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SHANGHAIS HOPES LIE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUDONG1

OCTOBER 26, 1989

Why are we proposing to speed up the development of Pudong? It is because Shanghai is in need of renewal and development. Its main problems are overcrowding, serious obstacles to transportation, excessive concentration of industries, and rather serious pollution. Since Pudong is in fact an extension of the old urban center, it offers the best, the most outstanding conditions for development. The costs will primarily be for infrastructure construction and river-crossing projects. Other costs will be much lower than if we were to develop toward the east or west, toward the north or south. Moreover, we would be able to make great use of the commerce in the original old urban area. Pudong is also an ideal area for easing crowding and dispersing population and industries from the old urban center.

From a long-term perspective, Shanghai must be oriented toward the Pacific Ocean, toward the whole world. We want to build it into a modern city, into the largest economic and trade center on the Pacific coast, so of course we also must develop Pudong. It has a port, it is by the sea, and has a superb geographic location, which is why we are now proposing to speed up its development.

The first and most important step in this direction is infrastructure construction. If we don’t build infrastructure, developing Pudong is just an empty phrase. Here the first priority is the port. Building a port can drive Pudong’s development—after all, cities flourish along with their ports. That’s why construction of Pudong’s port must be given first priority. As a result, the Ministry of Transportation has approved construction of the Waigaoqiao port as the first thing for Shanghai under the Eighth Five-Year Plan. I consider this the greatest support for the development of Shanghai. All of you from the departments concerned should take priority construction of the Waigaoqiao port to be your most important task, and there can be no wavering whatsoever on this point.

The second [priority] in infrastructure construction is roads. We should attach the utmost importance to building the ring road and do this in conjunction with the rebuilding of the old city, which lies within the 76.5 square kilometers of Puxi. If this ring road doesn’t reach Pudong, the latter’s development can’t take place. That’s why as part of the master plan the ring road must go to Pudong. In the future, this area [within the ring road] will constitute the entire downtown; Lujiazui in Pudong is in fact an extension of the old urban center, and they’ll all be part of downtown eventually. We have to make every effort to start building the ring road next year, no matter what. We can learn from the method Li Ruihuan used in Tianjin and mobilize the entire city—those with money contributed money, those with energy contributed energy. This isn’t just about developing Pudong. Once we have a ring road, traffic congestion within the urban area will be greatly alleviated. This is the reason why we’re far behind Beijing and Tianjin. It is why we must concentrate our forces and do this planning well.

How many years will it take to complete this ring road? How should we set the standards for it? These activities must be properly planned—this is of the utmost importance. I’ll be very satisfied if this road can be built during my term in office, because this will be doing a great thing for Shanghai. Once the Huangpu River Bridge2 is open to traffic, it will greatly benefit Pudong’s development. If we also consider putting the river-crossing project at Ningguo Road3 [into the plan], then when it’s open to traffic, I think the pace of Pudong’s development will be very rapid. Crossing the river won’t be difficult, and once public transportation is in place, living in Pudong will be the same as living in the urban area, and many people will be willing to move there.

Of course the outer ring road can’t be completed in 5 years and there’s even some question as to whether it can be completed in 10, but we should still draw up plans. Moreover, this ring road needs to factor in the development of Waigaoqiao and Baoshan. We have to study what standards Shanghai should use for building such a ring road. In the near term, one task is to build the inner ring road and another is to build connecting roads, such as Pudong Road South.

The third [priority] in infrastructure construction is gas, water, and power. There must be plans for all of these. We’ve already considered the initial investment; now we have to go one step further and plan for different phases.

The next question is, where will the money come from? What form of development should we use?

I think the Pudong Planning Office should organize a study of policies. It won’t be possible to rely on government money, as was done for the Minhang, Caohejing, and Hongqiao development zones—we don’t have this capacity. We would have to invest RMB 100 million to 200 million per square kilometer, and we don’t have that kind of money now. Therefore the policies we need to consider should include measures to attract both domestic and foreign capital. We should rely on these sources of capital rather than government funds. The government should be using its money to build hospitals, schools, sites for commercial services, and other public facilities. These needs must be taken into consideration, particularly for residential areas already completed. If not, they should quickly be put in place. What’s more, we should move well-known hospitals and schools [to Pudong]. Otherwise, if it remains the way it is now, nobody would move to Pudong. That’s why the city government and the state should pay for the four types of facilities I just mentioned.

