Chengdu, the Sun Bird Flying to the World
Release Time: 2017-11-01
In Chengdu Jinsha Site Museum, on the slowly rotating showcase is a rather unique round gold foil. The gold foil is hollow inside, with 12 rotating toothed lights symbolizing the sun on inner circle, and 4 end-to-end divine birds flying around the sun on outer circle. This is the well-known Gold-leaf Sun Bird—the logo of Chengdu and the symbol of Chinese cultural heritage.
There are some seaside shellfish unearthed together with the Gold-leaf Sun Bird. The findings prove that Chengdu, the extreme south of the ancient Shu Road, is also the starting point of the southern Silk Road throughout Europe and Asia which had made the richest merchants “Traveling the world and trading anything they want”.
In Chengdu Qingbaijiang container terminal, Chengdu-Europe Express equipped with two locomotives will spend 12 days to travel 9826 km and arrive in Lodz, Poland. Goods from China can be distributed to any corner of Europe in 3 days.
This is a city coming from the history, and it always stands clearly in the map of China and even the world. Carrying the classicality and fashion, history and reality, holding and opening in the colorful world, multidimensional Chengdu has been stepping forward continuously with confidence.
Vision of Chengdu
“Chengdu, an earthly paradise, with thousands of households here, is bustling like a painting.” This city has had such a critical eye for thousands of years that each choice that survives today has a grand vision.
Take the location for example. The mountains in southwest China is winding and tortuous, but inadvertently in west of central Sichuan locates the largest piece of plain, rich and beautiful, where Chengdu is located and stands for thousands of years.
For example: the naming. “A town was built in this area in the first year and the capital in the second year, so the ancestor named the city as Chengdu (which means to become a capital)”. For 2,300 years, Chengdu has gone through many vicissitudes, but never moved and changed its name, being the only one in China's big cities.
For example: the city governance. In the reign of Xiaowen in Qin Dynasty, the governor of Shujun Li Bing built Dujiangyan irrigation system. Since then, just as the old saying “People were able to control drought and flood disaster and no hunger happens any more” goes, the irrigation system has brought numerous benefits to Chengdu, making thousands of miles of land fertile and full of thriving vitality. Because Dujiangyan irrigation system has played an important role in flood control, irrigation for over 2,000 years, it was inscribed on the World Heritage List.
Today, Chengdu still has a broad vision
For example, traffic aims at the world. Standing at the intersection of the Silk Road economic belt and the Yangtze River economic zone, Chengdu takes a bird’s-eye view of the world. Interconnection is an economic interaction as well as a flow of personnel and a blend of cultures. Starting from here, all the world's major cities are within 15 hours’ flying of Chengdu. As the continuously accumulating international direct routes reach more than 80, the world begins to know unique value of the western Chinese city.
For example, industry targets at the high-end. The “‘1313’ Chengdu Industrial Implementation Plan of Development Strategy (2014-2017)” draws such a clear picture—a “well-structured, advantage highlighted and high eco-efficient” modern industrial system. Besides, “Made in Chengdu 2015” visualizes a big country’s industrial strategy to a city’s limitless future.
Walking in the streets of Chengdu, you can see poetic couplets everywhere, one of which making the city proud most is Demoralizing Couplet in Wuhou Temple: “Try to persuade an enemy to stop his attack during the war, and the war will then disappear. No soldiers want to fight since ancient times. Try not to forget conditions and situations, otherwise, leniency and strict punishment will all fail. Those who manage Sichuan should think it over.”
Considering the situation is indeed one of the most impressive qualities in the development of Chengdu,.
For example, the Standing Committee of Sichuan Provincial Committee and Chengdu Party Secretary Huang Xinchu has been emphasizing the “Industry Chain Panorama”, hoping to build an internationally competitive industry aircraft carrier. Now many new industry forms, such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, 3D printing, flexible manufacturing, Industrial 4.0, “Internet plus”, have already entered Chengdu people's vision, and gotten an opportunity to be given the priority to develop.
Su Shi said, "Chengdu, a metropolis in the Southwest ". The sentence is derived from history and now spoken to the world
Smiles of Chengdu
We were impressed by the smiles of three people.
Meeting the Chengdu girl Wang Yu again still in Du Fu thatched Cottage. She has a beautiful smile as before, and faces every visitor with the same enthusiasm as she explained to former British Prime Minister David Cameron more than a year ago.
Wang De, who has spent his life in Chengdu, waved to the reporter and said: “we Chengdu people are never exclusive.” As soon as we met him, he began to ask for a “fly restaurant” to have something good.
Xi Guangyue, a migrant worker, simply said that, despite his recent unemployment, he was reluctant to leave Chengdu. He has applied for residence permit, and after registering in the community, the child can still go to nearby school. Since he lost his job, he has participated in job training organized by government. As long as he can finish the training, there will be a job market on the ground floor of classroom.
Ten men, ten colors. People love Chengdu not for the same reason. However, when it comes to attracting world attention, Chengdu always has a unique charm.
This kind of charm is not just cute panda, delicious Sichuan food and beautiful scenery, but lies in the city’s active participation in internationalization and many of the measures the city has taken in the “Belt & Road” and other major national strategies.
The attraction, first of all, appears in the desire of countries to locate the consulate in Chengdu. Now, there are 13 consulates in Chengdu, and the Indian consulate has been approved and expected to open this year; The consulates of Poland and other countries will be stationed one after another in the big key city of western China.
The attraction is also reflected in capital’s interest in Chengdu of all countries. Currently, 265 of the world's top 500 companies have invested in Chengdu, of which 169 are from abroad, which is among the highest in China. Only in last year, Chengdu utilized foreign capital up to $10 billion.
