Comments on: Travel: The province of Zhejiang

By: Julen Madariaga

Julen Madariaga — Sun, 02 May 2010 10:43:07 +0000

I knew that somebody would come back to me on that, so I checked the Wikipedia list of cities to be sure. Hangzhou, in spite of having a larger population than Madrid, is not even among the 10 biggest cities in China. In fact if I remember well it hardly makes it into the top 20 in population.

“Major city” is a relative term. Many major cities in Europe have less population than secondary cities in China, no surprise there.

I know you could make a case for calling Hangzhou “major”, it is an important city in many ways. But my point was that the province economy is not relying on one city. Hangzhou is only one of the motors of the Zhejiang economy.

By: FOARP

FOARP — Sun, 02 May 2010 09:22:28 +0000

No major cities? Hangzhou, with a population larger than that of every European city except Moscow, London, and Paris, is not a ‘major city’? Or is this a little touch of the Shanghai snobbery?

By: robertwoo

robertwoo — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:19:24 +0000

Glad you love my hometown

By: Julen Madariaga

Julen Madariaga — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:13:24 +0000

Come on Sijia, I am not a newbie. if I write something there is a reason for it. Ningxia is not a province but an administrative region, and Hainan is not on the mainland. Not to nitpick, but Zhejiang IS strictly the smallest province in the mainland!

Other than that, thanks for the info. I am curious about this laissez-faire tradition you mention of laissez-faire in Zhejiang. To what period you are referring exactly? And do you have any good link/book about it? Thanks!

By: Sijia Chen

Sijia Chen — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:56:55 +0000

By the way, avoid eating too much bamboo sprout, it contains a large amount of fibre, be prepared of a “too smooth” digestion experience. And you looked very handsome in the photo

By: Sijia Chen

Sijia Chen — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:53:47 +0000

I have to start this reply with the correction that Zhejiang is by no means the smallest province in China, small as it is, it’s much bigger than both Ningxia and Hainan. Besides this minor mistake, your observation is surprisingly insightful, (真是当局者迷，旁观者清哪）Zhejiang is definitely a distinct place, in fact I would consider it a remnant of a economy which considered by many economists to be the world’s earliest laissez faire economy and the centre of it, a part of the tradition of Chinese civilization that is rarely mentioned today. Due to a variety of factors, this tradition is preserved in Zhejiang, the most recent ones being the CCP’s choice to pacify rather than to purge the capitalist class like their Russian comrades, and no state investment in Zhejiang, President Chiang’s birthplace, forcing its residents to fight their own way out. Some interesting data here, Zhejiang’s population is close to that of Anhui, but during the Great Famine, it’s estimated that 181,000 Zhejiang people died of starvation, compared to 5,000,000 in Anhui. Zhejiang also has the lowest Gini coefficient in China, due to its highly developed 民营经济 and 乡镇企业.