Why Xi Jinping put his new city dream in old hands
Former Shanghai mayor Xu Kuangdi, 79, played key role in Pudong’s development
President Xi Jinping has put his dream for the Xiongan New Area in old hands.
During a site inspection in February, septuagenarian former Shanghai mayor Xu Kuangdi, the man who played a key role in transforming that city’s riverside Pudong backwater into China’s financial hub, was photographed at Xi’s right hand.
Xu, now 79, was mayor of Shanghai from 1995 to 2001. His new role in Xi’s “thousand-year” plan to develop the city of Xiongan, encompassing three counties in central Hebei, is a reflection of the president’s preference for a voice free from the vested interests of ministries and local authorities.
After state media announced on April 1 that China planned to build a new city in Hebei to rival Shenzhen and Pudong, Xu told the official Xinhua news agency Xiongan was chosen because the area was like “a piece of white paper”, making it possible for Xi to create a dream city.
Xu retired from all public positions in the past decade, standing down as a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 2013 and as president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2010. However, he assumed a low-profile advisory role in 2014 as the head of the expert committee on the president’s Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration plan.
His Xiongan role adds a solid endnote to a long career that has tracked China’s transformation from a weak country into a global economic powerhouse.