Chapter 43 Country, City and People after compilation

Concern about the fate of cities is no longer a topic that has nothing to do with literature.Against the background of the wave of urbanization, people are more and more aware that the city is the spiritual factory where human beings create the world, and that the city has all the wonderful literary elements and literary meanings. He Jianming, a reportage writer who has always advocated a big vision and a big starting point, released a new work of more than 700,000 words before the Shanghai World Expo, which records the development history of a group of star cities that represent China's renaissance. "Dazzling Wind" reports the changes of nine of China's fastest-growing star cities, including Chongqing, Suzhou, Zhongshan, Kunshan, and Yiwu. The growth stories of these cities confirm the words of a French architect: "Once a city in a big city The problem will be solved and the whole country will be rejuvenated."

In the past ten years, He Jianming has closely followed the changes of Chinese cities.He interviewed many times in one city after another. From the mayor and secretary of the party committee to ordinary migrant workers, he interviewed hundreds of people.Like an eagle, he circles over the city and inspects it, and then quickly captures what is the prey of his writing in this city.Therefore, a large number of precious urban historical materials and the writer's elite consciousness in "Dazzling Wind" will have a long-lasting charm.He wrote in his notes: Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China has accumulated experience in building new cities.Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhangjiagang, and Shanghai Pudong are examples.Can China build a few more Shenzhens?How many big city circles?China today needs to think boldly.Anything is possible when we combine intelligence, passion and reason.

Stiglitz, an American economist and Nobel laureate in economics, once predicted that two things will affect and change the future of the world in the 21st century: the new technological revolution in the United States and the urbanization process in China.Therefore, China's urbanization process not only affects the future of China, but also the future of the world.Since the Second Opium War, China has experienced three city-building movements.The first wave of city-building movement was the first batch of semi-colonial cities brought about by the opening of coastal ports, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Qingdao, Harbin, etc. These cities possessed the characteristics of modern industrial cities and commercial cities, driving the The modernization of cities in mainland China.The second wave of urban construction began after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. This wave of urban construction mainly resulted in the birth of a number of industrial cities, such as Karamay, Daqing, Shiyan, Panzhihua, and Shihezi.However, due to the separation of urban and rural household registration and the allocation of resources in the planned economy during this period, China's urbanization progressed very slowly.

my country's third wave of city-building movement began in the 1980s, when several new cities such as Shenzhen and Beihai emerged.In the late 1990s, this wave of urbanization began to accelerate. The Guangdong urban circle led by Shenzhen, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang urban circle centered on Pudong, the Jinjingtang urban circle centered on Tanggu Xingang, and Sanya, Haikou, etc. Hainan city circle, which is rising as the center, and so on. The city described in Dazzling Wind is a classic case of the third city-building movement in modern China.It records the great changes in a number of star cities such as Sanya, Chongqing, Suzhou, Dongguan, and Yiwu in the past 20 to 30 years of reform and opening up, records the historical events in these cities, answers some major questions in the development and construction of our country, and reflects the Harmonious development of country, city, man and nature, reform and innovation spirit.

Writers have paid attention to these cities for many years.From the first time he went to Sanya in 1988 to the last time he wrote about Sanya, it took more than 20 years; cities such as Suzhou, Kunshan, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang are all in his hometown Jiangsu Province, regardless of their buildings, their Their music, their culture and folk customs are all flowing in his blood. Those are cities that have grown into his life. How much has he paid attention to and thought about them for more than 20 years?Because of this, the writer's description of these cities is full of sensitivity and passion, even profligate passion.He said, I have always been a passionate person, because I love my motherland and people, and I am often attracted and moved by this great era.There is always such a passion to sing it.It is this passion that determines the height of cognition and depth of thought of the writer, and leads us to look up at the starry sky again and again, allowing us to see the images of these cities flashing over China.

Perhaps after experience in leadership positions in journalism, literature, and publishing, He Jianming's position and experience determine that he pays attention to cities from a richer and more three-dimensional perspective. The cities he describes are not only from literature, but also from the perspectives of economy and technology, country and history and global economy. The integrated perspective of reality provides us with new eyes.He described Suzhou in this way: people know Suzhou's gardens and Suzhou embroidery, but they don't know that Suzhou is China's second largest industrial city; people know Suzhou's small bridges and flowing water and Pingtan, but they don't know that the income of farmers in Suzhou is actually the highest in the country.The economic form with Chinese characteristics - "Southern Jiangsu Model" was born here.

