How to go global? 【 10th Anniversary of Free Trade Zone · National Visit ⑥ 】 Wuhan, Hubei: China's Geographical Center

As soon as I arrived in Wuhan and left the high-speed railway station with heavy luggage, reality gave the reporter a heavy blow. "You're going to Guanggu, why are you walking from Hankou Station?" asked the straightforward taxi driver.

A city with three similarly sized high-speed rail stations, each serving as a node radiating across the country. But the reporter chose the farthest station from the destination, and when driving over, the first step is to cross the Yangtze River.

The driver said, "No matter what, no matter what." This is the principle of the old Wuhan people. "In Hankou, even if you marry a daughter, you won't marry to the opposite city of Wuchang." However, in the past five or six years, the people of Wuhan on both sides of the Yangtze River have been breaking this deeply rooted rule.

In August 2016, the Hubei Pilot Free Trade Zone in China was established, consisting of three districts: Wuhan, Xiangyang, and Yichang, with a planned area of 120 square kilometers. The Wuhan area is located in the core area of China Optics Valley, overlapping and blending with the East Lake National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone on the east bank of the Yangtze River. Following a large number of market entities established within the free trade zone, many people in Hankou have started crossing the Yangtze River to work every day.

Shanghai people may not understand, isn't it equivalent to traveling from Puxi to Pudong? Only by truly stepping onto the Yangtze River Bridge can you understand what kind of power lies behind the difficult and firm choices made by the people of Wuhan when they reach the other side.

The "Eye of East Lake" Ferris wheel in Wuhan, captured on August 17, 2020. Photo by Xiong Qi, Xinhua News Agency reporter

Breakout of the City of Hundred Lakes

Wuhan is the city with the largest water area in China. The Yangtze River and Han River, as well as countless lakes of all sizes, which pass through the city, jointly occupy a quarter of the area of Wuhan, and naturally divide the three important towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, forming the seven central urban areas of Wuhan today in terms of administrative structure.

This is obviously a place that lives by the water and thrives by the water. What's special about Wuhan is that unlike most riverside cities, it has formed an urban construction pattern with the riverbank as the economic center and gradually expanding towards the hinterland. The Yangtze River, which is three times wider than the Huangpu River, has more of its separation ability in Wuhan, turning it into two functionally independent sub centers.

Among them, Hankou, which originated from the riverbank dock, has been developing northwestward along the direction of railways and highways for over a hundred years. Liudu Bridge, Zhongshan Park, Northwest Lake, and Wangjiadun, the "city center" belonging to the people of Hankou, have increasingly penetrated deeper into the hinterland.

The same goes for Wuchang on the other side, which continues to develop eastward, passing through the Donghu Nanhu Corridor until it reaches the Optics Valley. To the north, it echoes the prosperous "fourth town" of Qingshan. Nowadays, in the eyes of people in Wuchang, the city center Hongshan Square and Han Street are also far from the Yangtze River coast.

In fact, this development strategy is determined by the geographical factors of Wuhan. The Yangtze River, for a long historical period, has brought a great sense of objective reality and psychological isolation to the people of Wuhan. Not long after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Wuhan, as one of the key cities for construction, has already begun the design of the bridge. Since the construction of Wuhan's first dual-purpose railway and highway bridge spanning the Yangtze River in 1955, Wuhan has now had dozens of cross river bridges.

The smooth bridge does indeed connect the two sides, but it is not enough to quench the thirst for the three towns that have already developed independently. Among them, although Hankou has the largest area, it has encountered obstacles from the Northwest Lake Group in its subsequent development; The development of Wuchang is suppressed by the three major lakes in the east, namely East Lake, South Lake, and Tangxun Lake. To further develop, it is necessary to leverage the East Lake South Lake Corridor and expand eastward.

