Tianjin, China's Manhattan: builds on political goodwill - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

Yujiapu, Tianjin's financial district, is building China's Manhattan, with loans since most inhabitants still have to arrive. That goes well, says financial analyst Victor Shih, as long as the project has the political goodwill in Beijing to subscribe giants loans, he tells in the New York Times.

The New York Times:

For now, Tianjin can continue to borrow for projects like the Juilliard campus because it has a powerful patron in Beijing, said Victor Shih, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on the Chinese economy. That official, He Lifeng, was once the No. 2 Communist Party official in Tianjin. Mr. He now heads the central government agency that approves all major development projects, meaning he can authorize banks to lend more money to Tianjin. 

“If the political will collapses for the Binhai area, then the bank loans will begin to dry up and the whole area is in trouble,” Mr. Shih said. 

Officials at the National Development and Reform Commission, the agency where Mr. He works, did not respond to a request for comment.

More in the New York Times.

Victor Shih is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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China's new top-planner did not perform well - Victor Shih

Victor Shin

Amid the reshuffle of China's top-officials, He Lifeng will take the helm at the powerful National Development and Reform Commission. But some senior analysts doubted his skills as a planner. Just look at his work in Tianjin, says political analist Victor Shih in AP.

AP

And yet, in the selection of He as top economic planner, some political observers saw a throwback to a retrograde model of wasteful spending and runaway borrowing that many policymakers in the party blame for dragging down China's economy. 

As the No. 2 party official, He oversaw a building spree in the coastal city of Tianjin that was envisioned to be a new financial hub to rival Manhattan but now sits unoccupied, said Victor Shih, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. 

"He Lifeng presided over the largest ghost city in China and built even more empty office towers in it," Shih said. "His reform credentials are questionable to say the least."

More in AP.

Victor Shih is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Baoding: third tier city waiting for revival - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Now China is preparing for a new megacity, Jing-Jin-Ji, combining Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, the neighboring provincial capital Baoding is hoping to tide on the bandwagon too. Journalist Ian Johnson visited Baoding for the New York Times and looks at its chances.

Ian Johnson:

But transforming Baoding will be a challenge. The region is relatively poor, with few natural economic advantages beyond coal mining. That has led to the development of the world’s biggest concentration of heavily polluting coking and steel factories. Even though Baoding itself has no heavy industries, pollution from nearby cities has given it the worst air in China.

The risks of such down-market economic development are also apparent in nearby Tianjin, which became a center for dirty chemical industriesrejected in many other parts of China. Last month, a massive chemical firedestroyed part of Tianjin’s Binhai New Area port, one of the pillars of the Jing-Jin-Ji plan. 

The effort to redeem Baoding has echoes in the past. It was once the capital of Zhili Province, made up of today’s Hebei Province and Tianjin. A key military and political stronghold in imperial China, Baoding was famed for its dates, persimmons and sesame oil. (The donkey burgers came later.) But this agricultural focus did not sit well with the Communists, who took power in 1949 and favored heavy industry... 

Now, planners hope to fix Baoding’s economic deficits by fiat. Their solution is to use infrastructure and powerful administrative structures to push industry out of Beijing and into surrounding cities like Baoding. A key step came in May when China’s cabinet, the State Council, approved Baoding’s expansion from 120 square miles to 850 square miles, or nearly three times the size of New York City. 

When the issue of expansion was raised last year, it caused an increase in Baoding’s real estate prices, with speculators hoping that the government would move some ministries or bureaus here.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

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Earlier Ian Johnson explained the background of the new megacity and the possibilities for foreign companies to join the bandwagon

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More restructuring of Beijing planned - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Not only is the municipal government leaving the city center of Beijing, more activities are going to leave for a new urban corridor between Beijing and Tianjin, reports journalist Ian Johnson in the New York Times. Hospitals, markets and administrative offices follow too by moving to Hebei province.

Ian Johnson:

City officials said, 50 city hospitals will begin cooperating with hospitals in Hebei Province, and some will move important facilities to surrounding communities. The neurological unit in Tiantan Hospital, for example, will move to another suburb, Fengtai, by 2017, they said. 

The city also said it would move 1,200 pollution-causing businesses out of the urban center. 

The moves are part of the creation of a major new urban area called Jing-Jin-Ji, after the three districts it encompasses (“Jing” for Beijing, “Jin” for the nearby port city of Tianjin, and “Ji” for the ancient name for Hebei Province). The city is trying to develop industries like tourism in poorer mountain areas surrounding the capital, with one area bidding to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. 

The plan has been debated for decades, but only began to be implemented in recent months as part of an effort by President Xi Jinping to reform the Chinese economy. The idea is to reduce the sort of duplicative, polluting enterprises like coking and steel that dominate the greater Beijing area and other large urban centers, and in their place create a more modern economic structure. 

Jing-Jin-Ji would have more than 100 million residents and be about the size of Kansas, with high-speed rail lines making most cities in the corridor reachable within an hour.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Ian Johnson? Check out this link.  

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