# Chongqing - Burgeoning Metropolis



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Invisible city *
15 March 2006
The Guardian

Chongqing is the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet. Its population is already bigger than that of Peru or Iraq, with half a million more arriving every year in search of a better life. And yet so frequently is this story repeated in China, that outside the country its name barely registers. Jonathan Watts spends 24 hours in the megalopolis you've never heard of 

At some point this year, our species will prove Darwin wrong. For the first time since the dawn of civilisation, the human being is about to become a predominantly urban creature: humans have not evolved to fit our habitat, we have changed our habitat to suit ourselves. 

According to the United Nations, the planet's population is currently split almost right down the middle: 3.2 billion in the city, 3.2 billion in the countryside. But by the start of 2007, the balance will have tipped decisively away from the fields and towards the skyscrapers. 

No one knows for sure precisely where and when urban life started. But we can make a good guess about where the urbanising trend will reach its zenith. Simply count which skylines have the most cranes, track where the bulk of the world's concrete is being poured or follow one of the biggest, fastest movements of humanity in history. All lead east, to China. 

Every year, 8.5 million Chinese peasants move into cities. Most of their destinations are mere specks on western maps, if they appear at all. But their populations put them on a par with some of the world's megalopolises. Britain has five urban centres of more than a million people; China has ninety. A few - Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Nanjing - are well known around the world. The names of many others - Suqian, Suining, Xiantao, Xinghua, Liuan - are unfamiliar even to many Chinese. Nowhere is the staggering urbanisation of the world more evident than in Chongqing. Never heard of it? This is where the pace and scale of urbanisation is probably faster and bigger than anywhere in the world today. This is the Coketown of the early 21st century. 

Set in the middle reaches of the Yangtze, this former trading centre and treaty port has long been the economic hub of western China. But after its government was given municipal control of surrounding territory the size of many countries, it has grown and grown, becoming what is now the world's biggest municipality with 31 million residents (more people than Iraq, Peru or Malaysia). The population in its metropolitan areas will double from 10 million to 20 million in the next 13 years. 

When the planet's rural-urban balance tips, it is as likely to happen here as anywhere. To get a snapshot, I spent a day with a Channel 4 film crew in this megalopolis - just the sort of day, in fact, when humanity might pass the halfway point on its millennia-long journey out of the countryside. 

5.30am - the bangbang man 

In the hour before dawn, the poor district of Qiansimen has a distinctly Dickensian feel. With the rain lashing down, puddles fill the dark, narrow alleys, flanked on either side by tall, ramshackle tenements. An old man's wrinkled face glows orange as he warms himself over a brazier. 

Nestling between the port and the commercial centre, this area is the home of Chongqing's most distinctive and traditional population - the bangbang army, a 100,000-strong crew of porters who bear the city's weights on their shoulders. Arriving from the countryside with no skills and minimal education, they pick up the cheapest of tools - a bamboo pole (or bang bang) and some rope - and hang around the docks, the markets and the bus stations waiting for goods to carry up the steep slopes of this mountain port. 

Yu Lebo has just woken up in the cramped three-room apartment that he and his wife share with three other couples, all of whom are porters or cleaners or odd-job men. There are two double beds in one room, separated by a thin sheet, a third in a tiny room next door and another in the kitchen. There is no time for breakfast before he heads out into the rain and the dark. "We want to move out and get a place of our own, but we don't have the money yet," he says once we are outside. He explains why he came to Chongqing four years ago. "I used to be a farmer, but I could not afford to raise my two children. So we left them behind with relatives. I see them two or three times a year." 

On an average day, Yu earns about 20 yuan (pounds 1.50) for 12 hours work. Most of this, and the money his wife earns as a cleaner, goes on rent and food, but as long as they stay healthy they can save enough to send money home to buy clothes and books for their children. It is vital. Education and health care - free in the days of Mao Zedong - are now the biggest burden on peasants. 

The first job of the day is in the Chaotianmen market, where Yu must carry several huge bundles of goods. Each is probably heavier than Yu, who weighs just over 50kg. The stallholder pays him 2 yuan (15p). "Not bad," Yu says. "Sometimes they are heavier. Sometimes we get paid less." 

It looks exhausting. Does Yu ever regret coming to the city? "No, my life is a little better than it was when I first got here. Then, I only earned 10 yuan a day. This city is changing so fast. It is getting richer. But our lives are not keeping up. Cities are good for the rich. If you have money you can do anything. If you don't want to carry something, you just hire a bangbang man." 

