GATEWAY TO GROWTH
Pioneer Xiamen Special Economic Zone’s success exemplifies Chinese persevering spirit By Ni Yanshuo
An evening view of Xiamen City, Fujian Province, on September 19, 2018
When William N. Brown sat near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, watching the spectacular celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, it struck a special chord in his heart, he said. The U.S. professor at Xiamen University in southeast China’s Fujian Province has a unique view of China’s rise, especially the development of the port city of Xiamen. Being the first foreigner to be given permanent residence there in 1992, he also has a link to the man who charted Xiamen’s growth in the 1980s —President Xi Jinping.
Brown moved to Xiamen with his family in 1988, three years after Xi had assumed his new post as vice mayor of the island city. Finding China different from what he had thought and not correctly understood by the West, Brown started writing books about Xiamen and China to dispel the mistaken beliefs. He met the vice mayor at that time.
“He is the one who encouraged me to write books [about China] 20 years ago,” The 63-yearold Xiamen veteran said. “I hope through my books, people can know more and more about China.”
When his new book, Off the Wall: How We Fell for China , came out in January, Brown sent a copy to his old acquaintance, now the president of China. To his surprise—and pleasure—Xi wrote back to him after receiving the book. Xi called him an eyewitness to China’s reform and opening up and appreciated his representing Xiamen and Fujian to the outside world and telling people stories of China.
1.4.2 提取温度对树舌灵芝多糖提取率的影响。准确称取6份质量相同的3.0 g灵芝干粉末，按树舌灵芝粗多糖提取工艺流程进行操作，按液料比 45∶1加入蒸馏水，设置提取温度分别为50、60、70、80、90、100 ℃，浸提2 h，提取3次。根据所测吸光度考察提取温度对树舌灵芝多糖提取率的影响。
To make the new SEZ better connected with the outside world, besides ground infrastructure, air connectivity also needed to be improved. “To further open up Xiamen to the outside world, it was necessary to have our own airline company,” Lin Zhaoyang, Vice President of XiamenAir, told Beijing Review . XiamenAir was established in July 1984, making the city the first SEZ in China to have its own airline. It was a feat that couldn’t have been achieved without Xi’s initiative, Lin said.
Farsighted blueprint
Zhang Zhihong, Director of the Xiamen Development and Reform Commission, calls Xiamen one of the important fortresses of China’s reform and opening up, its fast development epitomizing China’s development. In August 1980, the State Council approved the establishment of special economic zones (SEZs) to further reform and opening up and provide suitable development models for the whole country. Subsequently, the first four SEZs were built in Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in Guangdong Province in south China as well as in Xiamen.
“We chose Xiamen because of its unique business environment advantages,” Allen He, Vice President of Hub BU Asia, Electrification Smart Power of ABB, told Beijing Review . “As an SEZ, it provides us with preferential policies and better infrastructure. More importantly, we have a lot of space to expand our operation.”
In Chinese, Xiamen literally means “door to a high building.” Xi reinforced the metaphor, calling Xiamen the “gateway of China’s opening up” in a speech in June 1986, when he spoke about the construction of the Xiamen SEZ.
“While working in Xiamen, Xi encouraged the pioneering spirit; actually, he was doing that himself,” Zhang told Beijing Review . According to her, soon after Xi’s arrival in Xiamen, he led the work of drafting the Xiamen Economic and Social Development Strategy (1985-2000), the city’s first mid- and long-term blueprint for development.
“He made very detailed plans to develop Xiamen from a bonded area into a free trade area and then into a free port-based SEZ,” she said. “This was a very farsighted plan, when we see it today.”
Cross-island development
Xi kept Xiamen’s development in mind even after he left the city in 1988. In 2002, when he was governor of Fujian, he came back to Xiamen and put forward a development strategy: upgrading the island while promoting cross-island development. According to him, the island had matured and had little room for companies to expand their operations, but the districts outside it, such as Tongan and Xiang’an, still had huge development space and potential and should be tapped.
When he came again in September 2017, Xi was president of China and the occasion was the BRICS Summit. In his speech at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum on September 3 that year, Xi recalled his experience of working in the city and lauded the city’s fast development in all aspects.
（2）在典型镉污染区域，稻草离田较常规还田处理能增加水稻-土壤系统中Cd的输出量，降低植株各部位Cd累积量。在稻草离田的基础上采用清洁水灌溉和沉降截源措施较稻草离田处理降低水稻不同部位Cd含量和累积量的效果更好。（3）T1、T2和T3处理较CK处理能降低成熟期土壤有效Cd含量，不同消减措施处理在早稻季较CK处理分别降低6.4%、5.4%和6.6%，晚稻时期分别下降6.4%、12.3%与8.3%。
Plane models displayed at the headquarters of XiamenAir, China’s only airline company that has been making profits for 32 years in a row
The infrastructure was improved to realize cross-island development, with four bridges and a tunnel connecting the island with the surrounding districts. In addition, all the five subway lines, both the operational ones and those under construction, lead outside the island. A new airport has also been approved in Xiang’an, estimated to be completed in 2023.
