the crew sort these fingerlings, tossing them into their respective compartments beneath the deck until a dragon's hoard worth of silver ingots shimmered in the compartments beneath the deck. Larger fish, about the size of a forearm, blasted out of the water, sometimes punching against the sides of the wooden boat.
Back on land, I dined on the "three whites" for lunch.
I'd enjoyed them during my many previous visits to Wuxi.
But they'd taken on a new meaning for me after catching them myself while talking with Gao about how they fit into the story of Wuxi's growing pains.
The environmental crisis has, in some ways, proved a blessing in disguise. It compelled the government to support enterprises' transitions toward innovation.
Zhoutie township, for instance, was once known for its chemical industry.
As we strolled along Taihu's shore near his orchards, entrepreneur Zhang Tao told me the township hosted over 300 chemical companies in the early stage of the reform and opening-up.
"They were everywhere. But their success came at the expense of the environment," Zhang says.
"Only about a dozen still operate. Some are slated to also be shut down, which will further benefit our environmental recovery. Maybe we can soon swim ... to cool down during the summer heat - something I did as a kid that we couldn't imagine a few years ago."
Zhang was an early mover to change his business' direction.
He'd left farming to enter the chemical industry and returned to agriculture - this time using green methods to cultivate fruit - a few years before the bloom.
"I made a lot of money in chemical production," he explained, as we plucked grapes that bejeweled his vines.
"But growing grapes brings in a lot of money, too. I feel good doing this because it's environmentally friendly."
Yet green agriculture is just one way in which Wuxi is innovating.
Many industries in the city are shifting toward such high-tech sectors as the internet of things.
I visited the China Business Innovation Center to find out how IoT technology is being used in healthcare.
There, I did the tai chi routine, put my face in a white box and stuck out my tongue to get a facial scan that produced a basic health assessment and played a kids' fishing game on a tablet in which I had to use a nebulizer or it'd turn off. The game is intended to get children to use their nebulizers by making it fun, since many kids dislike the treatments.
The problem was, I started laughing too hard and lost the game.
Operations manager Chen Xiaoyan also showed me an ambulance equipped to diagnose patients before they arrive at the hospital.
"A lot of tests can be done within 20 minutes of boarding the ambulance," she says.
"The data are sent to the hospital via IoT technology before the patients arrive. So, doctors can provide treatments sooner."
IoT technology is also being used in such industries as textiles.
The century-old Wuxi No 1 Cotton Mill Textile Group, for instance, runs a huge factory with a fraction of the workers previously required. Today, IoT technology can monitor production conditions, reducing the need for humans to do so.
Indeed, Wuxi has proved to be a model in balancing the economy and environment by transitioning from traditional to emergent industries and shifting from quantity to quality.
And, so, Taihu's pearl shines anew at the dawn of China's new era.
