In January 2018, the first session of the 13th National People's Congress of Guangdong Province was held in Guangzhou. The work report submitted by the Guangdong Provincial Government at the conference revealed that the GDP of Guangdong Province increased from 5.8 trillion yuan to 8.99 trillion yuan from 2012 to 2017. This means that Guangdong's economy has approached Australia, Russia, South Korea and other countries. Among them, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are two first-tier cities that can be described as the greatest contribution. In 2017, the GDP of Guangzhou and Shenzhen exceeded 2 trillion yuan. Guangzhou and Shenzhen are two of China's four first-tier cities.
Among them, Guangzhou, as the capital of Guangdong Province, also has political functions and economic status. Traditionally, the ranking of the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the country is "north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen". After Guangzhou's GDP was surpassed by Shenzhen in 2017, some people began to discuss whether the traditional "north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen" ranking would become "north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Guangzhou". It is not surprising that such a discussion has arisen, but I myself have always lacked interest in such a discussion. This is because I myself have reservations about whether GDP represents all of a city.
IN FACT, GDP can only represent the size of a city's economy, but not accurately reflect the quality of a city's economy. Moreover, the comprehensive competitiveness of a city is not determined solely by its economic strength: how many medical resources, educational resources and housing resources can a city provide for the people is not part of the comprehensive competitiveness? Should a city's humanistic care for migrant workers, such as migrant workers, form part of its overall competitiveness? Is a city's social security, environmental protection, and cultural and historical heritage part of its overall competitiveness?
It can be seen that measuring the comprehensive competitiveness of cities is actually quite complicated. In fact, it is entirely possible for each city to have its own unique advantages: it is not objective to overblow or disparage the advantages of a city, and it may lead to regional blackness without positive significance. Since everyone is Chinese there is no need to hold on to one: A has the advantage of A, and B has the strength of B. Instead of having to rank among major cities, it is better to really study the strengths of each major city.
Whether the ranking of "North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen" will become "North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Guangzhou" is not up to one of us. I also don't want to waste my own and everyone's precious time on some of the pointless controversies that may arise. I am only here to analyze the advantages of Guangzhou as a first-tier city in China, but I do not want to use Guangzhou's advantages to make any comparison with Shenzhen, because Shenzhen also has its own unique advantages, and I have also had a special article to analyze Shenzhen's advantages. Since I have analyzed the advantages of Shenzhen, I will now analyze the advantages of Guangzhou for you.
Guangzhou has created a miracle in the history of global urban development: among all the commercial cities in the world, Guangzhou is an extremely rare city that has endured for thousands of years. Chinese history and even world history do exist for thousands of years, but the influence of these ancient capitals is mainly manifested in the political and cultural level. As for the commercial metropolises, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul and other places have only begun to prosper in the past five hundred years, and Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen and other places have only really entered the prosperity stage in the last century.
Shanghai has been in the past thousands of years since the Northern Song Dynasty court set up the "Shanghai Affairs" institution in Songjiang in 1008 AD, but guangzhou's commercial prosperity appeared earlier than Shanghai. Even Xi'an and Rome, the starting and ending points of the overland Silk Road, may have been older than Guangzhou in the history of city-building, but the history of Xi'an and Rome as international commercial metropolises is actually slightly shorter than that of Guangzhou. Xi'an and Rome were both developed as capitals, and these two cities gradually transformed into cosmopolitan commercial metropolises after Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions to open up the overland Silk Road during the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
In contrast, the Maritime Silk Road from Guangzhou was actually born earlier than the overland Silk Road. According to the "Huainan Zi", as early as Qin Shi Huang made Guangzhou through South Vietnam, it was already a distribution center for rhinoceros horn, ivory and other goods. In the thirty-third year of Qin Shi Huang (214 BC), Qin Shi Huang set up Nanhai County, Guilin County, and Xiang County in Lingnan after the Southern Expedition against Baiyue. At that time, Nanhai County's Lieutenant Ren Hu built the "Ren Hu City" (later renamed Panyu City) near the old Cang Lane of Zhongshan 4th Road in present-day Guangzhou, and it is from this that the current Guangzhou City was first developed.
