China’s growing economic artery
THE Yangtze River that Nie Bo sails on today is by no means the same river he saw years ago.
“I’ve watched the river 320 days a year for 28 years. Her changes are beyond my imagination,” Nie said, steering a cargo vessel through a busy waterway full of giant ships.
The Yangtze, China’s longest river, is at the center of an economic belt that officials hope will offset China’s economic downturn. It is now a cargo artery linking the wealthy coast and the vast inland, but a decade ago, the seasoned captain says, plying the river was a dangerous venture.
“When we neared Chongqing, I would press my ear to the deck to hear the riverbed pebbles rubbing the ship’s bottom,” Nie said.
That was around 2000, when the river had much fewer ships than today. Back then, its upper reaches were off-limits to big vessels because they were too narrow and shallow, while its many winding and turbulent stretches were called “ghost gates” because they posed a serious danger to smaller boats, according to Nie.
In 2003, the Three Gorges Dam, located on the upper-middle reaches of the Yangtze, opened its lock, ushering in the era of colossal ships. The dam greatly improved navigation on the river by lifting water levels on the upper reaches and releasing stored rainy season flood waters to supply the middle-lower reaches during the dry season.
“I used to steer small ships of several hundred tons at most, but now I wouldn’t even call a 3,000-ton ship big,” Nie said.
The growing ship size is also a result of greater demands for river transportation after China made the Yangtze River economic belt a national strategy in 2014 to boost concerted development in riverside provinces and municipalities.
“There are many more ships on the river thanks to the economic belt. My ships now carry everything from fertilizers to manufactured goods,” Nie said. Orders from transportation companies are flying in, providing him with a good income.
According to the dam’s administration, as many as 150 cargo ships carrying 300,000 tonnes of goods passed through the ship lock every day in 2015, more than eight times the number in 2003.
In more recent years, the dam has seen building materials and goods of high added value, including cars, make up a larger proportion of the cargo. Booming river transportation also brought rapid changes to regions along the river.
“There used to be so few bridges on the river that I could easily recite their names. Now the city of Wuhan alone has more bridges on the Yangtze than the river’s total in the past,” Nie said.
He Jiayong, a cruise liner captain, noted that the scenery is better now due to rapid urbanization.
“The riverside cities used to be dark at night and villages had many mud-brick houses. Now the cities are all ablaze with light, and the village huts are all made of bricks,” said He.
Also gone is the common sight of trash floating on the river, as China improves its water pollution monitoring. It also enforces a ban on cruise ships discharging sewage directly into the river.
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