The lost "Third City in the North", Qingdao is no longer beautiful

As the "leader" of Shandong, a major economic province in the country, has Qingdao declined? Wang Qingxian, then Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee, said frankly in his speech at the Two Sessions of Qingdao in 2021, "Only by admitting backwardness can we face shortcomings." At the Two Sessions a year ago, Wang Qingxian also bluntly said, "From the perspective of the pattern of urban competition, as a The third city in the north, we have no retreat.”

For a long time, Qingdao’s economic development level has been second only to Beijing and Tianjin among northern cities. However, in recent years, the throne of the "Third City in the North" has been at risk of shifting. Cities such as Xi'an and Zhengzhou have developed rapidly, and their total GDP was once close to that of Qingdao. Is Qingdao really falling behind as Secretary Wang said? Why does Qingdao have no retreat?

In modern times, Qingdao is a city with a glorious history. At one time, like Shanghai and other coastal metropolises, it represented the forerunner of China's industrialization and modernization.

The colonial experience brought suffering to the people of Qingdao, but also brought the seeds of modern industry and modernization, cultivating famous brands such as Tsingtao beer at home and abroad. Qingdao’s textile industry and other traditional industries rank among the best in the Far East. At the advanced level, the Jiaoji Railway, municipal construction, port facilities, etc. are among the leading levels in the country.

In the era of planned economy, Qingdao’s industry continued to lead the way. In the development of urban industry, there was once a saying of "going to the sky". "Shangqingtian" refers to China's three major textile industry bases - Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the light textile industry was a pillar industry of the nation and an important factor in determining the urban development pattern.

Which city's textile industry develops well will be able to take the lead in China's urban development competition. In the mid-1930s, Qingdao had already formed a production system with complete categories and complete industrial chains including yarn spinning, printing and dyeing, and mechanical manufacturing, and its production capacity ranked third in the country.

The textile industrial base has also driven Qingdao’s economic development. Qingdao’s economic ranking has always been at the forefront of the country in the decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In the new era of reform and opening up, Qingdao has actively adjusted its industrial structure. In 1984, Qingdao was listed as the first batch of 14 coastal open cities, becoming a pioneer in opening up to the outside world.

In the same year, the home appliance brand Haier was officially established. The two little boys in swimming trunks (referring to Haier’s logo) later developed rapidly under the leadership of Zhang Ruimin and merged with Hisense, Tsingtao Brewery, Doublestar, and Aucma. Becoming the "Five Golden Flowers" ushered in the spring of Qingdao's manufacturing industry. These five first-tier brands became very popular in the 1990s and greatly promoted Qingdao's economic development. Qingdao also gained the reputation of "Brand Capital".

At the same time, Qingdao has taken advantage of its geographical advantages to actively develop foreign trade and maritime transportation. It has trade relations with more than 130 countries and regions and more than 450 ports in the world, promoting port trade, marine scientific research and other industries. With its development, Qingdao has rapidly grown into a vibrant city.

The blooming of the "Five Golden Flowers" is the result of Qingdao's successful industrial transformation and has created Qingdao's sustained prosperity in the past thirty years. However, in recent years, compared with the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta metropolises that have experienced successful industrial transformation and upgrading and urban renewal and growth, Qingdao no longer looks so dazzling, and even feels lonely.

At present, although the old "Five Golden Flowers" are still active in the domestic market, their influence and market competitiveness are not as good as in the past. Will there be "Five Golden Flowers" after "Five Golden Flowers"? "Fruit", continue to drive Qingdao's industrial development? In addition, with the rise of tertiary industries such as the Internet and finance, Qingdao's industrial structure is still dominated by traditional manufacturing, and economic growth is inevitably weak.

Let’s look at some data. Since 1990, Qingdao's GDP has ranked between 9th and 15th in the country. From 2005 to 2010, it was the golden period of Qingdao's development. It ranked among the top ten in the country, and even ranked first in the country in 2008. A good score of nine.

However, since 2010, Qingdao’s ranking has fallen out of the top ten, and has never been in the top ten since then. In 2016, although Qingdao joined Nanjing in the "trillion club" at the same time, its ranking has been overtaken; in 2019, although Qingdao's GDP still exceeded one trillion.

But on the one hand, it was surpassed by Wuxi and Ningbo, and its ranking fell from 12th to 14th; on the other hand, the GDP difference between Zhengzhou and Qingdao, which followed closely behind, was only about 15.161 billion yuan, and Zhengzhou’s distance " The status of "the third city in the north" is only one step away.

