You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Niu Honglin, joined by Steve and Fei Fei.
Coming up soon the third episode of our mini-series looking back at the 10-year-long development path of Yangtze River.
Do you know that nearly half of China's GDP now comes from regions along the Yangtze River?
This is no longer just a story of size.
It's a story of structure.
Over the past decade, growth along the river has shifted from fragmented expansion to coordinated, innovation-led integration.
When the world debates how to balance efficiency, resilience and sustainability, let's see if the Yangtze River Economic Belt can offer a distinct answer.
But now, from integrated circuits in the Yangtze River Delta to quantum laboratories in Hefei and humanoid robotics in Chengdu innovation along the Yangtze River area is never isolated.
It is very much networked.
Cities are sharing platforms, pulling research infrastructure and shortening the distance between discovery and deployment.
Is that the secret behind the regional development of the Yangtze River Delta area?
We'll find out today.
So to start with, let's begin with the Yangtze River Delta.
What does this region cover and what is it about?
Why do we believe it's very important?
Well, when it comes to the Yangtze River Delta, it's pretty straightforward.
It's basically the mouth where the Yangtze River meets the sea.
And the Delta is now one of the most innovation intensive regions, with 11 provincial level regions that make up this along the river.
And I think for most people, it's a very abstract concept.
But when we're talking about, for example, the city of Shanghai, it will be very easy to understand.
And Shanghai is one of the leading cities when it comes to this Yangtze River Delta.
That is also one of the reasons why, when we are talking about regional integration in China, This region, and also the city of Shanghai, became the first example, simply because, when Shanghai reached a level of development becoming one of the largest cities in the world, the city cannot just be that city itself.
Also, not only that it's starting to reach some of the bottlenecks in its own development because of limits in land, limits in how many population it can boast, But also when it comes to, you know, cities elsewhere.
Cities outside of Shanghai, next to Shanghai, should also be benefiting with that development level.
Yeah, so this is Shanghai.
This is also Jiangsu.
This is Zhejiang.
This is Anhui province.
So this region takes up only 4% of the total landmass of China or the total area of China, just 4%.
It's really small, but it contributed nearly 25% of the country's GDP in 2024.
So you've got a really small part of the country if you look at the country as a whole, but it's contributing so much.
It's home to two really comprehensive national science centers and it's also got a dense concentration of major scientific infrastructure.
It serves as a global science and technology hub and it anchors the entire belt with really high-end manufacturing and then strategic emerging industries as well.
So there's not a tremendous amount of area being covered here, but the contribution to the entire country is staggering yes and when we talk about China's manufacturing we talk about the very complete industrial line all of the links from the upper stream to the downstream and here this region is also home to industrial clusters of three emerging technologies that's integrated circuits biomedicine and artificial intelligence.
And it's really significant because nearly 60 of China's IC industrial output, one third of the AI industrial output and one third of biomedicine are all generated in this region.
So it is definitely a place, an area, a region that we should be focusing on looking at when it comes to the development of the country.
The way that they're doing things down there is so incredibly smart.
It's one of the things that makes them special is how the cities, you know, if you think of cities next to each other in a region, you might think competition like the was it the Jiangsu soccer stadium.
Yeah.
Well, this is the total opposite of that.
This isn't about competition.
This is about coordinated legislation and sharing research with each other.
For example, they've implemented what they call the Use First, Pay Later model for technology transfer.
And they did that to speed up how quickly research becomes real-world products.
So what that model is, or what the problem solved was, was that they removed the biggest initial barrier to cooperation, which would be the risk and the cost for the company.
So before the way it worked was a company would have to pay a large risky sum before they knew if the tech would work in their factory.
But now the company can start using the tech immediately after.
So what you do is the research institution would hand over the technology to the company.
The research institution might be a university, for example.
They'll hand over the tech that they've come up with to a company that can use it.
The company will then integrate that tech and test it and start making and selling new products with that tech.
But the difference is they don't pay the full license fee up front.
They pay from the profits.
So the company will pay later.
Maybe they'll share revenue with the university, or maybe they'll share profits generated from the products.
