As China prepares its annual blueprint for economic challenges, the South China Morning Post sends reporters to inspect the three "gray rhinos" that threaten the world's second-largest economy ".
In the third story of this series, we see the city --
Rural development gap.
Sex toys are not the first thing to think of. when you visit a sleepy riverside town in the Yangtze River Delta-Yucheng, you drive from Shanghai for about an hour. it is famous for grapes and the Mulberry Tree turtle pool.
But to turn it into a whole town government.
Adult supplies stopped the market and signed 10 billion yuan ($2. 1b)
This summer, working with a Chinese company to develop a "Happy Town" that includes sex toys shopping street, sex exhibition center and "adults"only" hotel.
It is a dream that the central government plans to create thousands of "charming towns" across the country, representing new faces in rural China and preventing the relative decline of small towns. Compared with the booming cities in recent decades, rural towns.
The policy envisions a vibrant local economy with a sense of culture, ideal for a unique industry and a livable environment.
This strategy is very consistent with President Xi Jinping's desire to make China a "beautiful country" by 2050.
In his work report published at the Communist Party of China National Congress in Beijing on October, the word "beautiful" was added to previous formulas, dating back to at least thirty years, deng Xiaoping, the then Supreme Leader, called for the development of a "prosperous, civilized and democratic" country.
Villages and towns across China-dreaming of becoming the next Greenwich in Connecticut, known for hedge funds, or Hershey in Pennsylvania, known for its chocolate factory-they are scrambling to come up with their own "theme ".
"This is in line with the trend of promoting the development of small towns. after 1978, the development of small towns is strong and in line with China's industrial upgrading," said Hu Zhiyong, assistant professor of Asian and Policy Research at the Hong Kong University of Education.
The government hopes that the charm town movement will attract funds and talents to return to rural areas to help narrow the City-
Rural development gap.
Official statistics show that the average disposable income of urban residents last year was 33,616 yuan, more than 2 yuan.
71 times the average rural residents.
Although more than urban households last year had access to tap water and gas, only people living in rural China had tap water and only people were connected to natural gas.
Last year, the total government spending on urban public facilities in China was 1.
74 trillion yuan, 402 short.
6 billion yuan was spent in rural areas.
Wang Jianlin-controlled Wanda Group spent 0. 7 billion yuan three years ago to develop a tourism town in Danzhai, Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces, to help reduce poverty.
The Yucheng government sees the Happy Town project as a new engine of growth for the local economy.
At present, the town has a population of 22,000 and relies on energy.
The company said in August that intensive and polluting industries such as dyeing, machine parts manufacturing and silk spinning accounted for most of its revenue.
The developer of happy town is JC Group, headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, with Hong Kong-
Listed gold Financial Holdings.
It has 59 charming towns on drawings or under construction.
A spokesman said, the blueprint for happy town is based on cheng City's "advantages" in manufacturing-locals don't seem to know that the main sign of the South China Morning Post's day event on November is dozens fishermen make nets and play poker on the banks of the river.
Xu xueguan, a resident of cheng city living on government subsidies, said he knew the plan required him
Multi-storey brick houses demolished for tourist attractions.
Although he did not hear that it was based on adult products, he was pleased that a dyeing factory that contaminated the lake near his home would disappear. His 28-year-
Xu Xiaojun, the old son who came home from Hangzhou, had a hard time coming up with an explanation to explain the brand remodeling of Yucheng.
"One possible reason is that cheng City is a transportation hub, close to almost every major city nearby," he said . ".
From 2002 to 2007, Xi Jinping worked in Zhejiang province, known for its small towns such as yu city. the president personally approved the charm town movement as a new method of urbanization.
In 2015, Li Qiang, then governor of Zhejiang province (former assistant to Xi) announced a 500 billion yuan plan to create 100 charming towns in the province within three years, each with its own
In a typical development, the local government will designate an area of up to 3 square kilometers to build a park or other attractions that may attract affluent consumers.
The plan requires a minimum investment of 5 billion yuan per town in three years and says they will become three
A tourist attraction.
If these goals are achieved, the provincial government will vacate more land and provide a tax refund.
In May 2015, after Xi Jinping's visit to Zhejiang, Zhejiang's charming town was planned to be included in the national strategy at the beginning of last year.
Department of Housing and cities-
So far, 403 countries have been approved for rural development
Charming town in two batches.
But with every province and city eager to join, more has been approved locally.
In the far south of China
In the western part of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, 100 such towns will be put into construction in the next three years.
He said: "The whole idea is from Zhejiang. I am not surprised because Zhejiang is best at industrial clusters . "
"Every town has its own unique industry, a brand company.
Many of these towns have just changed their way of marketing as a fresh "charming town.
Basically the new wine in the old bottle.
"For example, Datang town, south of Hangzhou, the world's largest sock producer, renamed itself the sock city.
About 30 km kilometers from cheng city, the Universiade used to focus on producing animal feed, but after opening a chocolate factory, it now sells itself as a sweet town.
In terms of attracting talents and migrant workers, big cities in China perform better than small towns because they provide more opportunities and better quality of life.
Only 12 percentage points from China.
38 billion people live in more than 18,000 towns in the country, while Germans live in towns with less than 20,000 residents.
The authorities see the charm town initiative as a way to rebalance development, promote employment prospects and improve public services such as health care and education in rural and suburban areas, these areas have been hit hard by the flow of population to big cities in China.
China plans to reach 60 urbanization levels by 2020, up from 57.
At the end of last year, about 100 million farmers were transferred from rural areas to towns.
But Professor Lu Ming, an economist at Shanghai Jiaotong University, said that it is exaggerated to claim that the charm town movement may become the key to new urbanization, because the total population of 1,000 towns is a drop of the population in China's urban ocean.
"The whole movement has nothing to do with urbanization," he said . ".
"It started in Zhejiang and somehow became a national sport.
"The biggest problem with these charming towns is the lack of economies of scale.
"He said towns far from big cities-where demand for services is high and high --
Final manufacturing position-unlikely to survive in the long run.
Mr. Hu of the Hong Kong University of Education said: "Building a 'charming city' in China's less urbanised Midwest sounds a bit ridiculous, because what they need is actually more large and medium-sized development. sized cities.
"If these small towns are serving the cities, what will happen to the agricultural industry in rural areas?
It can expand the city. rural gap.
This is exactly the opposite of what the government wants.
"Some officials are also concerned that the charm town movement could get out of control and make the same mistake as the blind expansion of suburban industrial parks in the 1990 s-according to an economist at the World Bank, this led to the creation of more than 7,000 such areas.
The central government has warned developers not to try to use cheap land provided by charming town projects for real estate development.
They also warned against including any foreign cultural factors.
An official notice in July said the government opposed any "large, Western and strange buildings" and banned the distribution of Western names to charming towns.
In the review of Wenan town in the history of Shaanxi province, an approved tourism project --
The ministry, with the theme of charm town, suggested abandoning a planned "Greek boutique" because it was "very different from local culture ".
At a Urbanization Forum in July, Xu Lin, director of the development planning department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that many charming towns have proved to be "ghost cities" without any residents or actual industries, it is common for a town to blindly copy another town.
For example, at least 30 hedge-fund towns are planned nationwide, almost half of them in Zhejiang.
"But how many hedge funds are registered and set up offices in these towns in China?
"The result is not difficult to understand," Xu said . ".