In 2020, Qingdao’s GDP has not yet been announced. At the two sessions held in January, the acting mayor of Qingdao revealed in the government work report that GDP is expected to reach 1.2 trillion yuan. Judging from the published data of other provinces and cities, it is difficult for Qingdao’s GDP to advance into the top ten in 2020. There is a high probability Still hovering around 14. Judging from the above data, Qingdao’s development performance in recent years can only be said to be unsatisfactory. Qingdao, it’s time to worry.

In recent years, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou and other cities have taken turns to be on the Internet celebrity list. Even Guiyang has developed rapidly relying on big data centers and Tianyan, attracting the attention of more and more young people. The flow of high-quality talents directly determines the future development direction of a city. In this era where talent is of vital importance, wars for talent have begun all over the country, and young people are voting with their feet.

However, because Qingdao’s entire industrial system is biased towards traditional manufacturing and long-term advantageous projects such as tourism, it appears to lack selling points online. From the perspective of economic development level, Qingdao's total GDP ranks among the top fifteen cities in the country, second only to Beijing and Tianjin among Beijing cities, and is known as the "Third City in the North".

Qingdao’s seaside scenery and profound historical heritage have also attracted countless tourists. But Qingdao like this cannot retain young people. On April 25, 2019, Wang Qingxian, then Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee, raised a "soul question": Everyone says Qingdao is good, but why is the proportion of local employment among college students not high?

On the one hand, Qingdao lacks emerging industries. It is difficult for professionals in the new era, such as finance, IT and even new media, to find promising jobs in Qingdao. A previous article said that the Northeast is the hometown that young people in the Northeast will never return to.

Traditional industries dominate the market and human society is prevalent, which leaves young people at a loss as to what to do. Qingdao also has similar problems. Qingdao's industrial structure is mainly divided into five parts: first, light industrial enterprises with state-owned assets (Haier, Hisense, Tsingtao Brewery, etc.); second, heavy industries with state-owned assets (Qingdao Port, petroleum, chemical industry, etc.); third, labor-intensive private enterprises (clothing , toys, etc.); the fourth is small and medium-sized trade, finance and other service industries.

It can be seen that Qingdao’s industrial structure is biased towards manufacturing and labor-intensive industries. It is difficult for professionals in the new era such as finance, IT and even new media to find promising jobs in Qingdao. .

On the other hand, Qingdao’s property market prices are catching up with first-tier cities. House prices that can easily reach tens of thousands scare away fresh graduates whose average monthly salary is only 4,000. Housing prices have gone up, but housing conditions are not satisfactory. The problem of urban villages in Qingdao is still a persistent problem and even spreads throughout the urban area.

If you drive 10 minutes from the city center or tourist attractions, you will see many dilapidated buildings that have not been planned or renovated. On the other side of the high-rise buildings and neat roads are dilapidated urban villages. This scene is not uncommon. It was once said that Qingdao is a "gold-rimmed rag". Such living environment and prices undoubtedly scare away many young people.

In addition, the media in Qingdao and even the media in Shandong as a whole are underdeveloped, and their external soft output and publicity capabilities are extremely inconsistent with their economic status. Even with its rich historical heritage and beautiful coastal scenery, it has not strongly attracted talents from other regions.

Food, tourism, history, as well as Qingdao celebrities such as Huang Bo and Huang Xiaoming, Qingdao has countless promotional resources. Think about the recent news about Qingdao that has attracted national attention. News such as the sky-high price of 38 yuan prawns and foreigners cutting queues and fighting with citizens during the epidemic are all eroding Qingdao’s image in the hearts of young people.

Young people are the fresh blood of urban development. Without a steady flow of blood, the decline of the city seems inevitable.

In 2004, Haier's global sales revenue reached 101.6 billion yuan, a moment of great prosperity.

In the same year, Tencent was listed in Hong Kong, and Ma Huateng was awarded the 2004 CCTV China Economic Emerging Figure Award. At the awards ceremony, the host invited Ma Huateng to promote QQ to Zhang Ruimin. Ma Huateng said that QQ will be a new way of communication in the future and will change people's lifestyles.

However, this did not arouse Zhang Ruimin's interest. After hearing this, Zhang Ruimin smiled and declined: "I'm not convinced now. Thank you for your wonderful introduction just now." I don’t know if this conversation was deliberately arranged by the program team or Zhang Ruimin’s true reaction.

QQ, which did not convince Zhang Ruimin, later convinced one billion Chinese people. In this Internet competition in the new millennium, Shandong, represented by Qingdao, never thought about participating. When it came to its senses, it had missed the opportunity.