And this is a real game changer because of the speed.
Imagine the amount of time it would take from a laboratory discovery to a product on the shelf, with all these licensing fee negotiations and contracts and things like that.
All of those steps are eliminated now.
And again, it's kind of like a shared risk with the reward coming later.
Yeah.
So not only companies get the chance to really test and adapt and even commercialize some of the latest technologies in labs, but also, I think, for those labs that means they are able to move very smoothly of their research results into factory floors.
And I think There is also this platform built by the government trying to link them together.
Because for many countries, many different types of technologies, the biggest bottleneck is when the labs have produced something remarkable the need to find a place, find a factory, find a company to commercialize it.
And how to do that?
How do you find the link if you are a scholar, been spending decades in the lab researching on this?
And now you're asking them to go to the market.
Find a company that is able to develop this technology into a real commercial product.
And I think that's why, in this area, you are seeing a lot of not only startups but also some new technologies pushing into the markets very quickly.
Yeah, and it allows everyone to succeed a whole lot faster.
I mean it requires a very deep level of legal and financial coordination and cooperation between different cities.
But that whole mega region is benefiting from this type of policy.
Yes.
Right before the show we were discussing the topics and we find it very interesting because if you take a look at the cities individually, each and every one of them are quite strong in their research ability, in the development of their industries.
And because they're strong enough, they are able to contribute something to the research, to the, maybe a even a major leap forward in the development of the industry.
Yet we also see them facing the problems of, for example, mega science.
Infrastructure is very costly.
It's not would not be working for just individual cities to bear that cost.
And also cutting edge technology or cutting edge breakthroughs can be difficult enough to require multiple, if not dozens and hundreds of cutting edge or great scientists with cutting edge technology abilities and research abilities, and also talking about the talent and industries, they are increasingly mobile.
And if you make the entire region being very competitive in the area, you would be able to attract more and better talent.
And that is why we say that the development of an entire region is definitely encouraged by the country.
It's a national policy kind of situation for different regions.
But here, people and cities and counties and places in the area, they want to integrate as well.
It's benefiting them.
100%.
I mean.
This region accounted for over 30 of China's research and development expenditure.
Industry experts, high value patents, high tech exports.
Nearly half of the country's international technology income is generated within that region alone.
And I'll give you a very specific example.
And I don't know if you'll find this example surprising or not.
But Tesla, their EVs.
Shanghai does the chips for the smart driving tech.
Jiangsu supplies the batteries.
Zhejiang does the body casting.
And then Anhui is responsible for the final vehicle assembly.
They're all working together.
Yeah. to build Elon Musk's cars, which is cool.
I mean, it's such an important region to the country and there's so much high-tech stuff happening there.
Yeah, and also, I think, when it comes to the significance and their impacts, it's not only limiting to this area, only the eastern part, the eastern provinces, only in the country, and taking advantage of the long river that going down inland into the north well, it's not down, but up inland to the western part of China.
A lot of such similar coordination happening between cities and provinces technologies infrastructure, basically wisdom, with different administration working together.
These kind of experiences can also be copied and learned by other regions.
For example, I think in the western part of Chongqing and Sichuan is another very good example.
And the city of Chengdu, which is the capital of the Sichuan province, and also the city of Chongqing, are also working very, very closely together in recent years.
And we are also starting to see that this Cheng Yu urban cluster moving very fast forwards.
What is the Chongyu urban cluster?
That's two cities working really closely together, almost like sister cities in a way?
Yeah, I think it's even closer than sister cities.
So it's so close that, even though they are under different administrative level, that Chengdu is a city, Chongqing is a little bit higher than a city.
But when it comes to, for example commute, I think it will be the easiest example to get for our audiences is that they are linked by high speed railway, like many cities in China.
But their system is designed almost like a subway, like over the one hour or maybe two hours time of commute.
Sometimes like taking a subway.
You know, on a high-speed rail, you need to buy a ticket and then the ticket will tell exactly where your seat is.
Just like on an airplane, and you seat like on 2D and that's your seat.