Suzhou is the dream of many Chinese people!Especially for the people around it, this city is the sun that inspires their spirits. In addition to the existing buildings and Wuyue culture, this city will release popular colors, fashionable dining and a more civilized way of life early.A writer is a native of Suzhou. His spirit is nourished by the past years of this city. In Suzhou, he will become more active and creative.Under his pen, the ancient Suzhou is still full of vitality.He Jianming believes that in 1985, the central government approved Suzhou as a coastal economic open area. In 1987, Suzhou obtained the right to operate foreign trade import and export.Today, Suzhou can become an international modern emerging industrial economic city facing the world and possesses affluent and comprehensively developed social strength, which is inseparable from these two things.His childhood experience and realistic thinking showed us a brand new Suzhou——

The new Suzhou is very rich. In 2006, Suzhou is expected to achieve a GDP of 482 billion yuan, and the city's per capita GDP is the first in China to exceed 10,000 US dollars.Although this figure is only an indicator for 2006, there is no doubt that it has already marked that Suzhou's comprehensive economic strength has reached a new level.What is the concept of per capita GDP exceeding 10,000 US dollars?The author vividly describes that: the people's basic life is guaranteed; the housing problem is solved, and the average per capita reaches 20 square meters; the employment problem is solved, and there are basically no unemployed workers in cities and towns; the population no longer flows out; primary and secondary education is universal , cultural, sports and other public welfare undertakings have the ability to arrange themselves...

In 2004, Suzhou was selected as the top ten most dynamic cities in China and won the only annual award. The "New York Times" also selected the top ten cities with the most competitiveness and best investment in the world, and Suzhou is also on the list.By 2005, Suzhou's GDP exceeded 400 billion yuan, equal to the national total in 1982.The total industrial output value has jumped from the sixth place in the country to the second place in the country (after Shanghai), and the net income of farmers is the first in the country... If He Jianming is excited by the economic development of the new Suzhou, any cultural problems in Suzhou will make his heart ache.After the opening of Suzhou, fewer and fewer people speak Suzhou dialect.In the past Suzhou was relatively closed and only spoke soft local dialect, but now it has smooth communication with the outside world, and more and more people speak Mandarin, which is a good sign.But Suzhou is a city with its own culture... If Suzhou people don’t even speak the very flavorful Suzhou dialect, then this city will lose its flavor.

He Jianming is well aware of the dependence of a city's history, culture and language, and because Suzhou culture has a lingering complex for him, this city is his spiritual place.A person of insight once said that if China wants to realize modernization, it must realize the modernization of Chinese culture.So is Suzhou.If people in Suzhou stopped speaking Suzhou dialect, would Pingtan still exist?Will this city still be the paradise people yearn for? Regardless of poverty or wealth, regardless of migrant workers and students, people all yearn for and rush to big cities.Why?Because cultural, political, and commercial activities exist in the central city.Big cities have wealth, money, and money.And the development of trends, fashions, ideas and technical methods must be that big cities are ahead of other regions.In a small place, it is difficult to have employment opportunities, and there is no high wage.Therefore, in order to work and live in the city, people are fighting hard at a huge price.No matter how noisy the city's work is and how hard it is to live in, it brings comfort to people's minds.

