Somewhat eye-opening bluntness has in recent days come from the mouth of a Chinese politician. Their meanings usually hidden between the words of flowery language, this was a wake up call for a city in our own Jiangsu to not fall behind those all around.
The morning of 16 January saw the opening of third meeting of the 13th Nantong Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Wu Xinming, Secretary of the Nantong Municipal Party Committee, was surprisingly direct in his address.
The word, “competition”, ran through Wu’s speech. He was likely referencing a commentary by Xinhua News Agency on 19 December, 2022, entitled, “Seven Tigers’ Competition for Nantong”, which showed the views of the seven cities and districts under the jurisdiction of Nantong in overcoming difficulties to forge ahead in pursuing their goals. It can be said that the word, “competition”, describes a scene where a myriad of tigers vie for supremacy.
The Secretary said that competition is an enterprising spirit full of passion that never slacks, a firm will that is not afraid of difficulties and hardships, and a tenacity that dares to fight and win.
Wu also mentioned General Secretary Xi Jinping as saying, “History will only favour those who are determined, those who strive and those who struggle, and will not wait for those who hesitate, those who are slack and those who are afraid of difficulties”.
Soon to be released economic data for 2023 is expected to put Nantong’s growth at approximately 6 percent, far exceeding the 2.1 percent for 2022.
Perhaps fearing a return to such a number, that’s when the Secretary started talking tough.
“If we blindly rely on the unique advantages of location resources to be content, we will always be stuck in the small-town mentality of being in a corner, and will always muddle along with the middle-of-the-road train of thought that makes us worse than inferior”, said Wu.
It was also a speech which called for an awareness for the opportunities presented by times never to be repeated, as The Paper has reported.
The Secretary in particular referred to Suzhou, which seized the opportunities of the export-oriented economy and introduced advanced concepts from Singapore that helped it become the strongest prefecture-level city in Jiangsu, if not the entire country.
Then Wu spoke of Changzhou, which has just become the fifth city in Jiangsu with an annual GDP of over ¥1 trillion. It has taken the lead in the new-energy industry, with estimates suggesting Changzhou to be responsible for 70 percent of the province’s electric vehicle production. “New Energy Capital” is the City’s new calling card.
“We will often blame everyone because of a severe and complex external environment, daring to not compete with the top dogs. If you don’t want to compete with the strong, don’t want to compete with the fastest, and don’t want to climb to the highest, you will inevitably fall behind on the new journey of Chinese-style modernization.”
With his closing, the Secretary had got it back on track, returning to the standard Party rhetoric that is the present trend, namely calls to strengthen the modernisation of China, and in particular those places away from the top tier cities, i.e. those not altogether unlike Nantong with their small-town mentalities.