7.30 am - the city official 

It is just after dawn, but the sun remains hidden behind a thick haze. The giant movement of humanity that is Chongqing is about to get into full swing, working, building, consuming, discarding, developing. If today is typical, builders will lay 137,000 square metres of new floor space for residential blocks, shopping centres and factories. The economy will grow by 99 million yuan (pounds 7m). There will be 568 deaths, 813 births and the arrival of 1,370 people from the countryside - each year, the city limits are pushed further outwards as the urban population grows by half a million, the equivalent of all the people in Luxembourg being added to the municipal register. 

Our next stop is at one of the municipal offices, where Zou Xiaoping, deputy director of the economic relations commission, explains that her city is at the centre of China's drive to address the huge inequalities between the rich eastern coastline and the poor western interior. 

The scale of the "Go West" policy - with 1.6 trillion yuan (pounds 114bn) spent since 1999, mainly on roads, bridges, dams and pipelines - is sometimes compared with the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild postwar Europe. Much of the money has flowed up the Yangtze to drive the growth of Chongqing, at the heart of the plan to revitalise the west. It has also paid for the Three Gorges dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric project, which has provided the city with power and people. City residents in Chongqing have seen their incomes rise 66% in the past five years to 10,240 yuan (pounds 731 per year), almost three times that of their country cousins on 3,800 yuan (pounds 271). 

"Now is the peak time of the development of western China. Chongqing is in the middle of it. That is why we are growing so fast," says Zou. "We must maintain momentum. This is a crucially important time for our city." 

10am - the industrialist 

I leave Zou's office flabbergasted. Even at the height of Britain's urbanisation in the 19th century, there was nothing to compare with the scale and speed of change taking place here. How can space and jobs be found for so many new arrivals? 

Now accompanied by a government guide, we drive to the city limits and the newly built Lifan Sedan factory in the Chongqing Economic Zone, where newly employed workers are putting together newly designed cars. 

"This was farmland a couple of years ago," says proud boss Yin Mingshan. "It is my 14th factory, 14 years after I started business." 

A dapper, twinkly-eyed 68-year-old, Yin is one of the nation's great industrial pioneers, the 21st- century Chinese equivalent to Titus Salt, Josiah Wedgwood or the Cadbury brothers. Imprisoned for much of the Mao era for his views on free speech and capitalism, he set up a motorcycle repair company in 1992 with nine staff. His Lifan company now employs 9,000 workers and has a turnover of 7.3bn yuan (pounds 521m). 

"China has become a wonderland for entrepreneurs," says Yin. "There are many people who are doing what I have done." 

It is not as easy to build a business in Chongqing as in coastal Shanghai or Shenzhen, which benefit from access to overseas markets. But those rich eastern cities are now investing inland and providing a market for the cheaper goods made in second-tier cities. Chongqing is famous for motorbikes; Yin is now also trying to make it famous for cars, by buying a BMW-Chrysler factory in Brazil, breaking it down, shipping it up the Yangtze and then rebuilding it in Chongqing. He has also set up plants in Vietnam, Thailand and Bulgaria and plans to open a research centre in Britain, where his daughter studies at Oxford. 

His creed is one of benevolent self-interest. "China is too poor. We need high-speed growth. The rich need to increase the income of the poor," he says. "If we improve the living standards of peasants, then they can buy our motorcycles and cars." Within five years, he aims to more than double his workforce to 20,000. Next to the factory, bulldozers are already churning up fields for another one. 

12am - the builder 

Even by the standards of the giant construction site that is modern-day China, Chongqing's building frenzy is impressive. More transport links have been built here in the past four years than in the previous hundred. More new floor space is being completed than in Shanghai. As well as eight new railways, eight highways and eight bridges, the port is in the midst of a pounds 1.15bn redevelopment and the airport's capacity is planned to quintuple by 2010. 

Driving back from the factory, I count more than 30 cranes in less than five minutes. Just outside the Jiangbei toll booth, farmers toil under heavy loads in vegetable fields and women wash their clothes in a stream. Behind them, 30-storey towers are silhouetted against the grey mist. Where the two worlds meet is a corridor of rubble where land is being cleared for further expansion. 