But between traveling between Chengdu and Chongqing, They don't really assign a seat to you, simply because it's just like a subway.
You hop on, you hop off, get your things done and you hop on the train again getting back to your city before the day ends.
Almost like it's one megacity.
Yes, yes.
So that's how connected these two cities are.
And not only it's about the commute, the transport system, but also when it comes to systems like pensions, house funds, medical insurances.
It's also highly connected for residents that they no longer need extra paperwork or different trips or extra steps to work to get these benefits in both places.
And even hospital test results are recognized on either side.
For example, if you get some diagnosis in a hospital in Chongqing, your result is still recognized and acknowledged in the hospital in Chengdu.
So that's how simple that is.
Different places or different regions are integrating in different ways.
But the key thing is always to find a way to kind of like build a community of shared interests based on the situation of each and every district.
We're not even talking about cities working together.
Cities working together is definitely the example that Fei-Fei mentioned, Chongqing and Chengdu.
But for example in the Yangtze River Delta we see the Yangtze River Delta EcoGreen Integrated Development Demonstration Zone.
That zone brings together the Qingpu District that district is from Shanghai the Wuzhang District from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province and the Jiasheng County, which is from Jiasheng, And these are the integrated area.
Well, these are three different district putting together and becoming one demonstration zone.
And, of course, there's also when it comes to Sichuan.
It's not only Chengdu and Chongqing, it's also Sichuan.
Tianfu new area with shanxi new area.
They are being integrated into one city when it comes to the management of it.
Like, if you mentioned, it's about policy getting together and you can use similar systems in this two different areas.
So that is another way to integrate different areas.
So previously, the different areas within the same region would have operated almost independently.
Because they belong to different provinces and they follow the policy of that province.
Like, for example, if you are in one of the district or county we mentioned, when you're using the national subsidy, you're going to have to follow the policies of your own province.
But if these two districts are putting together and run like a inner city management kind of way, then definitely you can use the same kind of very specific policy.
So yes, there are so many different ways to integrate different areas together and promoting the development of the region.
And we talked about Shanghai already, but Shanghai is very distinctive.
Because if you think about the development status of Chengdu and Chongqing, for example, you find it not very far away from each other, if you know what I mean.
One is not very much more developed than another.
But Shanghai is definitely.
If we talk about the entire Yangtze River area, Shanghai is no doubt the most developed when it comes to economic development, which is why Shanghai would place itself as the leading role.
It will not only develop for its own sake.
It has also have to think about how to bring the other cities adjacent to it together.
I mean, we've talked a little bit about the soft connectivity, I suppose, but they've done some hardwiring, if we can put it that way too.
And they've done it in a really short period of time over the last 10 years, across 11 provinces and municipalities.
This is what they've built.
About 470,000 kilometers of new roads were built.
134,000 new bridges went up.
Shocking.
And the railway mileage expanded from 36,000 kilometers to 53,000 kilometers.
So yeah, they've done the things like and I didn't know about these things before like Fei Fei was explaining and like Yonglin you were explaining about.
You know you can go to the hospital and Chongqing and you can get the results in Chengdu or something like that.
But it's the connected, like the actual connectivity of the cities within the region too.
It's just so, so easy to get everywhere compared to the way it was before.
And what's interesting about regional development is that each party would be able to get something out of the cooperation, out of the integration.
If you are as developed as Shanghai you are, you know the Shanghai in your own region.
Yes, when you develop, you think about the cutting edge technology, but you also think about the limitation.
The city can be really packed with really populated, it can no longer hold that many people anymore.
So what to do is to move the kind of industries that are kind of saturated or no longer the key, key focus of the development in the development plan of Shanghai, to the outer area, like to Suzhou and to other cities.
But at the same time it means that this very mature industry is already in Suzhou and Suzhou can benefit from it.
And as for other cities, when it comes to the development plan we can think they can find other focus and find other development, let's say strength, their own strength, For example.
It's kind of like their distinct industrial past.
We see that Hefei, they are focusing on new energy vehicles.
We see Nanjing ranks first in Jiangsu for national level smart factories.