The city-building movement came from people's survival instinct.Although He Jianming is an official writer, his works have always been full of care for the disadvantaged.Labor and the living conditions at the bottom will always fluctuate the softest thing in his heart.He found that Yiwu is a "Manhattan" that rises from the fields in people's dream of a city.It's hard to imagine that at the beginning of the reform, Yiwu was still a poor small agricultural county, and those Yiwu people who were shaking rattle drums and exchanging chicken feathers for sugar quietly started small stall business.Yiwu people told He Jianming that at that time, if you put a little effort into it, you could become a multi-millionaire in three to five years; if you worked hard, you could become a billionaire in three to five years; If you work hard, you may become a tycoon in the international business world - the wealth of the tycoon can jump to the list of the world's richest people. He was moved by the fighting spirit of Yiwu people.Relying on the fresh market, this city performed a legend that shocked the world.In just 20 years, it has transformed from a small commodity market into a famous international business city that affects the world, realizing the great ideal of "buy the world, sell the world"... Editing his works, I often feel that he is taking risks on the road of literature-doing some jobs that writers are unwilling to do and are the easiest to mess up.Take, for example, those dry economic figures—the ones that give writers the most headaches and the most dismissive ones.However, what is valuable is that he will still find some interesting things in it - 30 years later, those small stalls have formed the largest indoor small commodity market in China with a total area of ​​more than 50,000 square meters, and it has also become the largest shopping mall in the world; To visit all the 50 professional markets and specialized streets in Yiwu all over the city, it takes 8 hours a day to visit each stall for 1 minute, and the entire Yiwu market needs to walk for 120 days...Yiwu has 420,000 kinds of small commodities and an annual turnover of nearly The effort of 40 billion yuan has created a veritable "world supermarket"!The customs here export 1,000 standard containers every day, and 400,000 containers ship more than 400,000 kinds of goods to more than 200 countries and regions every year.There are only 8,000 representatives of major businesses in the world camping here for many years... It is much more comfortable to read these economic figures.Economic figures are boring, but they record the changes of this city, this nation, and the country in the reform era. This is a reality that literature cannot avoid, and writers must always bear it.Mr. Chen Yifei, a painter, once said: If there are many artists in a city, but the city does not look beautiful at all, then what does the city need artists for?In other words, if people can't read the real stories of a city at the moment, it's always an embarrassment for the writers in the city, right?He Jianming believes that reportage must pay attention to social reality, which is the social responsibility and mission of a writer.In "Dazzling Wind", you can feel the writer's courageous spirit, and at the same time see his ability to control reportage and the excellent qualities of a journalist.Perhaps it is precisely because of these economic figures that the writer’s passionate description of the city of Yiwu is not frivolous——Yiwu, the most profitable place in China, a place that makes money in the world, and a place where people all over the world make money here! Economist Fan Gang said at an economic forum: If China cannot catch up with developed countries in the 21st century, we will never have a chance.Now it is not the concept of not advancing or retreating, but that if you advance slowly, you will retreat.It was 2000, when Fan Gang emphasized the speed of the country. The same is true for cities. Once a city masters speed, it masters success.Dongguan is such a city—30 years surpassing the West by 300 years—He Jianming quickly noticed the speed of development of this city when he was interviewing in Dongguan. At that time, he felt that he had grasped the theme of Dongguan report. In 2001, the disposable fiscal revenue at the town and village level in Dongguan was only 12.26 billion, while the 74 counties or county-level cities in Guangdong Province (excluding Shunde and Nanhai) in the same period had a combined fiscal revenue of 9.46 billion... So how does Dongguan stand out among these smaller cities?The writer saw in the interview that Dongguan put forward the development idea of ​​'rural industrialization and urban-rural integration', and transferred more than 200,000 laborers to sideline industries without affecting agricultural production. In 1985, 80% of the people in Dongguan lived in rural areas, and 20% lived in cities and towns; in 1995, the ratio was just the opposite, with 80% of the people living an urbanized life and only 20% living in the countryside.In Dongguan today, less than 5% of the people really rely on farming for their livelihood. They are either large farmers or "agricultural workers" with characteristic agriculture. This is Dongguan speed.There is one detail, the speed of Dongguan can be seen.Dongguan took the lead in launching the one-stop service of administrative approval in the whole country.Hong Kong businessmen often only need an hour to sign a contract here, instead of writing dozens of chapters and running for dozens of days.From decision-making to action, Dongguan's speed comes from such details.Therefore, from 1978 to 1991, Dongguan successfully introduced capital as much as 1.7 billion US dollars!This detail is not unusual today, but it happened in 1978, when China's reform and opening up was just in its infancy. In "Xuanfeng", there is another small town with an astonishing development speed-Kunshan.In Kunshan in the past, the tallest building in the county was the 4-story county party committee building.There is not a single car in the county, only two buses, and the rest are hundreds of tricycles.Kunshan is a low-lying land dominated by lakes.Usually there are nine floods every ten years, even if rice is planted, there will be no bumper harvest.Today, Kunshan is the "Top 100" among