Having returned just a few days ago from a packed visit to Zhejiang as a member of a local Portuguese- and English-language media delegation I feel that I visited both Shangri-la and Silicon Valley at the same time.
The four-day trip organised by the Macau-based Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs convinced me that the province in the Yangtze River Delta region can be aptly described by just three adjectives – ancient, ecological, futuristic.
It was my first visit to the area in over two decades. It reconfirmed my view that the province of 66 million people (about the size of France) is not only a treasure trove of historic achievements on the economic front, such as being among the earliest regions in China to cultivate rice and produce silk, but also a bucolic place of natural beauty and, last but not least, a place where groundbreaking innovations have been thriving for millennia.
Zhejiang’s innovation drive began over five thousand years ago. Aside from cultivating rice and green tea, developing industrial-scale sericulture and silk mastery and manufacturing celadon (pale green) porcelain and ocean-going vessels, the area also perfected hydraulic engineering such as through its participation in the 1,775 km Beijing-Hangzhou (Jin-Hang) Grand Canal mammoth project.
Its coastal location, fertile land, and mercantile culture have fostered a particularly productive blend of practical inventions and global trade.
Our trip included a visit to the site of the annual World Internet Conference (WIC) in the picturesque ancient town of Wuzhen, launched by the Cyberspace Administration of China in 2014. Its second summit in 2015 was attended by President Xi Jinping. Last year’s summit in Wuzhen was themed “Embracing A People-Centered and AI-For-Good Digital Future”.
President Xi told the 2024 summit by video link that China is willing to work with countries around the world to join the information revolution, “and jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace.”
Holding a future-oriented Internet conference in a history-laden town provides its participants with the right ambience. Though history can hardly repeat itself verbatim in a world of constant change, we can still draw lessons from the past to avoid repeating similar errors.
For me as a history buff, the visit to the Memorial Hall of the New Fourth Army’s Jiangsu-Zhejiang Military Region was one of our trip’s highlights. None other than the Huzhou Municipal People’s Government Vice Mayor Zheng Xinyou gave us a detailed presentation of the history of the place and the fight against the fascist Japanese invaders, including the heroic deeds by peasants and others in Zhejiang and Jiangsu who in April 1942 rescued 62 of the 75 American “Doolittle raiders”* who landed in China after bombing Japan in retaliation for the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The Japanese occupiers took revenge by killing an estimated 250,000 Chinese in Zhejiang.
The Doolittle raiders case should be remembered as a great example of cooperation and friendship between the Chinese and American peoples. China-US amity is one of the mainstays of peaceful international relations. This pillar must never be allowed to sink beyond repair, irrespective of the systemic differences between the two countries’ socio-economic and political systems.
Incidentally, Vice Mayor Zheng was previously posted to the Foreign Ministry Commissioner’s Office in Macau. His successor, Gao Yuan, who has headed the Commission’s Public Diplomacy and Information Office for four years, was the prime mover behind our delegation and one of its leading members.
We also visited Yucun Village, one of the world’s greatest ecological restoration success stories.
In fact, China has become one of Mother Earth’s most ecologically conscious countries.
During an inspection tour of Yucun in August 2005, Xi, then secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), for the first time put forward the concept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” which has become the pillar of his thought on ecological civilisation.
During the 1990s, Anji County, which includes Yucun Village, went through a period of breakneck economic development.
In Yucun, Anji’s largest limestone mining area, villagers dramatically raised their income by processing limestone into bricks and cement, and the annual income of the village once exceeded three million yuan.**
However, the mining industry took a heavy toll on the environment. The mountains turned bare, the water was polluted, and thousand-year-old ginkgo trees ceased to bear fruit.
But then in June 2003, Zhejiang initiated a province-wide rural green revival programme to improve both the eco-environment of villages and rural residents’ quality of life.
This happened about half a year after Xi became Party Secretary of Zhejiang in December 2002, a post that he held until March 2007.
In a last-ditch attempt to save the deteriorating environment, officials in Yucun shut down the mining industry and cement factories. However, the move prompted an immediate decline in the village economy and locals’ incomes.
While visiting Yucun on August 15, 2005, Xi said: “It is a brilliant move for you to shut down the mines.”
Xi added: “We used to say that we wanted both lucid waters and lush mountains, as well as mountains of gold and silver. In fact, lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of gold and silver.”
After the visit, Xi expounded the concept in a newspaper article. “We need to choose the right direction and create conditions to continuously turn lucid waters and lush mountains into mountains of gold and silver,” he wrote.
