China's once-booming rust belt now stuck in reverse amid economic slowdown

The mainland's hard-hit rust belt reflects the country's economic woes. Skyscrapers tower unfinished and abandoned around a lake that forms the centrepiece of a new town, and the wind blows through the empty hulk of what was supposed to be a multistorey complex.

This is Shenfu New Town in northeastern Liaoning province, built to handle the overflow from the once-booming industrial cities of Shenyang and Fushun .

For much of the past decade, this was the country's fastest growing region, the home of the heavy industry that powered the nation's rise and rode on the coattails of a construction boom unparalleled in history.

Today, the mainland economy is undergoing a painful transition that has left the heavy industry reeling and set investors' nerves jangling. The stock market is crashing, and fears of an economic slowdown are spreading. And nowhere is the brunt of that slowdown and the pain of that transition being felt as sharply as here in the northeast.

"Everyone knows what the problem is. It is structural," a Liaoning official dealing with economic policy said. "You need to change the economic structure. But what concrete steps to take? Nobody knows."

Nicknamed the rust belt, the three northeastern provinces have survived tough times before. The challenges they face today reflect many of the challenges China faces as a nation: to curtail the power of state-owned enterprises and allow market forces to play a greater role, to find new drivers of growth, and to reform the economy without causing more pain and upheaval.