county-level cities across the country... What is the concept of "the richest man" in China's county-level units? In 2007, Kunshan achieved a full-scale fiscal revenue of 20 billion yuan, which is the first county (city) among county-level units in the country to break through this amount; the total economic development of Kunshan in the past five years is the largest city in Suzhou (including six counties). level city and Suzhou urban area) the level of the previous five years.At present, more than 500 IT companies have gathered, and it has become the world's largest notebook computer production base, accounting for a quarter of the world's output.Kunshan's per capita GDP is 171,061 yuan (US$23,418), and its fiscal revenue is 20.2 billion yuan.A land area of ​​only 0.01% of the country has gathered 1.7% of foreign capital and one-ninth of Taiwan capital, creating 2.4% of the total import and export volume. In this process, foreign businessmen have contributed a lot, especially Taiwanese businessmen.A small county-level city has gathered tens of thousands of foreign businessmen, which is rare in the country, and there are more than 60,000 Taiwanese businessmen and their families in Kunshan.Taiwanese businessmen have set up nearly 4,000 enterprises in Kunshan, investing 27 billion US dollars, accounting for about 70% of the total investment of foreign-funded enterprises in Kunshan, and accounting for as much as one-ninth of the total use of Taiwanese capital in mainland China.The Taiwanese businessmen in Kunshan are the new parents of Kunshan people, and they have regarded Kunshan as their second hometown. On October 16, 2008, "People's Daily" published a full-page article titled "Building the Top 100 in China through Openness". "It shows that as long as the development mode is changed, fast speed can also have good quality, industrialization can also have good ecology, and urbanization can also achieve urban and rural integration.In the interview, the writer kept sighing: What is "the road of socialist development with Chinese characteristics"?Kunshan is.Economist Xue Muqiao said the most vividly: There is no mountain in Kunshan, but there is "jade"! In "Dazzling Wind", different cities have different cultural characters. They have their own characteristics and splendor. The precipitation of history endows each city with a unique cultural character.Sanya, before 1984, apart from a "Jiefang Road" built by the Japanese, there was no second road over 500 meters in the whole city.The annual tourism revenue is only 100 million yuan... How did this small county with no planes take off?He Jianming believes that Sanya has its own urban aesthetics. In addition to national policies, the city's aesthetic concept is the key to the city's economic take-off. Sanya's natural scenery is beautiful, which is good fortune but not creation.Sanya people use beautiful women to promote and enhance the popularity of their city, which is a beautiful creation. On November 12, 2003, at the annual "Miss World" competition, beauties from 106 countries came to Sanya. For the first time, a Chinese girl stood on the "Miss World" championship podium, and was released by the State Council Information Office of China. Include it as one of the three major "national affairs" in 2003.He Jianming believes that this day should be included in the history of Chinese cities, because the People's Republic of China has never held a world beauty pageant in the past 50 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. It can become an economic, a social phenomenon, or even a value orientation.Someone in the Western world once predicted that if someone opened up the beauty pageant market in China, it would be another great opening up of China.Now Sanya's annual tourism revenue is more than 8 billion yuan. The author expounds the relationship between beauty and cities, beauty and economic development through Sanya, the function of beauty is everywhere, and beauty belongs to the common resources of all human beings.The take-off in Sanya described by He Jianming, as far as the country is concerned, is an aesthetic remedial lesson for the entire nation.Perhaps we have noticed the development and progress that high technology has brought us, but today, the role and power of beauty in economic development and competition is no less than or even surpassing technology.Beauty will not only transform the temperament and cultural character of the Chinese people, but also transform the economic status of the Chinese people. He also told a story: In 2006 and mid-2007, Sanya was exposed by national media and complained by tourists on the Internet.In fact, this kind of thing often happens in scenic spots in other cities, but the seriousness of the Sanya leadership can be described as "unparalleled in the whole country"-the mayor and secretary came out to publicly criticize it on TV and newspapers, and even specially Send city-level leaders all the way to tourists' homes to apologize, and send suggestions and measures for rectification. This is Sanya people.They regard the city as their own work of art and take great care of it.When the city has reached such a state, what miracles in the world cannot be created?From these little details, we can see that Sanya people have been silently creating their own city, and their creation has no end. Now, the city builders in "Dazzling Wind" are all standing here, they are like big trees, standing in their respective cities, but they can only see three or two trees adjacent to them, but The writer sees the whole forest.Whenever he examines a city, his thoughts fly over it, he gives them a new light, and they become a new work.He will see those idealistic and passionate individuals on the earth, see tomorrow's China, and then he will see the existence of Chinese people. When "Xuanfeng" was published, I went to Hainan.Walking on the streets of Sanya, I feel the author's thoughts are rippling in the air of the city, and there are countless dreams and passions, which cannot be copied by others.Sanya is indeed different from before, what is the difference?Are those new buildings?Is it a more prosperous commercial center?Yes and no.When I was editing Dazzling Wind, I had seen Sanya again. This city was reshaped, but not only by the people of Sanya, but also by He Jianming.