Guangzhou has been the political, economic and cultural center of Lingnan since its founding. After the death of Qin Dynasty II, and then experienced the Chu-Han conflict, Zhao Tuo, the general of the Qin army stationed in Lingnan, took advantage of the war in the Central Plains to convey the instructions to the troops at the passes of Nanling to defend according to danger, and took the opportunity to kill the officials of the Qin Dynasty placed in Nanhai County and replace them with his own cronies. In 204 BC, Zhao Tuo raised an army to annex Guilin County and Xiang County, and established the State of Nanyue in Lingnan, known as the "King of Nanyue Wu". At the end of 1974, the ruins of the Nanyue State Palace Office were discovered on zhongshan 4th Road in present-day Guangzhou.
Under the ruins of the palace office, the ruins of the Qin Dynasty shipbuilding were found. Judging from the excavated cultural relics: this is the ruins of the shipbuilding factory of the "first army in the capital of Panyu" when Qin Shi Huang unified Lingnan. Excavations began in 1975 at the Qin Dynasty shipbuilding site, clearing a 29-meter-long ship platform. After many investigations and studies, it has been concluded that the factory is composed of three wooden shipbuilding platforms with a length of more than 100 meters, running east-west, and parallel arrangements, and a wood processing plant on the south side, which can build wooden ships with a width of 8 meters, a length of 30 meters, and a load of 50 or 60 tons.
In 1983, the tombs of Emperor Wen of the Western Han Dynasty and the South Vietnamese Emperor found in Xianggang, Guangzhou, can see large ivory from Africa, frankincense from the Honghai coast, round silver boxes in persian style, gold flower bubble ornaments founded in the Two Rivers Valley, and smokers that burn Southeast Asian dragon brain incense, which shows that Guangzhou in the Qin and Han Dynasties was already an important port for international trade. At that time, the Panyu area already had a considerable scale and a high level of technical shipbuilding. Maritime exchanges in the Lingnan region during the pre-Qin and South Vietnamese periods laid the foundation for the formation of the Maritime Silk Road.
The cultural relics excavated from the tomb of the King of Nanyue prove that the main ports of foreign trade of the South Vietnamese state at that time were Panyu (present-day Guangzhou) and Xuwen (present-day Xuwen). In the summer of 112 BC, Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty sent 100,000 troops to launch a war against the State of Nanyue, and in the winter of 112 BC, the State of Nanyue was destroyed. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty destroyed the South Vietnamese state, he broadened the scale of sea trade by sea, and the "Maritime Silk Road" arose. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, merchants of the Western Han Dynasty often went to sea to trade, and the clear written records of the Maritime Silk Road in Chinese classics became increasingly clear.
During this period, Chinese merchants arrived in Guangzhou by sea for trade, transported silk and porcelain to India via Malacca via Sumatra, and then purchased spices and dyes from India and transported them back to China, Indian merchants shipped silk and porcelain through the red sea to the port of Cairo in Egypt or into the two river basins through the Persian Gulf to Antioch, and then by Greek and Roman merchants from Alexandria, Gaza and other ports in Egypt through the Mediterranean sea to the two large and small city-states of the Greek and Roman empires. This marked the formation of a true Maritime Silk Road across the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.
From the ports of Panyu, Xuwen and Hepu in Guangdong, Guangxi, china, sailing westward, and sailing eastward from the coastal ports of the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, it met and docked in the Indian Ocean, and Guangzhou became the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road. By the time of the Wei and Jin dynasties, Guangzhou had begun to trade directly with the Arab region. According to the Chronicle written by the Arab historian Mas Ody, ships from Guangzhou, China, often entered the Persian Gulf to trade near the city of Sheila (about 3 kilometers from the ancient city of Babylon) on the Euphrates River.
Chinese archaeologists found silver coins of the Persian (present-day Iranian) Sassanid Dynasty in 1960 in the Tombs of the Southern Dynasty near nanhua temple in Qujiang County in 1960 and in 1973. This suggests that perhaps Persians or Arabs had come to Trade or Live in Canton at that time. In the Tang Dynasty, the geographer Jia Tan once described the 14,000-kilometer -- Tonghai YiDao in the New Book of Tang geography. In the fourth year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign (716), Zhang Jiuling presided over the construction of the Dayuling Yidao on the Meiguan Ancient Road.