We make an impromptu visit to the building site, where Chen Li, a brash window-fitter, reckons he has worked on 70 to 80 tower blocks in the nine years since arriving in the city at the age of 16. "The buildings are getting taller and better," he says. Yet he lives in a hut, his breakfast is a glass of soya milk and a steamed bun, and on an average day he works 11 hours for about 50 yuan (pounds 3.60). "I'm a city resident now. But life is still difficult." 

2pm - Spiderman 

As people move off the land and into the sky, they produce less and consume more. In theory, they become socialised and civilised. In practice, they spend more time shopping and eating junk food. A nearby shopping centre, home to Kentucky Fried Chicken, could almost belong to any city on earth: pedestrianised streets, boutiques and fast-food outlets, a giant screen blaring out pop jingle ads, a monorail train running overhead. There are even police girls on roller skates, the latest must-have security accessory. 

Li Zhiguan was once a farmer, then a factory worker; now he earns more as one of the many high-wire artists who clean skyscraper windows, earning him the nickname of Spiderman. We meet him at the top of a 24-storey telecom office just before he abseils down the glass on a rope attached to him by a single clip. "It is 100% safe. You can go too if you wish," says his boss, He Qing, with a strong German accent picked up during an MBA in Mannheim. 

With so many towers going up, Li is never going to be short of work. And he has a bird's eye view of the transforming cityscape. "In six months, there have been huge changes. You can notice it from one week to the next." 

3pm - the psychologist 

China's growing gap between winners and losers has created an intensely competitive, restless society where stress and conflict are the norm. How do people cope? Kuang Li is a psychologist at a hospital affiliated to Chongqing University of Medical Science, where new facilities are rising on a huge construction site. She has no couch; instead, this is the most formal interview of the day in huge leather chairs in a special reception room, flanked by hospital and government officials. 

Kuang is upbeat. "People have to make a big adjustment because the pace of life, work and study are all accelerating. It puts extra stress on people, but so far our research suggests they can adjust." But it is not easy. She says cases of depression, anxiety, insomnia and mood swings have doubled in the past 20 years. Between 10% and 25% of Chongqing's people suffer mental problems. Suicide appears to be too sensitive a subject to discuss; the otherwise helpful authorities decline to give statistics. But the city has launched a new campaign to prevent suicide among university students, including counselling services, a telephone hotline and free books on ways to avoid depression. Kuang says she has spent the past year researching student suicide, but she too is reluctant to give figures. 

Her mental health department was established only in 1998; before that, mental problems were largely either ignored or associated with western decadence. Now, Kuang says, there is a recognition of the strains imposed by city life. "There is a conflict between rising expectations and people's sense of achievement." At the same time, she says, psychological disorders are "a sign of improved quality of life. People did not have time to worry about themselves so much 10 years ago." 

5pm - the waste engineer 

China's development is one of humanity's worst environmental disasters. Cheap coal and a doubling of car ownership every five years has made the country the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. According to the World Bank, 16 of the planet's 20 dirtiest cities are in China, and Chongqing is one of the worst. Every year, the choking atmosphere is responsible for thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis. Last year, the air quality failed to reach level 2, the government health standard, one day in every four. Today's haze is so thick that I still haven't seen the sun. 

Chongqing is trying to clean up, but this is a low priority compared to economic growth. And it is hard to find a place for the ever-expanding waste. We head into the hills to see the biggest of the mega-city's rubbish mega-pits: the Changshengqiao landfill site. It is an awesome sight; a giant reservoir of garbage, more than 30 metres deep and stretching over 350,000 square metres. 

The waste engineer, Wang Yukun, tells me the city produces 3,500 tonnes of junk every day. None of it is recycled. Some is burned. Here, it is layered like lasagne: six metres of rubbish, half a metre of earth, a chemical treatment and then a huge black sheet of high density polyethylene lining. The site opened in 2003 and it already contains more than a million tonnes of rubbish. 

"It was designed to serve the city for 20 years, but it has filled faster than we expected. I guess it will be completely full in 15 years," Wang says. "Once it is finished we will build a golf course on top." 

6pm - the cop 

In many Chinese cities, the public security bureau is more likely to detain journalists than to take them for a drive. But in Chongqing, the city goes so far as to dispatch an English speaking officer, Lai Hansong, as our guide. Lai insists he is a regular beat cop, who has been patrolling the Yuzhang district for the past six years. "It is a low-crime area," he says. "We mostly deal with thefts or fights." In an average week, he says, he deals with fewer than five incidents. 

