[China.com]Ye Yumin: Four Guarantees and Two Suggestions for Implementing the Master Plan of Xiong’an

The Master Plan for Xiong’an New Area (hereafter referred to as the “Master Plan”) is an inspiring blueprint for Xiong’an New Area. Based on a global vision, international standards, Chinese characteristics, and high-level positioning, it will extend the construction of Beijing as an ancient capital for a thousand years, and plan a new chapter of development in China.

Urban plan plays a strategic guidance role in urban development. The basis and premise for an urban plan to guide development is the implementation of the plan. This article proposes four guarantees and two suggestions for implementing the master plan of Xiong’an New Area.

(I) Four guarantees for implementing the master plan of Xiong’an New Area

First, strong political guarantee. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council directly lead the entire process of the planning, construction and management of Xiong’an New Area, which has fundamentally ensured the direction and order of the implementation of the plan for Xiong’an New Area. Exploring the scheme for China to resolve the “big city disease” in the capital is a major strategic issue that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have long been paying attention to.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that, seen from international experience, the solution to the “big city disease” problem is basically about “jumping out” and building a new city. As a location for Beijing’s non-capital functions, the construction of Xiong’an New Area is a millennium strategy and major national event. The entire process of development philosophy establishment, city positioning, space selection, plan formulation, plan release and plan implementation has been highly valued and directly led by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

In Section 2, Chapter 10 of the Master Plan, i.e. “Establishing Institutional Mechanism for Plan Implementation,” it is clearly stated that the implementation of the plan for Xiong’an New Area shall “have a major event reporting system established. Major events during the implementation of the plan shall be timely reported to the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Leading Group for instruction.” This ensures the active, steady and orderly implementation of the plan under the direct leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

Second, all-round and quality living guarantee. One of the important features of the plan for Xiong’an New Area lies in adhering to the “people-centered” new concept and constructing a comprehensive and high-quality public service system.

This includes offering high-standard pre-school education, compulsory education and high school education, achieving full coverage of high-quality education resources, establishing “Xiong’an University,” and developing community colleges that integrate the functions such as continuing education, vocational training and elderly education; this also involves offering high-quality medical resources that integrate clinical service, medical education, medical research and achievement transformation, building world-class and domestically leading regional health emergency response system and specialist hospitals; it requires to offer high-end public cultural resources with museums, libraries, art galleries and theaters as vehicles, and to build a high-intelligence public sports service system that integrates and coordinates the development of mass sports, competitive sports, sports industry, sports culture and other fields.

Supporting facilities for public service and daily living should be built at the five levels of city, cluster, community, neighbourhood and street. A housing system that matches the industrial development and employment space should be laid out, a housing system featured by multi-agent supply, multi-channel protection and combination of renting and purchasing should be adhered to, and a housing supply pattern featured by supply-demand balance, rational structure, orderly circulation, and basically matching spending and consumption capability should be formed under the leading role of the market and the guidance role of the government.

Drawing on the core concept of “citys for all” in the New Urban Agenda adopted at the 3rd UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Xiong’an New Area will build a city for all and ensure affordable housing for its residents, which makes it uniquely charming and attractive to entrepreneurs, high-end talents and work force.

Third, excellent ecological background guarantee. As the “Pearl of North China,” Baiyangdian Lake is the largest lake in the North China Plain. Known as the “Kidney of North China”, it has a prominent wetland feature and a unique lake scenery. It has significant regional ecological value and landscape value. The use of Baiyangdian as an ecological background provides a regional guarantee for the construction of ecological city in Xiong’an New Area, and provides the basic conditions for building a high-quality urban spatial order. It is fully possible for Xiong’an New Area to embed itself in a green ecological space where a large-scale suburban ecological park allows residents to access forests within 3 kilometers and enter the tree belt within 1 kilometer if it makes full use of the ecological background and rationally protects, restores and develops it.