With this passage, foreign trade with China was more convenient than traveling overland through the western region to Chang'an, and Guangzhou became the southern gate of China. In 762 AD, the Tang Dynasty traveler Du Huan landed in Guangzhou and returned to China via sea and land. Although this event is only mentioned in the traditional Chinese history books, it marks that the Maritime Silk Road from Guangzhou began to play a greater role in the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West than the overland Silk Road from Chang'an. As early as the sixth year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (661), he set up the post of municipal envoy in Charge of foreign trade in Guangzhou.
In 714, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang set up the first institution in Chinese history to provide foreign trade services in Guangzhou, the "Guangzhou Municipal Embassy". The establishment of this official position was the beginning of China's early maritime trade management, and in the fourth year of the Song Dynasty (971), the Municipal Shipping Department was set up in Guangzhou, an official institution dedicated to foreign trade. From 713 to 741 AD, more than 800,000 foreign merchants came to Guangzhou to trade every year. By the Yuan Dynasty, there were more than 140 countries and regions in the world that traded with Guangzhou.
By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the government had more and more restrictions on overseas trade. Under the policy of "moving borders and prohibiting the sea" in the early Qing Dynasty, not only maritime trade activities were strictly prohibited, but even coastal residents were forcibly relocated to live inland. In 1684, after the Qing government opened the ban on the sea, the Jiang customs in Yuntai, the Zhejiang customs in Ningbo, the Fujian customs in Fuzhou and Xiamen, and the Guangdong customs in Guangzhou were designated as foreign trade ports. In 1757, after the Qianlong Emperor made a tour of the south, he ordered the closure of the three customs offices of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian. Since then, the Qing government has limited foreign investors to trade with China only in Guangzhou.
On the one hand, this policy has caused the fate of China's modern closed country backwardness and beating, on the other hand, it has also enabled Guangzhou to independently undertake the work of improving China's customs system, thus objectively giving birth to a Sino-Western trade exchange center known as "Jinshan Zhuhai, Tianzi Nanku". During this period, the Thirteen Lines of Guangzhou became the only official overseas trade "special zone". After the Opium War, Guangzhou, along with Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai, was opened as a treaty port. In 1984, Guangzhou was approved by the State Council as one of the first 14 coastal cities in China to open up to the outside world.
In 2016, Guangzhou was shortlisted for Alpha-level for the first time in the world-class city register released by GaWC, the world's most authoritative research institute for the world's cities, becoming one of the world's 49 first-tier cities, second only to Beijing and Shanghai in the Chinese mainland. In this list, London, New York, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other cities have been founded for a shorter time than Guangzhou, and the history of Tokyo, Japan, Asia's largest coastal city, can only be traced back 400 years. The only city that can be compared to Guangzhou is the Italian city of Rome, which has also been undefeated for more than 2,000 years.
The reason why Guangzhou can become a rare commercial city that has been undefeated for more than 2,000 years is the joint role of time, place and people. The so-called Tianshi means that Guangzhou has seized almost every opportunity for development in history: when Qin Shi Huang passed through Lingnan, Guangzhou became the political, economic and cultural center of the Lingnan region. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty destroyed the State of South Vietnam, Guangzhou became the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road. After the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo and Dashi seized the opportunity to invade the Western Regions, thus cutting off the traditional overland Silk Road, and the Maritime Silk Road, starting from Guangzhou, began to play a more important role in world trade.
It was during the Tang and Song dynasties that the earliest foreign trade management agency was established in Guangzhou. After the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou became the only foreign trade port. After the Opium War, Guangzhou remained one of the treaty ports. To this day, Guangzhou is still one of the coastal cities open to the outside world. As the saying goes, "the time is not as good as the location" - Guangzhou has seized the opportunity for development again and again in history, but why has Guangzhou repeatedly ushered in development opportunities? In the final analysis, it is determined by the geographical environment of Guangzhou as the southern gate of China.
China has been a prosperous and powerful country since ancient times, and in addition to the history of backwardness and humiliation in modern times, it has mostly been a world-class power. Ancient China was both a huge market for foreigners and a disseminator of advanced institutional culture. The vassal states of Korea, Vietnam, Ryukyu, and Burma around China are self-evident, and India, Persia, Rome and other countries are not far away from trading with China. At that time, trade with China was mainly carried out through the two maritime Silk Roads, both onshore and maritime.