The next question is what kinds of policies should we be studying now? For foreign capital, we should still focus on leasing land. It may not be the only method for this purpose, but it can be a very important one. As far as Pudong goes, the first step is not to attract tertiary sector projects because we already have too many of these in Shanghai. The occupancy rates of hotels in Puxi are currently all very low, and if Pudong were to also [build hotels], even fewer people would stay in Puxi. What Pudong needs is to attract industrial projects.

To draw industry to Pudong, land can’t be too expensive. I’m going to give the Pudong Planning Office an assignment: you must set the prices for all the land in the city—this is a major policy, because this is what we’re going to focus on. We can consult with C. Y. Leung about this again. The price of land varies in every place and every district, and the closer to the city center, the more expensive it gets, as in the case of Tokyo’s Ginza. Land prices also differ depending on how the land is used. Land is cheaper where you build factories, and more expensive where you build commercial entities.

As for internal policy, it will promote a shift in the building of factories and housing from Puxi to Pudong, which also requires us to draw up a major policy, for otherwise we won’t have the money to do it. We haven’t been able to move many of these polluting factories in many years because we don’t have the money. We also have to focus on using land premiums. The factories in Puxi are occupying sites where an inch of land is worth an inch of gold, where land is extremely expensive. If they move to Pudong, the land there will be cheap. You county leaders here: you mustn’t charge extortionate prices for land in Pudong, where land prices have been set fairly low so far.

When a factory moves out of Puxi, the land it occupied can be sold to others, and it can receive the land premium as compensation. We mustn’t have everyone “dividing the spoils,” with the Municipal Housing Office taking some and the Lands Office taking some—that would ruin everything. We must change this way of doing things. The land premium should be given to the factory, and we will add to it part of the environmental protection fee rebated from the Environmental Protection Bureau. Then the factory goes to Pudong where land is very cheap, and it can use the extra money to build a new factory—this way it can make the move. The same is true of housing. We cannot put up large buildings in Puxi—the more we build, the harder it will be to solve the traffic problems. Let them build in Pudong—land there can be allocated quickly and it is cheap—but don’t rip them off. Make a breakthrough using land prices and different rents for different grades of land to encourage them to move to Pudong. We must think of a series of good policies, including ones for moving. We have to stop using the current method of “eating the flesh of Monk Xuanzhang of the Tang”4 for moving. If you don’t pay a penny yourself and move all at once from a hovel into a spacious place, the result would be to use up a very large portion of the relocation costs for a project—how could we absorb that?

That’s why all counties must be mentally prepared and have policies ready—these policies will ultimately benefit you. Don’t just look at the here and now, and don’t extort in the here and now.

Regarding standards: in the future, Pudong will be Shanghai’s window, its hope; it will be the most modernized city. But no city can be built overnight. The old city of Shanghai has 150 years of history, and the Bund was built in the 1920s, so it already goes back over 60 years. I’m afraid it will take 50 or more years for Pudong to become a new city. That’s why regardless of whether we’re constructing residences or other types of buildings, we can’t have standards that are too high. We can only use current standards and build to the best of our ability. Moreover, high standards for a city do not lie in a few currently existing buildings—they lie in its roads and infrastructure.

On this point, we must look 50 years or even 100 years ahead. I don’t dare say how far ahead we should look. Professor Wu Liangyong,5 who works on planning, says that we should dare to dream a little, that we should consider timing, geography, and people. Shanghai’s development must consider being oriented toward the Pacific Ocean and toward the future—the planning for all infrastructure must be done in accordance with this demand. But not everything has to be built right now. It’s there in the plan, and we can just build some temporary facilities—it won’t cost much even if we dismantle them in the future. Right now it’s impossible to achieve high standards in one step; we have to do that step by step.