In the 2020 GDP list of mainland Chinese cities, except for Beijing, the top ten cities are all in the south. In the era of a new round of industrial revolution and information revolution, tertiary industries such as the Internet and finance are opportunities for future development.

The financial industry in Shanghai, the Internet industry in Hangzhou and Shenzhen, and the high-tech industries in Nanjing and Wuhan performed well. Compared with the south, which took the lead early, northern cities are taking more heavy steps to convert old and new driving forces, and the gap between the north and the south is also further widening.

On the one hand, northern cities represented by Qingdao have lost their traditional manufacturing advantages, and on the other hand, they lack new economic growth points. They have insufficient economic vitality, insufficient innovation, population loss, and slow growth. In 2019 The total economic output of the northern region accounts for only 35.2% of the country's total, a decrease of 7.6 percentage points from 2012. Northern cities generally lack new momentum in industry and technology.

If the industry is not upgraded and transformed in time, there will inevitably be a lack of power for sustained growth in the future. In a word, the decline of Qingdao's economic status reflects the trend of China's economic center of gravity gradually shifting southward, and behind it is the overall aphasia of the entire northern economy. So how did the stereotype of contemporary China that “the south is open and advanced, while the north is declining and conservative” come to be? The author believes that the main reasons are as follows:

First, the development gap between the north and the south stems from the choice of different paths. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, the southern coastal areas resolutely decided to vacate the cage and change the bird, carry out industrial transformation and upgrading, and use technology and innovation to drive development; while at the same time, the north still stuck to traditional industries and was obsessed with becoming bigger and stronger.

Some even put forward the concept of "elephant economy", which is to further strengthen the dominant position of large enterprises led by state-owned capital in the regional economy. Under the new concept of high-quality development, the old "elephant climbing" style road in Qingdao, Shandong and even the entire northern city is already full of thorns.

Secondly, from the perspective of historical logic, China’s development logic since the reform and opening up is that “opening up forces reform.” Wherever there is greater openness, there will be greater reform, and the greater the "dividends" of reform and opening up will be.

Looking at the map, the frontiers of opening up in the Pearl River Basin are Shenzhen and Guangzhou; the "window" for opening up in the Yangtze River Basin is Shanghai; and the Yellow River Basin and even northern China lack cities that can lead opening up. Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, and Yantai have all participated in the opening up, but they are basically "working on their own" and have not formed a "cluster effect." It is even less possible to create a national economic core area comparable to "Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao" and the "Yangtze River Delta".

Therefore, finding new important strategic fulcrums will be a major difficulty and breakthrough for the future development of northern cities. Who can break through this process first and lead the northern cities? Obviously, Qingdao is a "seeded player", but it also has many competitors.

More importantly, the overall business environment in the north and the "bureaucratic disease" of sticking to old rules are not suitable for the market-oriented and legalized social development environment: government officials have a strong official-centered mentality and the cultural atmosphere encourages It is difficult to breed the seeds of innovation by following the rules.

Let’s take a look at a short story: When a Qingdao government official attended an exchange meeting for young entrepreneurs from Qingdao and Shenzhen, he discovered that the three Shenzhen entrepreneurs who came to the meeting were all from Shandong. After a conversation about the comparison of the entrepreneurial environments between Shandong and Shenzhen, the official told the entrepreneurs that being from Shandong but starting a business in Shenzhen is not your problem, but our problem.

As far as Qingdao is concerned, local leaders also "learned from the experience" and inspired innovation. Wang Qingxian, then secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee, proposed "learning from Shenzhen and catching up with Shenzhen" in the second month after taking office. By benchmarking against Shenzhen, what we can learn from is Shenzhen’s spirit of openness, innovation and reform.

Create a market-oriented, legal, professional, open, service-oriented and efficient "three modernizations and three types" government service environment suitable for the development of market economy and innovative economy. Different from the past superficial visits and studies, Qingdao is serious about it this time.

The bureau-level and division-level cadres dispatched from Qingdao did not go to the government for temporary employment. Instead, they went directly to Ping An Securities, Huawei, BYD, China Resources Group, Tencent and other companies as ordinary employees. "Working" for an enterprise, standing at the counter, making plans, negotiating with all parties, reversing roles, truly experiencing how Shenzhen officials communicate with entrepreneurs, and then reflecting on themselves, the results are outstanding.

After the officials return, they still need to hand in their homework and propose improvement measures. Through this role reversal, government officials have a deeper understanding of market logic and have gradually adapted to the idea of ??using market logic to make decisions and making good use of the power of capital to do things. If a new trend can be formed, it will undoubtedly play an important role in promoting the future development of Qingdao.