In 1988, the East Lake National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone, known as the China Optics Valley by the outside world, was officially established, becoming the core carrier area for Wuchang's eastward expansion. The Wuhan higher education area adjacent to Optics Valley has further facilitated the development of Optics Valley on the basis of the integration of industry, academia, and research, entering the fast lane.

28 years later, when China's free trade strategy radiated to the central region of China, Wuhan Optics Valley in Hubei Province once again stood out with its comparative advantages and accumulated high-tech industry foundation year by year, becoming the only free trade zone among the top three selected in the country, positioned as a gathering area for strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries.

This city of hundreds of lakes has finally achieved a breakthrough from the constraints of the existing natural environment, but what awaits it is a more difficult challenge.

The Wuhan Optics Valley Avenue overpass was captured on April 29, 2020. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Cheng Min

The dilemma of the nine provincial thoroughfares

There is a piece of cold knowledge about Hubei on the Internet. It is the only place in China that can reach any province in the country only by crossing two provinces at most. "The thoroughfare of nine provinces" is not just a talk.

If we further examine the basic transportation framework of Wuhan - Wuhan Ring Expressway, Beijing Hong Kong Macao Expressway, Shanghai Chongqing Expressway, Shanghai Chengdu Expressway, and Wuhan Shenzhen Expressway - all pass through Wuhan. As the absolute center of China's geography, its ability to radiate internally can be seen.

However, after entering the historical journey of free trade zone construction, Wuhan, which is accessible, has also exposed its biggest weakness - a well-developed land transportation system, but the awkward situation of crossing two provinces must be solved first for foreign sea transportation.

How to turn the entire Yangtze River basin into a golden waterway and an important sea outlet for central and western countries is a new topic for the central government to communicate with Wuhan.

In the past few years, Hubei, which has 1061 kilometers of Yangtze River trunk line, has integrated port resources, upgraded hardware equipment, optimized transportation structure, and enriched route system in the province, gradually forming an integrated development pattern of ports in the province, with Wuhan Port as the leader, Huangshi and other southeast ports in Hubei, and Jingzhou Port in Yichang as the two wings, and Hanjiang Port as the extension.

From January to May 2023, the Ministry of Transport released national port cargo and container throughput data. The container throughput of Wuhan Port was 1.25 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 20.4%, ranking second among major ports in the country and entering the top 20 ports in the country. The entire Wuhan Port has also opened more than 20 international freight routes, including the four ASEAN countries, and three direct container liner routes to Japan, South Korea, and Russia.

Building an "air outlet" is another way for Wuhan to break through the situation. In July 2022, Wuhan Huahu Airport, located in the center of China's economic geography, was put into operation. Within a radius of 1000 kilometers and a 1.5 hour flight circle, it can cover 90% of the country's total economy and 80% of the population.

The Wuhan Tianhe Airport, 89 kilometers away, further expands the scope of cargo collection and distribution to most regions of the country, such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. For many fruit importers, batches of seasonal fruits such as Ecuadorian yellow dragon fruit and Thai durian are flown to Wuhan and then distributed to various cities in China, which is actually the lowest cost approach. "This is undoubtedly the most vivid example of the central government's proposal to 'build a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international dual circulation promoting each other'," said Zou Wei, a professor at the Economics Department of Wuhan University School of Business.

Indeed, the fact that Hubei has become a free trade zone has to some extent expanded the scope and boundaries of the "narrow" free trade zone. "When China just started to build a free trade system in 2013, people generally recognized the free trade zone as coastal trade. Wuhan seems to have no advantage in building a free trade zone. However, if the international prevailing rules are compared, the inland can fully assume the function of a free trade zone to drive the opening up of Chinese Mainland beyond coastal areas." Chen Bo, professor of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and president of Optics Valley Free Trade Research Institute, said.

And the subsequent practice in Wuhan also precisely proved this - relying on sea and air transportation, as well as the land transportation system represented by the China Europe freight train, Wuhan, the "nine provincial hub", can now achieve "universal access" to the east, enter Europe through Central Asia, go south to ASEAN, and go north to Russia.