Nagoya, for example, is the best planned city in Japan. It was originally a place with a high concentration of aviation industries. Because these were all destroyed by bombing during World War II, the city was planned anew after the war. It is indeed beautiful and the planning was quite well done. Apparently the mayor at that time wanted wider roads to be built and was widely criticized for wanting to claim credit for grandiose projects. However, he insisted on wider roads, which today seem rather narrow—and which would be even worse if he hadn’t persisted. Professor Wu Liangyong put it very well: we should dream a little.

Lujiazui, in particular, directly faces the Bund. It must be designed very well, as it is the very heart of Shanghai. Bund scenery is truly exceptional—the design laid out in the 1920s is as good as ever even after 100 years. It’s not just the design of Lujiazui—the design of this entire stretch of land must be inviting to the entire world. This stretch faces the Bund. Everyone is familiar with the Bund, and your design for this stretch cannot be inferior to that of the Bund, and it must have its own unique features. We will call on all the architectural firms of the world to submit bids, and this will immediately increase Shanghai’s name recognition. However, you must do good planning for Pudong, you must have a good overall design—specify where the residential areas will be, where the government offices will be, where the cultural and entertainment areas will be, and which areas foreigners can invest in and develop—and there must be rules about land prices. In addition, there should be a plan for how the Huangpu River port should be modified.

Planning for Pudong is closely tied to planning for the old urban center. This affects Shanghai’s long-term development, it involves a great many areas, and touches on political and economic policies. This work is being led by [Vice Mayors] [Gu] Chuanxun and [Ni] Tianzeng. I suggest that we immediately form a strong leading group and bring in people from various areas. Ye Longfei6 and Ye Bochu7 can be responsible for the concrete work. The principal members of this leading group should come from the construction departments, and we should also bring in people from planning, industry, finance, and trade. They should be divided into teams, some studying planning, some studying policies. There should also be a general department that assigns topics and oversees the whole picture. We don’t want the current arrangement of everyone speaking for himself, with Ye Longfei telling me a few things one day, then Zhang Shaoliang8 telling me more things, and Hou Lüshi9 telling me still more things, leaving me utterly at a loss as to how Pudong should develop. We must have an overall concept and then delve more deeply into it. You all have to produce a bill—indicating how many hundreds of millions this is going to cost, where the money will come from. It’s up to you to think of ways, to produce policies. What we need now is to step up our work.

I hope you can produce a model. If you’ve never seen such a model, go to Yokohama and have a look at its model for planning. It’s in a large building, electrically operated and open to the public. I was very encouraged after seeing Yokohama’s model. The people of Shanghai don’t fully appreciate the significance of Pudong’s development. You should make an electrically operated model of the long-term plan for Pudong and put it in the Exhibition Center or some other place. Let people look at it and then offer suggestions, so they can see whether or not this model will work. Then we will constantly revise this model and turn it into reality. This will be a great force for mobilizing the people of Shanghai.

 

 

1. Zhu Rongji delivered this speech at a meeting on the development of Pudong.

2. The south abutment of the Huangpu River Bridge refers to the present Nanpu Bridge. This was the first bridge in Shanghai to span the Huangpu River. It is 8,689 meters long and is a twin-tower, dual-cable, diagonal cable-stayed structure. The main section of the bridge is 46 meters high. Total investment in this project was RMB 820 million; construction began in December 1988 and it was opened to traffic in December 1991.

3. The Ningguo Road cross-river project refers to the present Yangpu Bridge. It and the Nanpu Bridge are known as sister bridges. It is 7,658 meters long and its main arch has a span of 602 meters. The main section of the bridge is a river-spanning, twin-tower, dual-cable, diagonal cable-stayed structure. Total investment in this project was RMB 1.33 billion; construction began in May 1991 and it was opened to traffic in October 1993.

4. Translator’s note: This refers to an episode in the classical novel Journey to the West. Various demons and devils wanted to eat the flesh of Monk Xuanzang, believing that this would make them immortal. The term is now used as an allusion to something that, because it confers great benefits, is sought after by many at all costs.

5. Wu Liangyong was a city planner, architect, and professor at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture.

6. See chapter 7, note 11.

7. Ye Bochu was then vice chairperson of the Shanghai Construction Commission and vice chairman of the Foreign Investment Commission.

8. Zhang Shaoliang was then director of the Shanghai Bureau of Urban Planning and Construction Management.

9. See chapter 42, note 5.