Chengdu was a typical inland city before. Now standing in the intersection of “The Belt & Road” and the Yangtze River economic Zone, Chengdu has found its own unique value and become a hub city between China and the world with the capacity to go out on a large scale.
Chengdu, which has always been known for livability, keeps on leading the service industry in the era of “Internet plus”. The community service industry here is very convenient whether for resident service or the catering. People can order online even a hot pot and hotel serves at home including house cleaning.
Footsteps of Chengdu
The way to Sichuan is harder than scaling the blue sky. In ancient time, Sichuan was known for its ruggedness, but for a very long time, Chengdu has never stopped exploring outward.
In 2014, Chengdu’ GDP for the first time exceeded trillion yuan. The city which is located in Western China became the third sub-provincial city to join trillion-yuan Club. In the “New Normal”, Chengdu is accelerating the pace of transformation and upgrading, while it had stressed reform before..
The Sichuan Opera “Face-Changing”, whether played in teahouse or in theatre, often brings the house down. While Chengdu people often turn from ramblers in the Land of Abundance into runners in the wave of reforms against the clock, just as acting “Face-Changing”.
Chengdu takes great steps towards the world, thus gains a generous reward. Records show that from January to May this year, leaders of the city carried out investment promotion activities in 13 batches outside Chengdu, and met with the world’s top executives from leading enterprises for 89 times in Chengdu. As a result, there were already 89 major industrial projects that could be promoted on door, many of which could even be signed and started immediately. In district , city and county level, there were 332 batches carrying out investment promotion outside Chengdu and it formed more projects.
In the era of “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation”, many people have chosen to start their businesses in Chengdu. Many of the entrepreneurial teams from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and abroad has considered Chengdu with strong radiant and driving power as an important destination. Chengdu also spares no effort to create conditions for innovative enterprises growing and support their development to leading an industry.
This year, Chengdu starts to implement “Entrepreneurship Tianfu Action Program”, which includes constructing a more than 200-thousand science and technology entrepreneurial team, building the largest innovation and entrepreneurship supporting group in central west with entrepreneurial services reaching 1,000, science and technology enterprises reaching 100 thousand, etc. Besides, the Mayor and the Party Secretary will personally participate in “Jingronghui” held one to three times a month to demonstrate Chengdu’s high level of support for innovation and Entrepreneurship
The industry should be upgraded, and consumption upgrading is equally important as well. The potential of consumption is huge in the three drivers of economy. What Chengdu hopes to build is a shopping paradise with international influence and it specially released an action plan, putting forward the goal of “strengthen foundation in 5 years, basically complete in 10 years and comprehensively build an international consumption center city, become an consumption destination and international shopping paradise driving surrounding areas, serving the country, contacting the world in 15 years”.
With hurried footsteps, Chengdu moved from the ancient Sichuan Road to “the Belt & Road”. The city that Marco Polo once admired, takes an unusual way.
Confidence of Chengdu
“People are able to control drought and flood disaster, no hunger happens any more. Therefore people call it the Land of Abundance”, Chengdu has been much well-known for the richness since Qin Dynasty.
In 15 sub-provincial cities of China, Chengdu has a special “index”. Resident population here is about 16 million, ranking fourth in China. However, the difference between resident population and household population is over 3 million, only next to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the very forefront of opening up in national sub-provincial cities.
“Peaches and plums do not have to talk, yet the world beats a path to them. Chengdu really has its magic to make people stay here.” Chen Bin, Deputy Director of Chengdu Investment Promotion Commission, believes that the special “Index” proves the attraction of Chengdu.
Chengdu has more than 6,650 foreign-funded enterprises from five continents, mainly from the United States, Singapore,Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries and regions. Some world top brands in Sichuan including Intel, TI, and SIEMENS are increasing the investment in Chengdu.
Chengdu faces the world with confidence, which is formed in history and manifested in reality.
“Can Cong and Yu Fu founded the kingdom of Shu, but it is too previous to talk in detail.” from the ancient Shu, the story of Chengdu has been a story of initiating. The Gold Mask unearthed from Jinsha Ruins has an imaginative appearance; the unearthed shells were from seaside. The going-out journey has never interrupted.
The Longzhong Dialogue depicts the situation that the world was divided up by three states. In Chengdu Wuhou Temple, the narrators tell Chinese and foreign tourists in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean fluently about the heroes including Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. People of Chengdu love the city’s history as well as learn from it.
Walking on the streets of Chengdu, you can see mixtures of history and reality everywhere. Ancient buildings are located everywhere between tall modern architectures. The Chengdu city, which had taken shape more than 2,000 years ago, is now planned to integrate the city group of “Eight stars arch the moon” and the “backbone” of the city formed by Chengdu Axis. It turns into today’s modern city layout of distinctive levels and arrangement exhibited in Urban Planning Museum from former Jinguancheng, Cheguancheng and Shaocheng.
Change or steadiness is the dialectic of city development. The Chengdu city on the ancient Shu Road and the Southern Silk Road has the same origin as today’s Chengdu and ceaselessly develop which has “Chengdu-Europe Express”, “Central Asia Train “, and more than 80 international airlines.
With beautiful mountains and rivers, Chengdu has attracted countless poets.
“Good rain knows its proper time, and it does not fall until spring comes. Drifting in night with wind, it moistens all things with no sound at all.” More than 1,200 years ago, “Poem Saint” Du Fu wrote this poetry during his rare 7-year happy time in Chengdu after many of the tough experiences.
Now, good rain knows its proper time—Chengdu is walking to the world.