Fourth, cutting-edge and high-end industry guarantee. The Master Plan clearly proposes to aim at the world’s sci-tech frontier, face the country’s major strategic needs, actively absorb and gather innovative elements and resources by taking on Beijing’s non-capital functions that match the positioning of Xiong’an New Area, plan a high-level layout for high-end high-tech industries, and build a new generation of information technology industry, modern life sciences and biotechnology industry, new materials industry, high-end modern service industry, green ecological agriculture, and create a global innovation highland. To build a world-class cutting-edge industrial system from scratch, Xiong’an New Area must give full play to its three advantages:

1. As a location for undertaking Beijing’s non-capital functions, Xiong’an New Area can have a high starting point set for its industrial development.

2. The unique charm of the world’s leading digital city will become an important core competitiveness of Xiong’an New Area, attracting top-notch entrepreneurs to develop in Xiong’an.

3. The above-mentioned high quality public service system and ecological environment can form a world-class human settlement environment.

Although the Master Plan has four major guarantees for its implementation, it still faces two basic difficulties: first, how to regulate the development of high-end industries while meeting the diversified and flexible development needs of supporting industries and consumer service industries?; second, how to avoid problems similar to the “poverty belt around Beijing and Tianjin” in the high-quality development of Xiong’an New Area? Two suggestions are proposed for this purpose.

(II) Two suggestions to promote the implementation of the master plan of Xiong’an New Area

First, establish a mechanism for the differentiated roles of the government and the market to play in the process of industrial development to avoid the absence of the functions of non-basic industries in Xiong’an New Area.

The development of any city includes two parts: basic industry and non-basic industry. Like the theme of the planned development for Xiong’an New Area, the basic industry in Xiong’an has a strong feature of government dominance. The high-quality operation of high-end industries, high-end population and high-end facilities in Xiong’an New Area will definitely lead to diversified and flexible market segments. Only by giving full play to the role of the market and allowing the market to play a decisive role in the development of non-basic industries can we meet the basic requirements of high-level city development in Xiong’an New Area on the daily operation of the city, and avoid the coexistence between perfect arrangement of high-end facilities and low quality in residents’ real life due to the absence of non-basic industrial functions.

Second, establish a mechanism for shared construction between the main urban district in Xiong’an New Area and the surrounding areas in the process of regional and population management so as to avoid the phenomenon of “Xiong’an Island.”

The 19th CPC National Congress proposed to “implement the rural vitalization strategy,” which should constitute a very challenging strategic task for the Master Plan. The Master Plan proposes that the planning scope of Xiong’an New Area includes the administrative regions of Xiong County, Rongcheng County and Anxin County (including the Baiyangdian waters), Renqiu City’s Maozhou Town, Gougezhuang Town and Qijianfang Township, as well as Longhua Township of Gaoyang County, covering a planned area of 1,770 square kilometers. A boot area will be planned and built in a proper region of the starting zone. The area is 20-30 square kilometers. Population density will be reasonably controlled at 10,000 people/square kilometer in the planned construction area of Xiong’an New Area, that is, the population of the starting zone is about 200,000-300,000. The population management in Xiong’an New Area faces long-term rigid contradiction of the dual structure between main urban district and other districts in Xiong’an New Area.

In general, the region Xiong’an New Area sits has a relatively low level of economic and social development, relatively backward infrastructure and a relatively low level of industrial technology. However, private capitals are active in the region, which causes small-scale, scattered and chaotic economic development.

Xiong’an New Area has about 1 million original residents, and its population size will far exceed that in the built-up district of Xiong’an New Area for a long period of time. In order to promote the coordinated development within and outside the main urban zone of Xiong’an New Area, we should not only lay out an ideal spatial structure in the plan, more importantly, we need to establish a mechanism for shared construction between the main urban zone of Xiong’an New Area and the surrounding areas. We should carefully and systematically consider ways for the indigenous residents in Xiong’an New Area to share the “Xiong’an effect” during their transition in production and living.

To this end, we shall promote the equalization of quality public services within Xiong’an New Area, enable advanced public infrastructure to simultaneously benefit the development of small towns in the surrounding areas, popularize vocational education and adult cultural education, promote the reorganization of local industries and upgrade the technological structure, and give full play to the abundant and active local private capitals. We should open up the market for the development of non-basic industries to local residents, let the development of Xiong’an benefit its surrounding areas, build Xiong’an New Area into a model of coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and satisfy both old and new residents of Xiong’an New Area.

(The author is the Executive Dean of the Capital Academy of Development and Strategy, RUC)