Xi’s pet city is working

It is not the best day to visit China’s newest miracle. Thick, milky veils hang over the marshes south of Beijing. In the fog, the old China slips by. Ugly residential towers cluster around polluting factories. We pass suburbs of half a million inhabitants or more that no one outside China has ever heard of. Take a wrong turn here and you end up in a bleak no-man’s-land. “Keep the revolution alive,” reads the blood-red slogans on billboards along the road.

Then, after an hour and a half of driving, the future suddenly emerges from the mist. At a traffic light at the entrance to Xiong’an, an enormous LED screen looms overhead. Flashy drone footage of lush forests, monumental squares, and immaculate parks scrolls past. An impressive data center in the shape of a gleaming blue eye keeps watch over progress. The video ends with a message from President Xi Jinping, beneath a large hammer and sickle: “The people build the city of the people. The city of the people is for the people.”

READ ON ( Dutch, paywalled): https://www.standaard.be/buitenland/op-reportage-in-de-meest-leefbare-stad-van-china-is-xiongan-echt-een-mirakel/106872777.html