Shanghai's back garden

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20060427091540/http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn:80/star/2003/0925/bz8… Shanghai's back garden Shanghai Star. 2003-09-25 By Nick Land and Janet Chen SITUATED in the heart of the Yangtze Delta, only an hour from Shanghai by train, Suzhou's fate is tightly bound to that of its giant neighbour. Foreign investors appreciate the municipality's location within the orbit of the regional economic hub, while those working in Shanghai are increasingly drawn to Suzhou as a "commuter belt" locality, perhaps even conceiving of the Suzhou area as a glorified suburb. Suzhou businesspeople candidly describe Shanghai as the "huge sun" around which the garden city orbits. Yet Suzhou has many reasons for pride in itself. Not only does it have a far longer and more decorous history - stretching back 2,500 years - than the noisy upstart next door, in recent times it has achieved a harmonious marriage between soaring development and determined conservation that can reasonably claim to be path-breaking in China, and probably the world. Luck and policy are finely balanced in this regard. The area has been blessed with much to conserve in the way of unique cultural, architectural and natural endowments. Far from serving as a development obstacle, however, Suzhou's precious legacy has been mobilized as an agent of growth. Suzhou has sustained an average annual economic growth-rate of over 15 per cent since the beginning of the "reform and opening up" period, with local GDP (gross domestic product) now accounting for 2 per cent of the national total (generated by only 0.45 per cent of the national population). Local incomes now average US$4,300 annually, ranking it in fifth place among Chinese cities. The prevailing sense of "xiaokang" achievement - or moderate affluence - is unmistakable. The enthusiasm with which Suzhou has seized the new development opportunities is also impossible to miss. The spirit of competitive dynamism has been geographically incarnated in the city, which has two major development parks, politely yet determinedly tussling for investment. Both parks have an industrial profile biased strongly towards advanced sectors, such as electronics and IT, pharmaceuticals, and precision engineering, with companies attracted by the high-quality labour force and infrastructure, a supportive local administration and the proximity of Shanghai.

The Suzhou New & Hi-Tech Development Zone (SND) was established in 1990, growing incrementally to its current size of approximately 258 square kilometres. Economic output of the SND has risen steadily, from under 4 billion yuan in 1996 to approximately 18 billion yuan by 2002. The younger sibling of the SND is the SIP, the Suzhou Industrial Park, a joint intiative by the Chinese and Singaporean governments. Launched in 1994, the economic product of the SIP has grown even more dramatically, demonstrating exponential growth with a doubling period of less than two years, reaching over 25 billion yuan (US$3 billion) by 2002. During that year freshly contracted foreign investment surpassed US$5.74 billion. People power "It's the people" replied Brian McMinn without hesitation, when asked why his power-transmission business had chosen to locate in Suzhou. "Whenever you want to do something here no one asks why, they just ask how." Even the most casual acquaintance with local people tends to confirm McMinn's assessment. Dig a little deeper and you unearth a virtuous circle of can-do attitudes and broadly-based human resource development, equipping the area as a world-class contender in today's global economy. Suzhou has a long tradition of educational excellence, dating back to the system of imperial examinations, for which it contributed an extraordinary 45 Zhuang Yuan (or top-result) candidates. Today, the municipality runs 11 public libraries and hosts no less than 70 scientific research institutions. 12,450 Suzhou-based patent applications from the area have been approved. Education is also spread widely, with 88.5 per cent of locals completing high school and an astounding 41.1 per cent completing higher education. Suzhou's mayor, Yang Weize, is quick to accept that the area has been blessed by history and cultural attitudes - encouraging Suzhou people to accumulate the human capital of learning, skills and work-experience is not in itself a demanding task. Yet local government policy also deserves credit. During the process of reform and opening up, the municipality has consistently grasped opportunities for educational reform at the earliest possible moment, keen to draw fresh resources into its schools, vocational training centres and higher research institutions. Suzhou is now reaping the benefit of ten-years investment in advanced educational concepts, public-private co-operation and computer-age skills training. The city's Institute of Vocational Technology (IVT) exemplifies these developments. Founded in 1997, it now has 130 staff from all over the world, with an average age of only 32. By 2004, the IVT will send out 1,000 graduates a year, with plans to at least double this number by 2010. These students are often snapped up by locally-based high-technology companies even before graduation, commanding a premium salary while increasing the desirability of Suzhou as a business location for advanced manufacturing companies. Two-thirds of the funding for the IVT comes from non-public sources. Green growth In addition to its complementary relation to human capital formation, advanced manufacturing has another feature which endears it to Suzhou - its environmental impact is relatively benign, and even positive. Of Suzhou's many accolades, its title as "Jiangsu Garden City" is worn especially proudly, perhaps because it is the most indubitable well-deserved.

Of China's four most revered classical gardens, two are to be found in Suzhou. UNESCO's list of world cultural heritage sites also includes many Suzhou gardens: the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Lingering Garden, the Master-of-Nets Garden, the Garden of Secluded Beauty, the Surging Wave Pavilion Garden, the Garden of Cultivation, the Garden of Couple's Retreat and the Garden of Retreat and Reflection. Yet a Garden City consists of more than gardens. The Suzhou Municipality encompasses 487 protected sites (101 at the provincial level, 15 at Central Government level), such as Tiger Hill, the Han Shan Temple (immortalized by Tang Dynasty poet, Zhang Ji), the Panmen Gate scenic area, and the neighbouring watertowns of Zhouzhuang, Luzhi, and Tongli. These attractions draw 890,000 overseas tourists and over 20 million domestic tourists each year, cementing an alliance between environmental sensitivity and economic well-being. Mayor Yang Weize lays particular emphasis upon this coherent economic and environmnetal approach, which he describes as the key to the Suzhou development model: "Firstly, we are strict on the criteria for investment. We say no to any pollution-prone industry. Secondly, we nurse our current environmental resources by closing-down heavy-polluters, such as pesticide factories and chemical plants. Thirdly, we forbid mining groundwater which may cause major concerns for environmental protection. Last, but not least, we are expanding the green coverage of the city, which reached 36 per cent last year. We are aiming for 40 per cent in five years." Many societies might be tempted to dismiss the "Suzhou cocktail" as an impossible dream. How on earth can breakneck economic growth be successfully mixed with broad improvements in living standards, a serene and cultivated civic atmosphere and an almost obsessive determination to preserve the local natural and cultural heritage - even expanding the proportion of green space? Suzhou seems to have found the way. No wonder the people of Suzhou and their guests remain fully persuaded by the ancient Chinese dictum: Shang you Tiantan, xia you Su Hang ("Up above sits the kingdom of heaven, but on earth there are Suzhou and Hangzhou"). Copyright by Shanghai Star.