Guangzhou, as the largest city on the southern coast of China at that time, naturally became the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road. Guangzhou thus became an international trading metropolis, especially after the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, which ushered in new development opportunities with the decline of the overland Silk Road in the northwest. Guangzhou is not only geographically facing the sea, but also backed by the mainland. Guangzhou sits at the mouth of the Pearl River, China's third largest river. The Pearl River Estuary has the most complex water system and unique estuarine system in the world: the river network is connected, the currents meet, the three rivers meet, and the eight mouths enter the sea.
This means that Guangzhou is not only relatively convenient to enter the sea to the south, but also can use developed water transport transportation to obtain geopolitical links with the inland hinterland. The veins of the three mountains of Yuexiu, Fanshan and Yushan meander from Baiyun Mountain, thus forming a unique geographical pattern of facing the sea back mountain, and Guangzhou also has the dual support of the sea and the mainland. Today, Guangzhou's geographical advantage has not weakened, but has shown an increasing trend. Although Guangzhou in ancient times was the political, economic and cultural center of Lingnan, most of the Lingnan area in that era was still a barbaric place for exiled criminals.
Therefore, the development of Guangzhou in ancient times is difficult to get the help of the surrounding areas, but now Guangdong, Fujian and other southeast coastal provinces have become China's economically developed areas. The two special administrative regions around Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as the special economic zone Shenzhen, are world-renowned metropolises. If we draw a circle centered on Guangzhou, we will find that to the south of Guangzhou are Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur; to the north is Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo; to the east is Taipei; to the west is Mumbai and Dubai.
In this circle that encompasses almost all the developed cities in Asia, Guangzhou is basically located in the central hub. Today's Guangzhou has a three-dimensional transportation system that ranks very high in the entire Asian region: Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has put into operation three 60-meter-wide runways (two of which are 3800 meters long), which can theoretically be used for safe take-off and landing of all types of large transport aircraft in the world, including the An-225. The total length of expressways in Guangzhou is more than 6,000 kilometers (accounting for nearly 80% of the total length of expressways in Guangdong Province).
The vast network of highways is closely connected to the surrounding areas and major large and medium-sized cities in the country through direct connection or docking. In 2017, the cargo throughput of Guangzhou Port ranked third in the country (the first was Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, the second was Shanghai Port), and the container throughput also ranked fourth (after Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo-Zhoushan). Guangzhou's status as a transportation hub in South China and the whole country is obvious: Guangzhou South Railway Station is the fifth largest high-speed rail station in the country, and Guangzhou's three main lines of high-speed rail rank fifth in the country in terms of area and line size.
In April 2020, the United Nations World Food Programme launched a global humanitarian response hub in China to provide a global anti-epidemic emergency response to the international community, including the United Nations system, governments and other humanitarian partners. The first batch of anti-epidemic medical supplies arrived at the warehouse hub in Guangzhou from April 29 to 30 of that year. The emergency hub set up by the United Nations is located in the Nansha Bonded Port Area, which also greatly facilitates the storage of bulk materials. The location of the United Nations Humanitarian Emergency Response Center in Guangzhou is to a considerable extent because of guangzhou's developed transportation system.
Guangzhou's international popularity will be further enhanced, which will bring more business opportunities and opportunities. Under the background of the shortage of global epidemic prevention materials, all localities are increasing the production of epidemic prevention materials. Guangzhou, as an emergency hub for epidemic prevention materials, must be complete with all kinds of epidemic prevention materials. The processing and production of various medical equipment and sanitary consumables in Guangzhou thus has a unique geographical advantage: the products produced can be directly computed to the emergency center hub warehouse, thus avoiding the waste of time caused by the transportation of goods.
Some manufacturers of medical and health products will invest in Guangzhou to set up factories in order to reduce transportation costs and shorten transportation time, thereby promoting the development of Guangzhou's medical and health industries. At the same time, the materials in the emergency center need to be continuously and large-scale in and out of the logistics need to keep up. This stimulus has increased the demand for logistics practitioners, thereby promoting the development of the logistics industry. This will not only significantly improve the logistics speed of Guangzhou, but also drive the circulation of surrounding transportation facilities.