It is not what I expected, having heard lurid stories of drugs, prostitution and organised crime. The city has also been the focus of violent industrial protest. Last November, 20 strikers required hospital treatment after police broke up a 10,000-strong protest over lay-offs from the Tegang state-owned steel factory. Less than a year earlier, police cars were torched and overturned in a riot by thousands in the satellite city of Wanzhou. 

The picture Lai paints is very different: "There are no criminal gangs in China. Our country has few riots." But someone must be worried about something. The police force, Lai says, is increasing every year and officers must travel three to a car. 

8pm - the intellectuals 

This is a city that dazzles when night falls. Multi-coloured illuminations light up everything from the housing blocks that rise up on the hillside to the giant city centre replica of the Empire State Building. Motorway crash barriers glow pink, green and purple. The swirling surface of the Yangtze reflects the glow. 

In a riverside restaurant I am meeting some of the city's alternative thinkers. What do they make of the place? The group laughs at the notion that there are no gangsters and some shake their heads at claims that the haze is just bad weather. Overall, they feel living standards have improved. Cultural development might be slower than material development, "but this is a city of the future," says Li Gong, a poet and cartoonist. 

"Compared with 10 years ago, the air quality is better. But compare it with other cities in China or other countries and we are still far behind," says Wu Dengming, an environmental activist who founded the Green Volunteer League, which has highlighted many of the problems of the Three Gorges dam. 

Zeng Lei, a documentary maker who spent seven years recording the lives of Chongqing's poorest residents, relates unhappy anecdotes of urban life - the bangbang man who burst into tears when he returned to his home village for the first time in three years; the housewife who felt so neglected by her family that she hired a team of bangbang men to carry banners through the city celebrating her birthday. 

Song Wei, a publisher, notes that the evident problems - pollution, loss of heritage, inequality and crime - are not confined to Chongqing. "We could be talking about almost any city in China." 

10.30pm - the new rich 

Or for that matter, almost any city in the world. Chongqing is not just urbanising, it is globalising. Little more than a generation ago, this was a city where Red Guards in Mao tunics chanted anti-imperialist slogans. Today, young people with money dress much like their counterparts in Birmingham, Chicago or Nagoya. If anything, their values are even more materialistic. 

I am sitting in Falling, which Spiderman's boss He Qing recommended to me as the hottest nightspot in Chongqing. It is Wednesday night, but the dancefloor is packed with beautiful people moving to techno music. Our table has an 800 yuan (pounds 57) minimum charge, which covers a bottle of vodka, a few imported beers and a plate of elegantly carved fruit. 

He joins us, along with some of Chongqing's new rich, including the founder of a sweet factory, a restaurant owner and a bank employee. Almost without exception they are in their 20s, foreign educated and well connected - either through family or political ties - with the city's movers and shakers. "No businessman can thrive unless they have contacts in the Communist party and the underworld," I am told. 

I feel uneasy spending more on a night's entertainment than bangbang man Yu earns from a month's gruelling work. I'm not the only one conscious of the gap. Qing tells me his plan for the future. "Inequality and environmental destruction are the two biggest problems facing China." He says he wants to establish a new clean-energy company that will employ more migrants to build a cleaner city, using German technology. 

00.30 - the street kid 

Outside at midnight, the bright lights cannot mask a seedier side of city life - the poor trawling through rubbish bins, the homeless on street corners, the touts offering drugs and sex for sale. Many of the women working as prostitutes are rural migrants. Their children are left with relatives or sent to the streets to beg, sell flowers or sing songs for money until the early hours. 

At a night market, a queue of hawkers comes to my table to offer to clean my shoes, sell me cigarettes or pour me soup from a flask. A seven-year-old girl plucks at my arm and then coyly entreats me to buy a rose from her. "Where is your mother?" I ask. "Oh, she's at work," the girl replies. 

A desperate-looking girl is carrying a menu of songs and a battered, badly-tuned guitar. She says she is 16 but looks more like 12. She has been in Chongqing only a few months and has already decided she does not like it. I pay 3 yuan (20p) and pick the song Pangyou (Friend). The young busker stares at some faraway point as she strums the one chord she knows and sings out of tune. It is miserably sad. Further along the street, a bangbang man wanders into the distance carrying his bamboo pole. I wonder if he is about to finish work or start it * 

Additional reporting by Huang Lisha. Jonathan Watts' film about Chongqing for Guardian Films and Channel 4 News is broadcast tonight on Channel 4 at 7pm.