Another round of expansion followed in 2007, but ABB still could not meet the market demand owing to the limited space. In 2014, it decided to move out of the island and the next year, supported by the local government, its larger production base, the ABB Xiamen Hub, started construction in Xiang’an. With an investment of $300 million and an area of 430,000 square meters, the hub became operational in 2018. It houses eight companies under ABB.
“Seventeen years have passed since Xiamen adopted the cross-island development strategy. Every step of our development shows Xi’s deep affection for Xiamen and high expectations,” Zhang said.
“On a personal note, Xiamen is where I started off when I came to Fujian to take up a new post in 1985. Back then, being one of the earliest SEZs in China, the city was at the forefront of China’s reform and opening-up endeavor and was brimming with development opportunities,” he said. “Three decades later, Xiamen has become well known for its innovation and entrepreneurship, with burgeoning new economic forms and new industries, robust trade and investment, and easy access to the world with air, land and sea links. Today, Xiamen is a beautiful garden city with perfect harmony between man and nature.”
敏捷型的BIM团队的构建须领先其他项目资源、软硬件环境。根据某一职能，只获取最合适的定岗成员。随后逐个激活团队成员，将大量管理资源先行投射到成员的调集、招募和培训。必要的话，弃守传统项目启动流程，比如模型中心文件的建立。千万不要陷入固有思维——但凡更复杂、更昂贵、算力更强的设备就是当期最有效率的资源。最大优先级，先将团队的运作调动起来，务必要在团队基本凝成后再配置、补齐最合适的资源。
The cross-island development has seen Xiamen’s economic development focus gradually moving outside the island. Seven out of the 12 industrial chains in the city valued at more than 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) each are located outside the island and they have led to the establishment of several industrial parks and brought in enterprises. The districts outside the island accounted for 49 percent of the city’s total GDP in 2018, compared with 40.1 percent in 2002, and the proportion of fixed assets investment in these districts jumped from 42.5 percent to 75 percent during the same period.
“President Xi fully endorsed the efforts of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xiamen Municipal Committee and the Xiamen Municipal Government to implement the high-quality development concept in the past years,” Zhang said.
Beneficiary investor
The cross-island development strategy has expanded Xiamen’s development space and upped the opportunities for the companies based here. The Swedish-Swiss ABB Group, a multinational working in power and automation technology, is one of the beneficiaries.
ABB’s relationship with China dates back to 1907, when it delivered a steam boiler. It is also the first Fortune Global 500 company to start a joint venture in Xiamen, ABB Xiamen Switchgear Co. Ltd. established in 1992.
In 1985, the 2.5-square-km Xiamen SEZ was expanded to encompass the whole island, an area of 131 square km. Since there was no existing development experience for the newly established SEZ, Xi came to Xiamen to pioneer the reform and opening-up campaign, as he told Xiamen Daily in 2016.
When the joint venture was started in Huli District on the island, it rented one and a half floor of a factory building. But with the expansion of its business in China, the factory became inadequate. In 1996, ABB Xiamen Switchgear built its own production base, the Xiaodongshan ABB Industrial Park, with an area of more than 30,000 square meters.
In 2010, Xi came to Xiamen to attend the 14th China International Fair for Investment and Trade. He was then vice president of China. He acknowledged the progress the city had made in cross-island development. “Based on the achievement, Xiamen put forward the strategy of promoting integrated development across the whole city,” Zhang said.
“Previously, we had warehouses, offices and workshops in different places in Xiamen, both on and outside the island. Now we can put all our companies together for better industrial agglomeration effects,” He said. ABB’s factories in Zhangzhou, another city in Fujian, and Sihui and Shenzhen in Guangdong have also been relocated to the hub.
方案三：沿测区边界像控点布设方法与方案二相同，测区内航向相邻像控点平均间隔基线数为5，航线东西两端按3至4条基线布设一个像控点。即测区边界布设像控点的方式与方案二相同。测区内，旁向间隔一条航线布设一排像控点，航向方向像控点的布设与方案二相同。
师：这两位同学说得都有道，现在我们来看看PPT上的小标题，探究一：“一个常见的图形”，探究二：变化条件再探究．你们说说看，我们一共探究了几个问题？
Today, ABB has a full range of business activities in China, including research and development (R&D), manufacturing, sales and services. Its 44 companies with nearly 20,000 employees are located in over 130 cities. China is now ABB’s second largest market with locally made products, solutions and services accounting for more than 90 percent of sales. ABB has invested more than $2.4 billion in China since 1992.