Wuhan River Scenery filmed on June 13, 2021. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiao Yijiu

The City of Optoelectronics Seen by the World

At the press conference held by the State Council Information Office in February this year, officials from the Ministry of Commerce specifically listed Hubei's exploration in introducing the achievements of the construction of the pilot free trade zone: the Wuhan area in Hubei vigorously developed the optoelectronic information industry, gathering over 16000 related enterprises. This reflects the contribution of the free trade zone in promoting the accelerated development of new industries, new formats, and new models, and establishing a group of highly competitive industrial clusters.

Wuhan Optics Valley. Photo by Wu Yue

Naming Wuhan does not mean that in the implementation of the national 10-year free trade strategy, Wuhan's industrial agglomeration is the most prominent, but this city has indeed made a contribution to the cultivation of world-class optoelectronic information industry clusters.

Seven years ago, in Zuoling Town, located at the east gate of Wuhan, there was only one chemical plant that had already ceased production. Nowadays, strolling along the 8-kilometer long Zuoling Avenue in the Wuhan area of the Hubei Free Trade Zone, "high-precision and cutting-edge" enterprises are located one by one, including Huaxing Optoelectronics, National Memory Base, Tianma Microelectronics... The total investment of enterprises located along the street exceeds 400 billion yuan.

Huagong Technology is a key optoelectronic enterprise within the free trade zone. When it was founded in 1999, its sales scale was 60-70 million yuan, and this year it has exceeded 10 billion yuan. Laser technology is the foundation of its establishment.

The reporter wrote his name on an electronic screen in the Huagong Technology Exhibition Hall, and just waited for a few seconds to produce a bookmark with a laser engraved name. Printing QR codes in bottle caps is also one of the applications of lasers, and Huagong's machine can print 4800 QR codes in one minute.

After the establishment of the free trade zone, laser technology widely used in the fields of automobiles and components, electronics, precision instruments and meters, mechanical manufacturing, molds, semiconductor manufacturing, education, communication and measurement, packaging, etc., has been able to go further under a more convenient trade system. Enterprise leaders, including Huagong Technology, Tianma Microelectronics, and Changfei Fiber Optics, have generally stated that the company has fully enjoyed the benefits of domestic and foreign trade policies within the free trade zone.

Taking Changfei as an example, in the past, product exports had to go through customs declaration procedures in Shanghai. Now, all of this can be completed at Yangluo Port in Wuhan, and it can be transported directly to Shanghai through the Yangtze River water transportation. One customs declaration can achieve river sea intermodal transportation; After the opening of the Wuhan Europe train, the company's cross-border trade will complete customs clearance procedures in Wuhan, and the products can be exported from Alashankou Port and Khorgos Port directly to Europe.

Under the strong impetus of the China Europe freight train, key enterprises such as Guanjie, Dongfeng Motors, Changfei Fiber Optics, and Foxconn have effectively expanded their overseas markets, and have driven industries such as optoelectronics, clothing, and wood to cluster and develop in Wuhan, helping a large number of international enterprises and international production capacity cooperation projects to settle in the province one after another. "Through high-level opening up, Wuhan has gained more opportunities to directly participate in international market competition, and has truly brought the optoelectronic information industry to the international stage," said Zou Wei.

At present, the Wuhan area of Hubei Free Trade Zone has further formed seven professional industrial parks on the basis of the optoelectronic information industry, including Donghu Comprehensive Bonded Zone, Optics Valley Biological City, Future Science and Technology City, Optics Valley Central City, Optics Valley Information Industry Park, Optics Valley Modern Service Industry Park, and Optics Valley Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Park, carrying various industrial functions such as biomedicine, modern service industry, and intelligent manufacturing. This is undoubtedly the Hubei Free Trade Zone, which is positioned by the country as a gathering area for strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries, and is facing self pressure for a new round of development.