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Didn't read the whole article but are they seriously suggesting Chongqing has 31 million inhabitants?


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

This article is interesting but somewhat misleading. I'm sure Chongqing must be a very impressive place. However, it's far from the world's most populous urbanized city! Rather it has the most expansive boundaries. Roughly equal to that of a typical Chinese province. That's where the 31 million population figure is derived. 

Actually, the urbanized population of Chongqing is only 4.6 million, very respectable by world-wide standards, but trailing Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Hong Kong, & Shenyang as the 6th largest urbanized region in China. Actually, far from being a city with more people than Peru or Iraq, its urbanized population is less than that of Lima or Baghdad. 

Chongqinq is rather like the Chinese counterpart to, say Jacksonville Florida, which ranks as the 13th largest US city by virtue of having sprawled out it's city lines to cover over a thousand square miles, more than twice the area of even LA, but in terms of metro population, actually ranks way down as #45.

It’s metro or urbanized populations that really count, not the populations which just happen to be contained within very arbitrarily drawn "city" boundaries.


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## FM 2258 (Jan 24, 2004)

Wow, read the whole article. Chongqing seems like a very interesting plance. A REAL city like the other big cities around the world. If I was fluent in Mandarin or Cantonese I'd love to live in Chongqing. All the dirt, filth, lights, restaurants, night clubs from the bottom to the top make me want to see this city.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*China real estate investment shifts to smaller cities *

BEIJING, Feb 8, 2007 (AFP) - Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu -- many foreigners may never have heard these names before, but they are Chinese cities where the stage may now be set for the next big Asian property frenzy. 

As the Chinese government is trying to cool red-hot property markets in Beijing, Shanghai and other super-large cities, attention is increasingly moving to the nation's second-tier ones, analysts said. 

"Asking prices are creeping up quickly. It is important to get in to the (second-tier) market now," said Stephen Chan, national director at LaSalle Investment. 

Such cities have high internal rates of return (IRR), a measure that, roughly speaking, tells investors what they can expect to make from an investment on an annual basis. 

"Development projects in the country's second-tier cities produced IRR of over 20 percent, exceeding their first-tier counterparts," said Richard van den Berg, ING China manager. 

Developers and investors alike are eyeing in particular the south and west of the country, said David Faulkner, Colliers International's regional director for China. 

"There have been increased levels of investment in many key cities in the Pearl River Delta region (in south China) as well as more centrally located transportation hubs such as Wuhan, Xian, Chongqing and Chengdu," he said. 

The central government is aiding this transfer of real estate investment from east to west by a number of macro controls, one official said. 

"The creation of special economic zones, high-tech development zones and economic technological zones under programs such as the western regional development strategy are of key importance to encourage foreign funds to invest in second-tier cities," said Zhai Baohui from the Ministry of Construction. 

"Second-tier cities have greater potential for investment," Zhai said. "They are experiencing increased transparency and consolidation in the market." 

But this emerging property boom is not just a product of relatively recent government policies. Long-term demographic trends are playing a large role. 

As urban populations around the country continue to expand, investors see great opportunities for growth in such real estate. 

"If you are there at the right time with the right product, the market is yours," said Stanley Ching, Hong Kong-based head of real estate at Citic Capital Markets Holdings Ltd. 

Second-tier residential prices rose by about 10 percent last year and look set to do so again this year, said ING's van den Berg. 

Despite recent moves by the central government to quell rising property prices, such as hikes in interest rates and a land tax, second-tier cities remain attractive alternatives to the frothy markets in Beijing and Shanghai. 

Preferential treatment such as tax incentives and lenient bank loans will still encourage long-term investment in second-tier property development, said Wilfred Wong, chief operating officer of real estate developer Shui On Land. 

Real estate investment in preferred second-tier locations outmatch first-tier in all sectors, according to Chris Brooke, greater China CEO at property firm CBRE. 

"Second-tier pre-tax IRR in residential, retail, office and industrial real estate will be at least 5 percent higher than that of first-tier cities," he said.


