Just two hours away from Beijing by bullet train, a “green revolution” with Chinese characteristics is quietly under way. A corner of the Hebei province, once known for its polluting industry — steel mills, cement plants, pottery kilns and coal mines — has broken away from its toxic past. Shamed not long ago as a crucible of PM 2.5 particles, which added to Beijing’s foul air, Hebei’s Fengfeng industrial district, 40 km west of the better known Handan city, has mutated into a pilot green-zone.
Once known for its dinosaurian coal-fired power plants or Jurassic industrial zones built on either side of dusty potholed roads, Fengfeng district has undergone a root-and-branch makeover. “Ours is a resource-based and mining area. But following the spirit of the 19th party Congress [of the Communist Party of China], which instructed us to follow the path of building a green China, we decided to turn our area into a scenic zone,” said Zhang Xuejun, Deputy Mayor of Handan city, in a conversation with a team of visiting diplomats and journalists.
Later over dinner in a vast dining hall, she proudly toasted her guests over beer — a result of a local joint venture with a German partner — and explained that her administration had to face a real challenge of transforming the area.
“Thousands of factories had to be closed and a large number of people that were displaced had to be re-settled. Instead of coal mines and factories, which churned out steel, cement and ceramics, new industry focussing on personal computers, tablets, smartphones and robots had to be rooted,” she recalled.
Local officials said that by 2017, 70% of the targets of realigning manufacturing to industry 4.0 standards, in tune with China’s hi-tech oriented 13th Five-Year Plan, had been met.
Despite the push for a cleaner ecology on President Xi Jinping’s watch, the master plan of Fengfeng’s green revival had actually been rolled out in 2010. “Essentially we had to clean up two adjoining mountains — Yuan Baoshan and Gushan, through which flows Fu Yang river, the mother river of the Handan area,” said Wang Zhiyong, an official at the Handan Municipal Foreign Affairs office.
He pointed out that under the plan, the Baoshan area, where old factories, mines and residences were located, was on course to become an eco-tourism zone.
That task has mostly been accomplished. From the top of the Baoshan mountain, the slopes appear awash in green — the result of tree plantations on an industrial scale. “Millions of trees have been planted, ranging from conifers to fruit trees. The result is that the area once known for limestone quarrying and coal mines has morphed into a picturesque south Xintiang forest park,” a local official said.
Officials say they have been following the template of President Xi, quoting him as saying that “clean water and green mountains are equal to gold and silver”.
Tourism industry
With the economic model changing, officials are focussing on the tourism industry as a new generator of wealth and jobs. Consequently, the Buddhist grottoes carved into the barren but imposing Xiangtangshan cliffs have emerged as a star attraction in this eco-heritage turnaround.
The 36 Buddhist caves, spread into three stunning clusters in the Xiangtangshan zone, are a big draw. The northern cluster is carved into the Gushan mountain, while the other two are at sites known as Nan Xiangtangshan and “Little Xiangtangshan”.
But similar to the fate of the Dunhuang caves in the Gobi desert, where iconic pieces of Buddhist sculpture ended up in western museums and private collections, wagon loads of artwork from Xiangtangshan have been funnelled abroad.
According to some accounts, many of the pieces of sculpture were sold to American art collector Charles Freer and have been displayed at the Freer Gallery in Washington.
In order to co-link the heritage cluster with the eco-tourism zone, a 27 km road has been built in record time. Amid lush greenery, tourists can stop at vantage points on the way to soak in the view, before arriving at the Xiangtangshan cultural base, known for its sprawling Bodhi square.
(Atul Aneja is The Hindu’s Beijing correspondent.)
