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Small city can thrive on local resources
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ON Friday and Saturday, I was invited on a tour of Dafeng District of Yancheng, in Jiangsu Province, for the launch of its month-long tourism promotion campaign. Yes, there were plenty of tulips, pear flowers and David’s deer — but I was also in for a host of surprises.
The capacity of local authorities to constantly innovate shows how this former backwater is carving out a bright future for itself by turning disadvantages into strengths.
Yancheng (“salt city”) got its name from the salt produced along its lengthy coastline. It’s not a place traditionally associated with holiday-making or idyllic environs. In fact, the soil was once so salty and boggy that in the early 20th century Dutch engineer Hendrik de Reijke was called in by entrepreneur Zhang Jian to help reduce soil salinity and alkalinity using technology that had proven effective in the Netherlands.
Amid a sea of flowers in Dafeng on April 9, an unveiling ceremony was held for a statue honoring this Dutchman. The event was attended by Dutch Ambassador to China Ron Keller and district Party secretary Yuan Guoping.
Thanks to tidal action and continued reclamation efforts, the amount of farmland in Dafeng is growing rather than diminishing, as is the case in so many other parts of China. Indeed, each year an impressive 50,000 mu (3,300 ha) of new farmland is added on average.
This generous provision of land made it a favored destination among migrants. Many of the early settlers were from the south. For this reason, although Yancheng technically lies in the north, in an area generically known for its harsh conditions and privations, its people manifest a kind of openness and resourcefulness that is often more evident in the character of southerners.
It is also known as a former “enclave” of Shanghai residents, since about 80,000 Shanghai zhishi qingnian (educated youths) lived and worked here from 1968 to the 1980s.
Dafeng is relatively sparsely populated today, with a population last year of 717,000 covering an area of over 3,000 sq km. It might sound presumptuous for a place like this to try to woo visitors from such places as Shanghai. Yet this is exactly what it is doing.
For one thing, Dafeng is rich in eco-tourist resources. It’s only four hours away from Shanghai by bus, and a planned railway link will reduce the journey to one hour.
Dafeng is the adopted home of the David’s deer (known in Chinese as milu, or sibuxiang, “the four unlikes”). This deer was once found throughout China, but became virtually extinct around the turn of the last century, when the last surviving herd was kept in a royal garden in Beijing. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China in 1900 to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, the remaining deer were either killed or taken to Europe. Dozens of deer were reintroduced to the reserve in Dafeng in the 1980s, and now their population has grown to over 1,000.
New development model
Dafeng’s strategy to develop while also respecting nature represents a departure from the standard model that created rapid growth as well as serious ecological problems in so many other Chinese cities. In 2015, Dafeng received a total of 10 million visitors from home and abroad, which translated into tourist income totaling 6.5 billion yuan (US$10 billion).
As the tourist month opened last week with music from an Amsterdam orchestra, a European-style pageant, and a huge crowd gathered amid a colorful sea of tulips, the local leadership was already looking ahead, identifying future priorities. On April 8, a conference was held in the area on how to sustain green growth by harnessing the twin engines of the Internet and tourism.
Technology can provide many new opportunities. For instance, mobile-based car-pooling and taxi services offer a smart way to get around big cities like Shanghai.
One participant at the conference asked whether a similar concept could be used in the tourism industry, allowing like-minded individuals to travel and sightsee together. Unlike traditional tourist packages, this kind of travel could be highly personalized and foster lasting relationships between travellers.
It’s worth studying how a small city like Dafeng is positioning itself in the tourism market. All too often, small cities become preoccupied with the notion that prosperity can come only by emulating the superficial trappings of larger cities.
This mindset has led to a concentration of resources in a few big cities, resulting in traffic congestion, foul air and tensions of all kinds.
With big cities continuing to siphon away so much of the country’s money, resources and talented youth, there is a clear need to examine how Dafeng is managing to stand on its own feet.
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