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## luv2bebrown (Nov 4, 2004)

fascinating. someone posted a thread a while back on the chongqing skyline. it looks fantastic


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## snow is red (May 7, 2007)

Good one. This shows that investment and attention are now shifted to the West of China now to second tier cities.


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## xXFallenXx (Jun 15, 2007)

i was in Chongqing for only a day back during the summer, but i loved it.

It seemed like an amazing town, i really wish i spoke fluent Mandarin, i would love to spend a week or so there.


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## ZZ-II (May 10, 2006)

great article, thx for posting.


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## Sagaris (Nov 28, 2006)

Is the general western population so geographically ignorant that theyve never heard of cities like Chongqing, Wuhan and Chengdu? Im "western" and ive known of these cities since elementary school. Though thats because i was interested in geography and learned many things on my own, western education is pathetic, expecially when it comes to world geography. hno:


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## Giott (Jul 15, 2007)

Dunno but this article is very similiar to this film....

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=HMZEazYXXuY


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## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

Chongqing hot pot will take over the world!


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## Kailyas (Nov 23, 2007)

IMO, Chongqing is one of best skylines in the world.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Sagaris said:


> Is the general western population so geographically ignorant that theyve never heard of cities like Chongqing, Wuhan and Chengdu? Im "western" and ive known of these cities since elementary school. Though thats because i was interested in geography and learned many things on my own, western education is pathetic, expecially when it comes to world geography. hno:


Even within China's economic miracle, the interior cities were never at the forefront of the success story. Now that the east coast has been well-developed the focus has turned to reduce the wealth gap and open up the west.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Chongqing has about 12 million in the urban area, another 20 million in its municipality. However, the story here is not its current size, but its growth, projected to hit 20 million in the next 13 years.

Ive heard however Shanghai is growing as fast if not faster though, and will become huge once it connectes up to Hangzhou (if not already as you read this). The worst/ best case scenario for Shanghai projections is 60 million in the urban area.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*FEATURE-Gritty Chongqing hopes to shine under new leader *

CHONGQING, China, Feb 20 (Reuters) - China's western metropolis of Chongqing is typically described as gritty and industrial. Its new Communist Party boss, Bo Xilai, is known as worldly and sophisticated. 

So Bo, 58, who took the helm of the region late last year, will have his work cut out for him in order to reinvent Chongqing on his terms. 

The Yangtze river region of 30 million lies some 1,500 km (620 miles) from China's booming coast. Although it has been a focus of central government efforts to develop the west, it remains hindered by both geography and a legacy of unproductive state-owned enterprises. 

"Chongqing residents are putting a lot of hope in Bo Xilai. People feel the city has a new opportunity," said Xiao Zhou, 32, who works for a cosmetics company in the heart of the city. 

"They want to see Chongqing become as developed and as beautiful as Dalian is," he said. 

Dalian is the northeastern port city where Bo made his name as mayor in the early 1990s, turning it into a rare economic success in a part of China better known as a graveyard of failed state industry. 

But the son of late vice premier and Long March veteran Bo Yibo faces a tougher beast in Chongqing. 

Where Dalian's geography made it a natural target for foreign investment from Japan and Korea, Chongqing is hampered by its location far up the Yangtze at the edge of the Three Gorges dam reservoir, and by the poverty and inaccessibility of its rural counties. 

"You just have to look at a map," said one foreign business executive whose company is planning investments there. 

"If you need something and it's not in the Sichuan basin, it's a pain," said the executive, adding that shipping by barge up the Yangtze from Shanghai was time-consuming and expensive. 

STIRRING IT UP 

The mountains and gorges within the region have left some areas cut off entirely from development and that means it can take up to two days to travel from one end to the other. 

But the region is not without advantages. 

It is home to huge gas reserves, which make it a natural place for the development of the chemical industry, and it stands to benefit if China goes ahead with plans to build a gas pipeline from nearby Myanmar through its western provinces. 

Though cut off from the coast, Chongqing and its neighbour Sichuan comprise a market of more than 100 million. 

Bo's international profile, honed during his nearly four years as Commerce Minister, has given hope to the region that he might lure the kind of foreign investment that helped China's coastal areas take off. 

"There's a feeling that this is a guy who is famous and he's coming to little Chongqing," said a diplomat based in the city, who asked not to be named in accordance with embassy regulations. 

"He's going to stir things up a bit. Already, there is an instant willingness (among foreign companies) to look at Chongqing that wasn't there before." 

