With its vehicle license plate prefix being 苏N, Suqian ranks bottom in Jiangsu Province from an administrative and historical perspective. Indeed, the city was largely forgotten about until the 21st century, except that is, for those with a taste for the national spirit, baijiu. For them, Suqian is legendary, being home to Yanghe, one of the nation’s top three baijiu brands.
Around the turn of the millennia, with much of the city employed in the production of the spirit, its supply chain, or simply drinking the profits, the stench of baijiu would literally hang in the air in Suqian.
On another front, Suqian’s reputation for banditry in the early part of the 20th century helped in giving rise to the stereotype that Northern Jiangsu is a lawless place, a supposed standing which the area still has difficulty in shaking off today.
Thanks have changed significantly, though. The more-than-noticeable decline in baijiu-drinking culture has helped in shedding that image in favour of something altogether more healthy, as manifest in places such as Luoma Lake.
Connecting with the Grand Canal, Luoma Lake is one of the four major freshwater lakes in Jiangsu. At 375 square kilometres in area, the Lake resembles the back of a big horse, together with its tail which sweeps further north to Xuzhou City.
Somewhat of a local celebrity, Luoma Lake crab was also named as the “Overlord Crab” in 2019, in reference to Xiang Yu, known as “Overlord of Western Chu”.
Born in Suqian, Xiang was the Hegemon-King of Western Chu during the Chu–Han Contention Period, between 206 and 202 BCE. It is little wonder that a popular draw for visitors is Xiang Yu’s ancestral temple, where a recorded tour in many languages automatically starts and stops as they enter or leave the many buildings. A movie about the overlord’s military might is more than worth a look.
The tectonic shift in Suqian’s environmental conditions also extends to the city’s economic development. Along the flower-lined boulevards of today, e-commerce giant, JD.com, has in recent years located its call centre in Suqian, a move followed by several other national brand names.
Then there is the Suzhou Suqian Industrial Park (SSIP), the first joint industrial park development by a northern and southern city in Jiangsu, in part intended to bridge the geographical gap formed by the Yangtze River and a century of historical prejudice. The SSIP is a model being replicated elsewhere to assist in Yangtze River Delta Integration (长三角一体), whereas the north has adopted the measures of its more-experienced southern cousins at the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) in creating a healthy business environment.
But much remains to be done. Based on 2021’s figures, Suqian ranks bottom in Jiangsu in terms of overall Gross Domestic Product and GDP per capita; some ¥6,200 per person per month on a population just shy of five million, for a city GDP of ¥371.9 billion.
Suqian is 2 hours by high-speed train from Nanjing and 4 hours from Beijing and just 28 minutes from the central Jiangsu city of Huai’an.
