There are five retired farmers on the bus. They have the tanned faces of those who worked the land. They know the area well. They have spent their whole lives in this corner, far away from the hustle and bustle that modernity has suddenly achieved. They point to the right, where tractors are working between mountains of rubble: demolition work on an old village has begun there; To the left, where this barren promenade is: This will be the campus of Peking University; further ahead, where the white building with a futuristic flair stands: This will be the new sports stadium, which is quite progressive. And that road over there, they suggest, is the highway that leads to Beijing. These neighbors usually spend time on the bus looking at the scenery. They walk from their house – which the government gave them in exchange for the old expropriated house – to the new high-speed train station and then back. Mr Li, who is in his 70s, says they are now experiencing “the good days”. And so every day they see Xiongan growing around them, a city that has arisen from nothing on the same land they once worked on and which claims to be a prototype of a “modern socialist” city. It is one of Chinese President Xi Jinping's most ambitious projects.
Designed as a satellite city of Beijing, the brand new city these days reminds us of one of those games where kids build houses on a board. You can see construction grids, cranes and concrete trucks everywhere. The chosen location is a plain crossed by rivers and wetlands about 100 kilometers south of the Chinese capital, in Hebei Province. Its development was announced in style in 2017 as an escape valve from the Asian giant's crowded capital, home to nearly 22 million people. The aim is to promote the transfer of companies and institutions and thus free Beijing from functions that are not essential to the country's government.
Xiongan bears Xi's personal seal. The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party called it a “national project of millennial significance” that must “stand the test of history.” His planning, he reiterated, aims to combine cutting-edge technology and ecological respect. “This is also the legacy that our generation of Chinese communists will leave to future generations,” Xi said. Xiongan, an acronym for two counties in the region, is also a newly coined word consisting of two characters: 雄 (Xiong: hero, male, strength) and 安 (An: peace, calm, stability). It will be a legacy by which to assess the era of Xi, who won a third term as president last year that was unprecedented among his immediate predecessors.
Cyclists traveled through the city of Xiongan_Guillermo Abril on Wednesday
The government has likened its implementation to two milestones: Shenzhen, the country's first special economic zone, established in 1980 in a fishing village that has now transformed into a tech megapolis; and Pudong, Shanghai's financial district with futuristic skyscrapers. Both projects were promoted by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the opening and reform period that sparked Chinese development. There are articles that continue the comparisons: “In 1153 AD, the Jin Dynasty founded its capital in Yanjing, beginning a more than 860-year history of capital construction in Beijing. “In 2017, the planning and establishment of the Hebei Xiongan New Area will open a new page in Beijing's development,” said a text from the official Xinhua agency.
Beijing has put the machinery into operation. In almost seven years, more than 4,000 buildings have begun on the formerly barren areas and destroyed cities; According to state media, more than 657 billion yuan (more than 85 billion euros) have been invested in the region and Chinese state-owned companies have set up more than 200 subsidiaries and branches in the region. Projects under construction include a supercomputing center (the “brain of the city”) that will power some of Xiongan’s digital systems, including traffic flow control platforms and autonomous vehicles. The city has also been a testing ground for the digital yuan since 2021, backed by China's central bank. The plan stipulates that basic services must be within a 15-minute walk and that energy must come primarily from clean energy. 70% of the city's area is reserved for green spaces.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Andrew Stokols, a graduate student in urban planning and policy at MIT, considers Xiongan a “techno-naturalistic utopia,” as he wrote last year in The China Project. The city, he added, has gained “ideological importance” as a “national model of high-quality development,” one of Beijing's mantras in recent years. “Xiongan has become the physical embodiment of Xi's 'party-state capitalism': refocusing the Chinese Communist Party on urban life, promoting cutting-edge technology and green innovation through investments in universities, state research institutes and public enterprises.” Stokols acknowledges that many utopian cities have failed are. However, he believes Xi's “commitment” to Xiongan as a “legacy” could ensure the city continues to receive support from the central government. And over time, he adds, it could become “attractive” as a center for research, innovation and a decent quality of life, particularly for young college graduates from smaller cities in China.
Pretty empty at the moment
It seems pretty empty at the moment. The high-speed train, which takes less than an hour from Beijing and costs less than seven euros, arrives every Wednesday with a few passengers: most get off at Daxing airport, located in the south of the capital, from where the journey takes about 30 Minutes takes 20 minutes to Xiongan. The city station, inaugurated in 2020, is gigantic, with white, curved lines, the roofs are covered with solar panels. You can barely see a soul in its guts. The hallways are deserted. The waiting rooms, without people. But its dimensions and its diverse platforms give us an idea of the imaginary scale. Advertisements for luxurious houses hang at the exit: “Work in Xiongan, live in a palace,” says one. Fallow land and the skeletons of buildings can be seen in the area. From there, pensioners can take the above-mentioned bus. No one else gets on for the rest of the journey, which lasts about an hour. “Maybe it’s too early to write [sobre Xiongan]“The change is still not noticeable,” reflects one of the elders.
The bus pulls off next to an avenue plastered with red posters on streetlights bearing Xi's messages: “National Project,” “Millennium Plan.” The China State Construction Engineering Corporation, one of the world's largest in its industry, is headquartered in this area. Several restaurants have opened on the next block. At the door of one of them, 43-year-old chef Guan Wei says he moved with his family from Dongbei in northwest China in 2022. “There are many state-owned companies in Xiongan,” says Guan, who calls the city “Little Beijing.” In his opinion, “it has very good future prospects for the catering industry.” There is a lunchtime atmosphere at their location on weekdays. Three employees of a mechanical engineering company are eating there in Tianjin, a coastal city also about 100 kilometers away and the third corner of the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin economic development triangle in which the new city is framed. Before saying goodbye, Chef Guan offers dog meat.
Nearby is Rongdong, where clone apartment blocks proliferate, there are international hotels, futuristic office buildings and a shopping center with the affluence typical of the city square. There is a cafeteria, cinemas and luxury brand shops. This area, which borders a large park, is intended to provide residential living, although many of the rooms are still under construction or are empty. It is worth asking whether the slowdown in brick production in China will also be felt here. A large proportion of residents are currently relocated neighbors, construction workers or people like Hu Yan, 36, who works at an interior design company and is responsible for several projects. During the week he lives in one of the newly completed blocks and every weekend he returns to the capital with his family. He believes that Xiongan “will be like Beijing” in the future.
“In a few years it will be much better. There will be schools, universities will come…” said Qiu Ping, 45, a primary school teacher at a local school. He meets his young son and his mother at the Xiongan Museum. They usually come after school and the little one likes to play with an interactive real estate development game that is in one of the rooms. In front of a model of the new city, Qiu says: “Until three years ago, this was agricultural land.” You were born here and also have rural roots. “Now we are city dwellers,” he emphasizes. They also dispossessed her and in return gave her a new home. Use the same expression as retirees: “The good days” have come.
At one point in the museum, with an abundance of screens and lighting effects, you cross a corridor in which a number lights up: 2035. By then, according to Beijing's plan, Xiongan will have “basically become a modern, green city.” intelligent and habitable.” Authorities expect that by 2050 the city will be anchored on the map of major world-class cities as a prototype of a “modern socialist city.” “Every era has its role models and symbols,” concludes another panel at the museum, emphasizing that “due to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s personal choice, commitment and promotion,” Xiongan will be “an important witness and participant in the great renewal.” ” from China”. By this expression, Beijing usually means the restoration of the status lost worldwide after the so-called “century of humiliation” that followed the defeat by the colonial powers. “The drums are playing…” the panel concludes.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_