Over the past two decades, Yucun’s erstwhile heavily polluting cement factory has been transformed into a plantation and a large piece of land has been turned into rapeseed fields and lotus ponds. New forms of business, such as homesteads and campsites, as well as cultural and creative industry parks, have been launched there.
As we could clearly see (and smell), Yucun’s ecological restoration has been a resounding success. The air was crisp and refreshing. The pastoral village has become one of China’s popular destinations for ecotourists and startup founders.
During his posting to Zhejiang, Xi also released his pivotal “Double Eight Strategy”*** which identifies eight strengths that he drew up for Zhejiang. These are economic structure, geological position, industries, coordinated development of urban and rural areas, ecology, mountain and ocean resources, environment, and culture. Accordingly, the province has been adopting eight measures to take further advantage of these strengths.
Party officials have praised the Double-Eight Strategy as a tailor-made master plan for the development of Zhejiang. As the province is a symbol of China’s high-quality development, its efforts at realising common prosperity have made it a very good example.
In Hangzhou, the provincial capital with a population of 13 million, our delegation visited both the “Hangzhou Future Sci-Tech City Urban Exhibition Centre” and the “Hangzhou International Expo Centre”, reinforcing our impression that the city has become one of the world’s top AI hubs, being the home of, among others, Alibaba and, of course, the city’s “Six Little Dragons”, a cluster of the tech startups Game Science, DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo, and Manycore Tech.
I am an admirer of both natural and artificial intelligence (NI & AI), and our newspaper is probably the first in the world that earlier this year decided to list in our masthead the chatbots that we are using for reference in our news reporting – Poe and DeepSeek
Nowadays, China is one of the world’s leaders of the development of AI and robotics, alongside the US, Germany and Japan. We were all left open-mouthed when watching, for instance, the AI and robotics presentations at the two centers.
Hangzhou (“prefecture of crossing waters”) is, obviously, much more than just one of the world’s leading AI hubs. It is also one of the world’s oldest major trading cities with a history of some 2,000 years under its belt.
The city also boasts three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the West Lake Cultural Landscape, the Grand Canal, and the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City).
The city has various nicknames honouring its blessed locale: “Paradise on Earth”, “The City of Silk”, “The Capital of Tea”, and “Heaven Below”, from the adage “Above is heaven, below there are Suzhou [in the adjacent province of Jiangsu] and Hangzhou”.
We also had the privilege of visiting the venue of the G20 2016 Hangzhou Summit, which produced a 48-article Leaders’ Communiqué. Article 28 states unequivocally: “We reiterate our opposition to protectionism on trade and investment in all its forms”. I am certain that most countries that signed the communiqué at that time continue to remain opposed to protectionism “on trade and investment in all its forms”. A single G20 member’s protectionist policies have triggered the current tariff turmoil…
Obviously, we took the must-do boat tour around Hangzhou’s legendary West Lake, and we also visited the Liangzhu National Archaeological Site Park where we all – thirsty for water and more knowledge – braved the heat (35 degrees Celsius and dampness (95% relative humidity) to admire the ritual burial plots of one of the largest known urban settlements from 5,000 years ago in the world, featuring both city walls and a hydraulic system.
Lying on our planet’s 30th parallel north (latitude), the Liangzhu culture was highly stratified, as jade, silk, ivory and lacquer artifacts were found exclusively in elite burials, while pottery was more commonly found in the burial plots of poorer individuals.
Consequently, Zhejiang is both a cradle of human civilisation and a cradle for futuristic innovations encompassing a wide range of advancements, including AI, robotics, biotechnology, and renewable energy. These technologies are poised to reshape industries and blur lines between the physical and digital worlds through emerging technologies, augmented reality (AR) just being one.
Thanks to initiative taken by the Foreign Ministry Commission, our delegation has been able to see both the ancient and present-day China – and also to catch a preview of the future role China will rightfully play on the world stage – politically, economically, technologically, scientifically, and culturally.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow delegation members for their camaraderie – both journalists and officials – as well as our hosts, aides, interpreters and guides from various official entities in the province where heaven and earth meet, according to ancient poets.
And let’s not forget Zhejiang’s prandial delights – the province’s cuisine is exquisite.
I am not exaggerating when concluding this editorial with just two words and the absolutely necessary exclamation mark: GREAT TRIP!
– Harald Brüning
*http://www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/49050.htm
**https://english.news.cn/20230815/1b4614b514e04e63b4f56cbaf8c61aea/c.html
***http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2024-03/29/content_117094447.htm