With the increase of population flow, Guangzhou's import and export trade, artificial intelligence, medical care, catering, etc. will be significantly developed. Alibaba's rookie wrapping also plays an important role in the flow of supplies in the UN's emergency hub. FedEx, the world's leading logistics company, has also set up an Asia-Pacific transit center in Guangzhou. To a certain extent, this also represents the recognition of the cargo value of Baiyun Airport. Guangzhou also has its own unique advantages in terms of maritime transport: Guangzhou has a number of excellent ports with more than 100,000 tons of berths.
Guangzhou is the thousand-year-old commercial capital of China, the starting point of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, and an important fulcrum of today's "Belt and Road" initiative. All this makes Guangzhou have rich experience in international shipping. Guangzhou is also a feng shui treasure land that is rarely affected by natural disasters. Every year, the coastal areas of eastern and southern China are affected by typhoons to varying degrees, but Guangzhou is rarely directly affected by typhoons. We don't know how the ancients chose this place that would not be affected by natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes to build a city, but the reality is that they did choose such a feng shui treasure land.
Therefore, since ancient times, Guangzhou has not only had a good economic foundation, but even rarely suffered losses in the social wealth it accumulated due to natural disasters. It is true that the weather is not as good as the location, but there is also an old saying called "the location is not as good as the people". Although Guangzhou, as a treasure of feng shui, has repeatedly ushered in new development opportunities, it is also necessary for locals to seize the opportunity. As China's thousand-year-old merchant capital, Guangzhou has accumulated a strong commercial atmosphere, thus forming a unique Cantonese business culture. Cantonese merchants have a high degree of flexibility.
The Cantonese businessmen, who were good at observing foreign economic activities in the Ming and Qing dynasties, adjusted their marketing strategies and commodity structure in a timely manner according to business conditions, so that they could grasp the initiative of maritime trade in Southeast Asia. When Participating in overseas trade, Cantonese merchants always listen to the commodity market first, and then sell goods that have never been used or even seen by locals. Guangdong businessmen under the cultivation of maritime culture cooperate and compete in overseas activities: on the one hand, There will be fierce competition between Cantonese businessmen and Cantonese businessmen for market scope, and on the other hand, they will also unite to play games with outsiders.
They make themselves occupy a dominant position in the market competition through group operation and concentration of funds. The commercial atmosphere of thousands of years has enabled Cantonese businessmen to develop the business principle of abiding by good faith: Guangdong businessmen have placed special emphasis on taking people by reputation, so that they can gain a firm foothold in the turbulent business sea. At the same time, Guangzhou's strong commercial atmosphere has also made it form a truth-seeking, pragmatic, open and inclusive social culture. In 1995, the 24-year-old Ding Lei came to Guangzhou from Ningbo to found NetEase, and eight years later he became the richest man in China.
Ding Lei once said frankly: "In my mind, Guangdong is a real hot land. I lived in an urban village in Guangzhou, starting from scratch, Guangdong tolerated me, accepted me, and gave me opportunities." Historically, Guangzhou has been an open and inclusive city since ancient times: medieval Arab documents mention that Huang Chao, the leader of the late Tang rebel army, slaughtered 120,000 Muslims, Christians and Jews in the city after capturing Guangzhou. So how many foreigners lived in Guangzhou at that time? Guangzhou's openness and inclusiveness can be seen here.
Today's Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province in politics, but also the political, military and transportation center of South China; economically Guangzhou has formed 10 100-billion-level industrial clusters of automobiles, transportation, electronics, energy, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing, petrochemicals, wholesale and retail, finance, real estate, leasing and business services. Guangzhou's automobile production ranks first in the country, cross-border e-commerce ranks first in the country, and robot production ranks second in the country. Guangzhou has more than 8,700 state-level high-tech enterprises (ranking third in the country).
Guangzhou currently has NetEase, QQ, Kugou, UC, Huaduo, Vipshop and other industry giants. Nearly 300 of the world's top 500 companies have invested in Guangzhou (120 of them have set up headquarters or regional headquarters in Guangzhou). Guangzhou also has a number of well-known universities represented by Sun Yat-sen University, and the number of college students in Guangzhou also ranks first in the country. Today, Guangzhou, as China's southern gateway to the world, a city in the Pan-Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, a core city in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and a hub city of the Belt and Road Initiative, still has a considerable influence on the world.