Shanghai: China's largest city

Shanghai is China’s largest city, and perhaps the largest city in the world.  Its population is reported to be between 24-29 million, which is larger than Beijing's 21 million.  It is China’s leading manufacturing center, aided by its being one of the largest shipping ports in the world. It is also China's financial center, with its amazing skyscrapers being visible proof of the immense capital concentration in the city.

 Our cruise ship, the Yi Dun, is small enough (capacity 932 passengers) that it was able to navigate up the Yangtse river (the world’s third longest river) and dock immediately across from an amazing collection of buildings, including the third tallest building in the world, 128 floors and 2073 feet tall.

The Yi-Dun is a ship built in 2017 as a joint venture between Viking and the Chinese government.  The crew is 100% Chinese, unlike other Viking ships which have a multi-national crew.  Our ship's cabin offered a great view of a cluster of architectural wonders shown in the gallery with this blog.

Shanghai:  History and Development

Our tour of the day took us to a famous garden that had been initially constructed during the Ming Dynasty in the 1500’s.  There were manmade lakes with buildings reflecting the ancient traditional construction designs, which included ornate sculptures, carvings, and ornate furniture.  There were also a variety of trees that were several centuries old, as well as well-kept flowers in bloom.  The photo gallery for this blog includes many from the garden.

Here in Shanghai, I learned many things about the central planning of the Chinese government.  For example, Shanghai used to be highly polluted from its many industries and factories.  So the government relocated the factories to areas outside the city and focused on the inner city as a financial and tourist center. There is the goal for Shanghai to be an official "green city," defined as a city having 30% of its area in parks, forests, or undisturbed natural landscapes.

The government also prohibited the burning of coal (previously burned in factories and to heat private homes) in favor of electricity and natural gas, resulting in much cleaner air.  With at least 24 million inhabitants, a third of whom own cars, traffic management was a big challenge.  So the government built an extensive public bus, subway, and train system. 

Shanghai has two airports, one for international flights and the other for domestic flights.  The international airport, which is about twenty miles from the inner city, is served by a maglev (magnetic levitation) train that can travel three hundred miles an hour.  Thus the journey only takes seven minutes instead of the half hour needed for the regular train.  And like Beijing, Shanghai is an incredibly clean and well-organized city.

Zhoushan—a small city with a Ghost Town tourist resort

We had a day at sea between Shanghai and today’s port, Zhoushan.  We arrived in a port surrounded by distant islands that would have guarded the port in ancient times.  Viking always offers a variety of excursions to choose from.  One free excursion is standard, while others are available for an extra price.  We will attend a performance in the evening (which costs extra).  So this morning we took the included excursion to a “new tourist resort” named Potalaka.  It is located across the bay from Zhoushan and visible from the ship.

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow passenger, an Australian, who had done business with China and was aware of Zhoushan for many years.  He explained that the Chinese government had invested in developing Zhoushan as a new tourist attraction.  It’s on the coast, resulting in fresh fish year-round.  There is a large ancient Buddha statue that is a tourist attraction.  Developing tourism would benefit the local economy.  The intentions were good, but the result is very disappointing.

My Aussie fellow-passenger said that Zhoushan’s population in 2019 had been over two hundred thousand people.  Many workers were employed building the tourist hotels, restaurants, and the amusement park in Potalaka which we visited this morning.  Everything was finished and ready for the influx of tourists.  But then Covid-19 struck!  China shut down completely.  Tourism ceased.  There were no customers for the new Potalaka tourist center.  And so, the population of Zhoushan diminished to eighty thousand, close to what its population had been before the development plan.  The hoped-for tourist influx never happened.  There were restaurants open at the site this morning.  But the hotel seemed to be totally empty.  The large apartment building, which might have housed the site’s workers was also vacant.  The tourist site called Potalaka was a Ghost Town.

I’ve had many thoughts about China’s incredible development into a world leader.  I will discuss them more in future blogs.  But here is my “take” (as Fareed Zakaria likes to say).  China is ruled by government central planning.  This planning has created an amazing infrastructure that has made China the world’s leading manufacturer.   One of the ship’s lecturers presented a chart of the world’s leading manufacturers.  My figures are from memory and are approximate, but the ranking is correct. 

China is the world’s leading manufacturer at 31%.  The US is second at 16%.  Japan is third at 10%.  Germany is fourth at 4.8%.  And India is fifth at 2.6%.

Many historians and political leaders have called the 20^th century the “American Century. “ China itself and many countries around the world have deemed the 21^st century the “Chinese Century.”  Certainly in manufacturing this is undisputedly the case.  I will expound on my thoughts on this subject in more detail in upcoming blogs in the next two weeks.