In 2000, Xi visited ABB Xiamen Switchgear, urging it to focus on technological progress and quality control. Currently, Xiamen has become an important R&D center of ABB. In 2018, its patent applications increased by 28 percent.
“Looking back, I can see that the decision to choose Xiamen as a gateway to enter the Chinese market was farsighted,” He said. “Thanks to the past years’ development in Xiamen, we have changed from a joint venture that only manufactured products to an influential R&D center of the whole group, and from a made-in-China company to a created-in-China center to serve the whole world.”
Gateway to reform
2.4 两组咳嗽缓解及消失时间比较 治疗后，B组的咳嗽缓解时间与咳嗽消失时间均短于A组，差异均有统计学意义(P<0.05)。见表3。
“Now, I am a Xiamen resident. I have witnessed the fast development of the city,” Brown said.
冰碛湖是冰舌表面湖扩展的结果，或是由终碛/侧碛堰塞沟谷积水形成的湖泊。在全球气候变暖、高海拔地区特别是热带高海拔地区变暖趋势更为明显的背景下，冰川普遍退缩，冰川灾害事件增多，冰碛湖变得不稳定，溃决风险增大。
“Xi made substantial efforts to develop XiamenAir. Without his efforts, I don’t think our company could have achieved what it has today,” Lin said.
Xi himself recalled the experience in 2015, during his state visit to the United States. There, he visited the Boeing assembly plant in Seattle, which was getting ready to deliver a Boeing 737 to XiamenAir, and it revived old memories.
第二天上午，钱多多开车去了欧阳锋单位，把欧阳锋叫到自己车里，将钱交给欧阳锋时问他这么急着用钱干嘛。欧阳锋不会撒谎，把那晚发生的事毫无保留地告诉了钱多多。
Workers at the ABB Xiamen Hub in Xiang’an District of Xiamen on September 10
“In the initial stage, XiamenAir and the Xiamen Airport had to be developed with international loans, and the airline had only a few aircraft. Now, after 30 years of development, XiamenAir has the world’s most advanced Boeing 787 planes. This is the epitome of China’s civil aviation development,” Xi said.
Song Chengren, former Vice General Manager of XiamenAir, recalled that when XiamenAir was established, it had no office, no aircraft and no flight. “Xi went to Beijing several times, seeking the support of the Central Government, the air force and the Civil Aviation Administration of China,” he said.
Thanks to Xi’s efforts, XiamenAir rented two Boeing 737s and operated its first flights. Today, it is a global company with 206 aircraft, more than 20,000 employees and nearly 350 flights, with an annual passenger capacity of 36 million. It is also the only airline in China to make profits for 32 years in a row.
Lin described how when XiamenAir launched its maiden flight from Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, to Shenzhen in 1993, Xi, then Secretary of the CPC Fuzhou Municipal Committee, headed an official delegation on that flight. In April 2000, Xi, then Governor of Fujian, inspected XiamenAir and the Xiamen Airport to see how they were doing. During the inspection visit, he said XiamenAir’s reputation stemmed from four factors: reform, its huge investment, high-quality services and people first. Six years later, when XiamenAir opened an office in Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province, east China, Xi, who was then secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee, wrote a letter to the company, extending his congratulations.
The airline has continued to grow from strength to strength. It marked another milestone on September 19 when it opened an office in Shanghai, its eighth branch office. “The Shanghai branch will focus on east China, especially the Yangtze River Delta region,” XiamenAir President Zhao Dong said. “It will accelerate the company’s expansion in east China and support the establishment of the Shanghai international aviation hub.”
骑桶者的我，两手握着桶把——最简单的挽具，费劲地从楼梯上滚下去；但到了楼下，我的煤桶就向上升起来了，妙哉，妙哉；平趴在地上的骆驼，在赶骆驼的人的棍下摇晃着身体站起来时，也不过尔尔。
Xiamen’s growth, as Xi remarked at the BRICS Business Forum, reflected China’s growth. “There is a popular saying here in south Fujian, ‘Dedicate yourself and you will win,’ which embodies an enterprising spirit,” he said. “Xiamen’s success is a good example demonstrating the perseverance of the 1.3 billion-plus Chinese people.”
岸田俊子和丈夫中岛信行与1884年结婚，婚后在同年星享主编的《自由的灯》发表《高同胞姐妹书》强调男尊女卑是野蛮的，男女之间应该互相怜爱。1894年，在中岛出使意大利期间，充分发挥了贤内助的作用。
(Reporting from Xiamen, Fujian Province )
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar
Comments to niyanshuo@bjreview.com
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