From the perspective of economic size, Qingdao’s GDP still ranks among the top in the country. Although it is still expected to maintain the title of "The Third City in the North" in 2020, it is standing in the middle of the river at this time, looking at the other side, and Under the water, there is already an "undercurrent".

Qingdao’s industrial structure problems and weak talent attraction have initially shown their negative impact. As time goes by, its disadvantages will inevitably gradually emerge. So what are the future prospects of Qingdao with "no way out"? Will it continue to lag behind? The author is cautiously optimistic about the future development of Qingdao.

I am optimistic because Qingdao still has its unique advantages. The previous article analyzed that Qingdao’s economic structure focuses on industry and traditional manufacturing. It is lagging behind in the transformation of emerging tertiary industries such as finance and the Internet, and is in urgent need of industrial upgrading.

When it comes to industrial upgrading, companies like Huawei and Alibaba are indispensable. So does Qingdao have to cultivate companies like Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent for its transformation to be successful? Not really.

Qingdao has a complete industrial system. Traditional industrial manufacturing accounts for the main part of the economic structure. Some people criticize Qingdao’s industrial structure for being more heavy-duty. However, this is not a disadvantage. On the contrary, it is the reason why Qingdao has turned against the wind and risen again. important foundation.

Looking back at the U.S. economy, it has turned away from reality and is gradually showing signs of decline. This is a warning that China cannot blindly pursue tertiary industries such as the financial industry and the Internet industry. It still needs to develop real economies such as industrial manufacturing and industrial manufacturing. as the foundation of national development. Qingdao, which has missed the mobile Internet trend, can no longer miss the development wave of the industrial Internet.

In the future development era of Industry 4.0, Qingdao’s industrial manufacturing base undoubtedly has incomparable advantages. In the future, Qingdao must seize the opportunity of this round of industrial transformation and upgrading, promote the upgrading of the industrial models of manufacturing enterprises through integrated innovation and Internet +, and create a new engine for economic development.

In addition, Qingdao, as a hub of “domestic and international dual circulation”, has opportunities for open development. In 2020, Secretary Wang Qingxian proposed when attracting foreign investment that "investing in Qingdao is investing in the national strategy." For more than 40 years of reform and opening up, Qingdao has been at the "front row" in the pace of the country's opening up: it has been selected into the first batch of 14 coastal open cities, cities under separate state planning, and sub-provincial cities.

Become the leading city in the core area of ??the Shandong Peninsula Blue Economic Zone, an important node of the "New Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor" and a major node of the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", a "dual positioning city", and an ecological center of the Yellow River Basin. Protect and high-quality development of core and port gateway cities. At present, our country is building a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles reinforcing each other.

The domestic circulation must open up the north-south and traverse the east-west circulation. Qingdao is both a developed city on the eastern coast and an important town north of the Yangtze River; coordinating both domestic and international cycles must be guided by openness.

Qingdao is a major node city in the “New Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor” that connects Japan and South Korea to the east and inland to the west. It has inherent advantages in promoting "interconnection" among East Asian countries.

It can be said that in the new development pattern, Qingdao is not only the "dual node" of the "dual circulation" of internal and external circulation, but also the "key hub" of the domestic east-west, north-south circulation. Some readers may have questions, what are the uses of the so-called "sub-provincial cities", "node cities" and "dual circulation"? How many "hats" can a city get rich by?

The author believes that the few flamboyant names may seem innocuous, but the essence behind them is the blessing of national policies. In China, policy means investment of resources. Why do students prefer “211, 985” universities? Behind the six numbers is a steady stream of real money support. Why was Shenzhen able to “rise overnight” in the early stages of reform and opening up? The central government’s special zone policy played a key role.

In the same way, with the support of national policies, Qingdao is expected to revive. If we can learn from the painful experience, change our concepts, seize the opening opportunities under the "dual cycle", promote innovation with opening up, and force reform with innovation, Qingdao will surely usher in a new round of development climax.

Finally, let’s talk about the issue of conceptual change: The first thing Qingdao needs to do is to abandon its obsession with the status of “the third city in the north”. The so-called third city in the north is just a ranking of urban GDP. Urban development is a multi-dimensional and complex systematic project.

Government officials should abandon the simple “city championship” ranking mentality. We should not focus on temporary development or rush for quick success, but should focus on the overall situation and take a long-term view to accumulate momentum for Qingdao's strong rejuvenation.