We see Suzhou targets 55 trillion yuan combined scale by 2025 already achieved probably we'll see the data a bit later in the area of biomedicine nanotechnology, as well as artificial intelligence.
And speaking about artificial intelligence, hangzhou is um aiming to be china's digital economy capital with its first dedicated digital economy development plan.
So different cities, when you're developing in the region, you can both take advantage of the development, almost development momentum of the entire region, as well as finding your place on the map and finding your most strength, full of strength kind of industry.
I'm starting to think of it like a giant supermarket, the region.
Where you've got the dairy section in that way.
Right.
And then you've got the fruits and vegetables section, the frozen section in the meat section.
And they're just connected.
Just take your cart and go across one of those one hundred and thirty four thousand bridges, or take the high speed rail to get to the dairy section.
If you kind of I don't know if that's a good analogy or not.
And that also made me think of how interconnected even along the Yangtze River, when it comes to, for example, how Shanghai and Hangzhou are also connected to Chengdu and Chongqing in a way as well.
For example, when it comes to computing AI technology.
A lot of startups, new technologies companies, are based in Hangzhou and Shanghai or in city areas nearby.
But when it comes to, for example, their data centers, their supporting facilities, their energy, a large part of them actually are located inland in Western area, what we call the Chengdu and Chongqing city clusters.
Simply because, for example, when it comes to energy, Sichuan is a big province for clean energy, for hydropower.
So they are able to supply some of their electricity to the eastern part in Shanghai and Hangzhou.
And also they have more cooler weather.
They have more areas compared to how populated in Shanghai is.
They are able to build large data centers at a lower cost, and they can then transform those data to Shanghai and Hangzhou for the companies to do their services.
So it's not just about these two regions only working together themselves.
They're sort of connecting with each other and also along this very long river and working somehow connected through great power system or through data system, cloud system or whatever that is.
And let's be honest.
Yes, they are integrating and they are working together, but they also need to kind of compete with each other a little bit.
It's the reality when it comes to resources and talent and which industry to develop, and if you're focusing on one specific industry, definitely you would need more talent to come into the industry, to go to your region, and we see that, for example, industrial structures are quite similar in different cities.
We think Jiangsu and Anhui manufacturing similarity is about 087, and also Jiangsu and Zhejiang is 092 and Zhejiang and Anhui 088, which means that they're quite similar when it comes to the larger scale, the bigger picture of different development status of industries.
But one day can focus on a specific area and then take advantage of the resource of the entire region.
The situation can also be better for each individual cities, as well as provinces as well.
We are trying, when it comes to um development, integration and also different policy and strategies, to continue to benefit everybody.
It's definitely hard.
It's always very, very complicated, but Somebody might feel left out in one scenario and feel that others getting a greater advantage in another scenario.
Or maybe feel like we are being taken advantage of because of our unique resources for some reason.
So it's definitely something that is very complicated.
But all in all we see here in the Yangtze River area a relatively successful example in the integration and development.
And it is also going to benefit the development of the entire country.
Exactly.
Idea.
Yangtze River Delta Soccer League.
What are you trying to do?
I'm always thinking sports and supermarkets.
I make the strangest analogies.
Jiangsu itself with 13 cities are always competing with one another when it comes to soccer.
Maybe there's not enough teams out there.
Just one final point I'd like to make about the importance of this.
And I think this puts a nice little bow on our three-day chat and opportunity to learn about the Yangtze River and its importance to the country.
You know, we said the Tesla cars are manufactured in the region and different areas are responsible for different parts, and it all comes together nicely.
But there are other examples of internationally recognized companies that have come out of here as well.
DeepSeek is a result of this integrated environment.
Unitree, the robot makers, they are a result of this integrated environment.
They now have 41 national level advanced manufacturing clusters.
And that's over half of China's total.
And it helps to strengthen the, the country's industrial depth the, the global competitiveness.
It's just such a win win win win, win win situation and hopefully in the future we can, we will definitely see more adjustments to the policies, to how, to the development strategies, but that is for the fact that in the future we might be able to benefit more from the ongoing development.
So Roundtable is here to observe.
