Wuxi: An inspiring experience in China

In early November 2006, I had the opportunity to visit China as part of an Argentine congressional delegation. Two things captured my attention. The first involves the sensitive cultural distance between Argentines and Chinese. This is a fact that should not be overlooked when planning an approach to the Asian giant. Examples of this are the extremely rigid protocol, the strict respect for hierarchy, the language barrier, customs, foods, interpersonal relationships, etc. To make my point even more clearly, in more than fifteen meetings we had in China, only the highest-ranking person spoke.  

Another aspect that struck me was the economic development that occurred since 1978. The scale of the development is truly monumental. Nothing is small-scale in China. It is said that half of all the world’s large construction cranes are in China.

Also, everything is planned and nothing left to chance. For example, all the cities in Eastern China have their own urban planning department in charge of managing growth, discussing future challenges, and anticipating problems. The concept is simple: given the scale on which they are working, a lack of planning would result in chaos. In short, they dedicate resources to achieve sustainable and liveable cities.

One of these planned towns we visited was three thousand years old. Then, two decades ago, the government decided to entirely rethink it. The city is Wuxi, which has 4.3 million inhabitants.   It is located in the populous province of Jiangsu (74 million inhabitants). Wuxi’s location is strategic because it lies on the banks of the Yangtze River which flows into Shanghai, 75 miles (120 km) to the east.

In 1992 the city government, decided to build a 125 square-mile (200 km²), model industrial district from scratch. The district would be built with exclusively foreign direct investment only. It proposed to provide the best conditions so the investors would feel comfortable.

Then they said, we have an unbeatable location, we are one and a half hours from Nanjing (7.4 million), which is the capital of Jiangsu. We also near China’s principal economic, industrial and port city, Shanghai (13 million). They wanted to be able to offer the necessary infrastructure (energy, water, waste treatment, telecommunications, natural gas, etc.) They also knew that had to provide adequate transportation (airports, highways, rail, river ports, canal dredging). They knew they would have to rely on highly trained human resources. Also, foreigners who chose to live and work in Wuxi, needed to enjoy good quality of life, with access to a healthy environment, entertainment and cultural activities, not to mention quality but low cost housing options. Finally, it is critical - they thought - to guarantee the foreign investor’s rights.  As if this were not enough, they sought to make the cost of settling in the industrial park as cheap as possible.