The region already made strides under Bo's predecessor, Wang Yang, seen as a political rising star who has moved on to head the wealthy and high-profile southern province of Guangdong. 

Chongqing's economy grew 15.6 percent over 2006, its fastest growth rate in a decade, according to the region's Statistics Bureau. 

Per capita GDP rose 15.2 percent, but at 14,622 yuan ($2,030), it is still less than a quarter of Shanghai's, and about half of that in Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital and the city to which Chongqing is most often compared. 

UPHEAVAL 

And the foreign investment that Bo might be able to attract is only part of the picture for a region that must find a way to lift its rural hinterland out of poverty. 

It has plans to reverse its 30:70 ratio of urban to rural residents by 2020, a huge social shift leaders must pull off without sparking discontent or unrest. 

As one of China's designated "experiment zones" Chongqing has more leeway to innovate on policies such as benefits granted to migrant workers. It is also exempt from some of the restrictions China's economic planner places on certain industries. 

Bo's test will be whether he can take advantage of that freedom to improve Chongqing, which developed as an industrial base when it became China's capital during World War Two because it was too far inland for Japanese bombers to reach. 

"He knows his task is no longer dealing with foreign trade, so he will have to find a way to perform," said Bo Zhiyue, a senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute in Singapore. 

"That's important, because there is kind of implicit competition among the newer generation of leaders, especially Wang Yang and Bo Xilai." 

"They are both new members of the Politburo and they need to do something to show that they are qualified as top leaders of China," he said. 

Bo will be 63 when the Communist Party holds its next five-yearly Congress in 2012 and his performance in Chongqing will be a barometer of whether he joins the top echelon of power, the Politburo Standing Committee, a post which eluded his father. 

For all his experience and charm, some wonder whether Bo, who many say had his hopes pinned on staying in Beijing and becoming a vice-premier, has enough reserves of energy to devote to the position that some say was his consolation prize. 

"He wanted to become a vice-premier and he didn't get it. So this is a parking spot," said the business executive. 

Still, for residents like Xiao Zhou, Bo is a symbol of what might be in a region that, despite central government attention, is seen as something of a backwater compared to China's east. 

"I think he can bring a lot of changes to Chongqing," Xiao Zhou said.


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## tiger (Aug 21, 2004)

^^Neuters is way far behind NY times to know about the city if we compare their reports on CQ.There're so many retarded figures and even false ones in Neuters' report.

Chongqing infact,has the highest average salary of the whole mid-western China.

Chongqing's average salary for 2007
Wuhan's average salary for 2007
Chengdu's average salary for 2006

Since Chengdu was far behind in 2006,it had no way to surpass Chongqing in 2007 as Chongqing was growing even faster.And don't forget that Chongqing's figure above is for the whole Chongqing megalopolis not mentioning far more developed CQ city proper and its metropolitan area.Furthermore,CQ has the highest minimum wages of the whole mid western China.

Chongqing metropolitan area's industry is probably the most environment friendly of all the major cities of the mid west as CQ's major industries are vehicles and mechanical products as well as electronics while other major cities such as Wuhan and Chengdu has big iron and steel plants that made them quite polluted(Visit China environment protection ministry's official site to Check it out)


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## tiger (Aug 21, 2004)

The most funny thing of this artical from Neuters is "China's eastern cities are dominant in all aspects".That's so ignorant and do they really think China's eastern regions are like western Europe while the western regions like eastern Europe?:lol:

Well.Infact,China's western cities like Chongqing,Xi'an and Chengdu are so unique that any eastern cities cannot replace them because these cities are so rich in soft power such as history,culture,art,food and lifestyle etc.For example,till now,No Eastern cities' restaurant is successful in Chongqing and Chengdu,while hotpot is already popular in every province of China.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

the spliff fairy said:


> Chongqing has about 12 million in the urban area, another 20 million in its municipality. However, the story here is not its current size, but its growth, projected to hit 20 million in the next 13 years.
> 
> Ive heard however Shanghai is growing as fast if not faster though, and will become huge once it connectes up to Hangzhou (if not already as you read this). The worst/ best case scenario for Shanghai projections is 60 million in the urban area.


I bet in 2050 the whole yangtze delta has grown together to a metro area with over 160 million people.


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## Oaronuviss (Dec 11, 2002)

There truly is way too many people in China. But what more can be done? It must stagnate!!


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