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Pudong: Masterpiece of Deng's opening thoughts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-08-17 16:13
Shen Ruqun, now in his seventies and retired from Shanghai Pudong Bus
Company, has participated in designing and producing ten editions of a map of
Pudong District during the past 14 years. He is thus considered a "living map"
of the area.
However, Shen said he might lose his way on the street if he stayed home for
several weeks, because the "changing pace of Pudong is much faster than the
updates on the maps."
"Roads are growing wider and wider, and rows upon rows of modern buildings
are mushrooming on the previous shabby residential area -- Pudong District has
successfully made itself a world-class financial center from a poverty-stricken
backward countryside within just 14 years," Shen said.
Pudong on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River which cuts the metropolis
into two was known as the Pudong New Area when large-scale development began 14
years ago.
The epitome of the modernization construction in Shanghai and symbol of
China's reform and opening up policy, Pudong District has rapidly achieved what
Western countries have done in more than100 years' efforts.
The retiree said "Pudong could never thrive like this without China's ever
greatest reformist, Deng Xiaoping."
When China's four special economic zones -- Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and
Xiamen enjoyed rapid development in the 1980s, Shanghai boggled itself in
slowness and hesitation.
Deng said it was "a big mistake" of his that he did not add Shanghai into the
opening list for the first batch.
Spending the 1990's Spring Festival in Shanghai, Deng was thinking of
developing Pudong District as a further promotion of the reform and opening up
policy.
"Shanghai is a trump card in China's modernization construction and it is
necessary to make it more open," said Deng.
On Feb. 18, 1991, about one year after the central government's decision of
Pudong development, Deng saw the designed map and the construction models of the
new Pudong District when he visited Shanghai again.
He said to Mayor Zhu Rongji, who became China's premier several years later,
that the development of Pudong was crucial to the future progress of the entire
Shanghai, and even to the Yangtze River Delta.
"Nothing should affect the development in the district," Deng said. "We
should develop it with fresher thoughts and at a faster speed."
Today Pudong District has taken on a prosperous look and attracts an
increasing number of tourists from both at home and abroad, said Yao Jianliang,
a staff member of Shanghai Lujiazui Group.
In the past, people could only cross the Huangpu River by ferryboat, but now
six bridges and five tunnels have been built, connecting Shanghai's most
flourishing western district with Pudong.
Yao said Pudong District was admitted to be the best stage for investment and
carving out a new business.
Investors and specialists from both at home and abroad come to Shanghai every
year, filling Pudong with more than 300,000 people of higher learning now. There
are 40 international communities in the new district, with over 20,000
foreigners.
Covering one twelfth of Shanghai's total area, Pudong District contributes
one quarter of the municipality's GDP and more than half of its foreign trade
each year.
Last year, Pudong achieved a GDP of 150.4 billion yuan (US$18.2), 25 times
that in 1990 when development just began.
Yao, a native of Pudong, has used more than 3000 rolls of film to take
100,000 pictures in the past 14 years, recording the sharp changes of his
hometown.
There was an old-time saying among Shanghai residents that "they would just
want a bed in the old western area of the city rather than take a house in
Pudong." But today one house out of four sold is in Pudong.
"I am proud to be a Pudong resident," Yao said. "We must express our deepest
gratitude toward Deng Xiaoping. Hopefully my pictures could rest him in peace."
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