Participate.

According to the official statement, in the next step, the Regional Department will work with relevant parties to give full play to the coordination and coordination role, actively guide relevant enterprises and financial institutions to participate in the ecological protection of the Yellow River Basin and high-quality national strategies, improve market-oriented cooperation mechanisms, and build government banks. Enterprise cooperation platform, expand financing channels for major projects, and work together to promote ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.

02

The importance of the Yellow River is continuously being pushed up. Looking at it from another angle, it just shows that the situation is very urgent.

Yellow River Basin sketch map (data picture)

The Yellow River Basin spans 9 provinces, including Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong, and involves 8 provincial capitals including Xining, Lanzhou, Yinchuan, Hohhot, Taiyuan, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, and Jinan. There are 61 prefecture-level cities (states, leagues) with a drainage area of ​​795,000 square kilometers, which are described as “the lifeblood of northern economy”.

Data shows that in 2015, the permanent population of the Yellow River Basin was 426 million, accounting for 31% of the country’s total; the permanent population increased to 435 million in 2019, and the proportion remained at 31%. (Note: 2020 data has not yet been released)

However, the proportion of the total economic volume of the river basin has gradually declined, from 19.1 trillion yuan in 2015, accounting for 28.3% of the country’s share, to 25% in 2020.

At the same time, there are also obvious gaps in the upper and lower reaches of the basin. Except for the two provinces of Shandong and Henan, the upper and middle reaches of the seven provinces are all underdeveloped areas. The difference in GDP per capita between Yushu in Qinghai at the source and Dongying in Shandong at the mouth of the sea is nearly 10 times (data for 2019).

Compared with the population and economy accounted for more than 40% in the Yangtze River Basin, the Yellow River Basin is indeed inferior. Why hasn’t the Yellow River formed another “economic belt”?

Lu Dadao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out in an earlier article that the lack of shipping benefits of the Yellow River is the primary reason for not becoming the “Yellow River Economic Belt” today. In addition, due to the curved direction of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, there are no long trunk railway lines and energy transmission channels along the Yellow River that combine to form a powerful comprehensive transportation channel.

The article further suggests that in the Yellow RiverWithin the scope of the river basin, ecological construction and protection, and the rational use of water resources need to have a “game of chess” concept.

The area covered by the Yellow River is a traditional agricultural area in China. At this stage, it has a huge planting industry and agricultural animal husbandry, and the scale of agricultural commercial production is expanding day by day. It plays an important role in safeguarding national food security, the supply of high-quality agricultural and livestock products, and export production. In the future, the transformation and development must strengthen the production of intensive and high-quality agricultural and livestock products, which has great potential.

Chen Yaoxiang, Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Association of Regional Economics, said that the three aspects of industry, urban life and agricultural non-point source pollution in the Yellow River Basin are relatively serious, “and most of the agricultural water is still flooded. The situation of water resources protection is not optimistic.”

Not only that, the Yellow River itself has a large amount of sediment, and it is quite “willful” to swing back and forth, affecting the two banks, the “overground river” formed in the contest between the river bed and the river embankment, so that everyone living downstream It’s like a huge reservoir hanging overhead. Once the dyke bursts, it will be a vast ocean.

Chen Yao also mentioned in the interview that the problem of flooding and bank washing of the Yellow River is not limited to the downstream. The end of the “Jiziwan” in the middle reaches is almost close to the Lianhuo Expressway. If the ecological environment is not strengthened and repaired, it may be Threaten this main traffic artery.

Uncle Cheng also noticed that at present, the air quality in cities along the Yellow River is generally poor. According to the latest national ecological environment quality profile for 2020 issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, among the 168 key cities, according to the comprehensive index of ambient air quality, 21 cities have relatively poor ambient air quality, and 16 of them are from the Yellow River basin provinces.

03

For local governments, major strategic moves often mean a new round of opportunities.

At the national level, Wang Zhiqing, Vice Minister of Transport, stated at the press conference of the State Council Information Office yesterday (March 24) that a convenient, green and safe comprehensive transportation network will be built in the Yellow River Basin to “support and lead a major regional strategy.”

If the passageway construction can be accelerated, it will help the region better connect with advanced productivity and find endogenous power through more open cooperation.

The action at the provincial level has already begun.

In February this year, the Standing Committee of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee reviewed and approved the “ShanxiThe Provincial Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection and High-Quality Development Plan” stated that major measures such as ecological restoration, returning farmland to forest and grassland, coal mining subsidence area management, five-water comprehensive reform, etc., implement national land greening, coloring and financialization actions to promote industry Intensive and economical allocation of population, factors, and high-quality development under the premise of high-level protection.

In March, the “Implementation Plan for Establishing a Horizontal Ecological Compensation Mechanism in the Yellow River Basin in Henan Province” was issued, clarifying that pilot projects will be carried out from 2021 to 2023 to explore the establishment of a river basin ecological compensation standard accounting system. The demonstration areas include Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Anyang, Hebi, Xinxiang, Jiaozuo, Puyang, Sanmenxia, ​​and Jiyuan demonstration areas.

In the same period, the Shandong Provincial Leading Group for Promoting Ecological Protection and High-quality Development of the Yellow River Basin held an enlarged meeting to “listen to reports on the progress of the province, review relevant documents, and study and deploy next steps.”

Dongying, the estuary city, stated that it has set up a special work class since October 2019, and initiated the preparation of the “Yellow River Delta Ecological Protection and High-quality Development Implementation Plan”, “clear positioning and rapid action”, and strive to become the Yellow River Basin ecology Protection and high-quality development “C position”.

In addition, there have been many expressions of striving for the “construction of a pioneering zone for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin” mentioned in the “14th Five-Year Plan” outline.

Ningxia: To build the Yellow River Basin ecological protection and high-quality development pioneer area as the mission of the times

Shaanxi: Support Yan’an to build a pioneer area for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin

Shandong: Give full play to the leading role of the Shandong Peninsula city cluster to create a pioneering area for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin

Lanzhou: To create a pioneering zone and high-quality development demonstration zone for ecological safety in the upper reaches of the Yellow River

Of course, what attracts more attention is how several central cities use the momentum to “strengthen” and “lead and lead”. The sixth meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee held in January 2020 made it clear:

To promote the development of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration, promote the coordinated development of the “ji” bend metropolitan area of ​​the Yellow River, strengthen the leading role of the national central cities of Xi’an and Zhengzhou, give play to the leading role of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration, and promote the central cities and cities along the Yellow River. High-quality development of urban agglomerations.

Uncle Cheng learned from the interview that some experts have suggested to Zhengzhou for “cross-river development” to form an urban pattern in which the Yellow River “passes through the city”. Jinan’s “North Crossing” has been mentioned for many years, and it is hoped that “a breakthrough will be made in 2025, and urban construction will move from the Daming Lake era to the Yellow River era.” (Guess you want to watch: “”Conquer” the Yellow River, Jinan all the way north”)

However, as the writer Bill Porter described, “The Yellow River is like a swinging fire-fighting gun, from south to north.” The focus of this regional strategy is still on ecological protection and restoration. Let the Yellow River first “Stabilize”.

Text | Yu Ruijun

(Intern Liu Yaling also contributed to this article)