分类： business

Nestled in the mountainous regions of East China’s Fujian province, centuries-old circular Tulou earthen buildings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2008, are undergoing a remarkable transformation that blends centuries of cultural heritage with 21st-century traveler demands. What once drew casual day-trippers for quick sightseeing stops is now evolving into a high-end experiential tourism destination, breathing new economic life into these historic architectural treasures.

For modern tourists like Ju, who traveled to Zhangzhou with her family to stay at Changrong Building, a converted Tulou boutique homestay, the appeal lies in stepping into living history rather than just observing it from a distance. “I really wanted to experience what it’s like to live in a Tulou,” Ju explained. “It is quiet and unique.”

Completed in 2023 through a renovation project led by a team from Xiamen University, Changrong Building strikes a careful balance between preservation and modern comfort. The structure’s handcrafted earthen exterior and historic layout remain fully intact, while the interior has been upgraded to meet contemporary traveler expectations: 12 custom-designed modern-themed rooms now feature sound insulation, smart home technology, and dedicated public reading spaces. Beyond accommodation, the homestay offers immersive cultural activities, including guided tea picking in surrounding plantations and traditional Chinese costume photo experiences, giving visitors hands-on engagement with local culture.

Huang Zhihui, secretary-general of the local Tulou homestay association and a native who grew up in a Tulou cluster, has witnessed the sector’s steady evolution. He recalled that the earliest Tulou homestays suffered from a lack of professional management and basic private amenities, failing to meet the growing expectations of domestic travelers who now prioritize cultural depth and service quality over low prices.

To address this shift, Huang developed an intangible cultural heritage market near the iconic Huaiyuan Building, one of the most famous historic Tulou sites. Since opening in May 2025, the market has already drawn more than 700,000 domestic and international visitors. To resonate with younger travelers who value interactive, shareable experiences, Huang’s team introduced tech-integrated creative souvenirs: NFC-enabled sound postcards and gypsum Tulou models that let visitors access and play their own personal travel clips by tapping the souvenir with a smartphone, turning a simple memento into a personalized keepsake.

The revitalization movement extends beyond Nanjing County to neighboring Hua’an County, where traditional Tulou structures have been repurposed for a wide range of cultural and commercial uses. Empty historic buildings have been converted into bamboo art galleries showcasing local craft traditions, specialty coffee shops, and community libraries, creating new public spaces for both tourists and local residents.

Local tourism authorities have also leaned into modern cultural trends to attract younger audiences. During the 2026 Spring Festival holiday, Hua’an launched an immersive China-chic interactive game that invited tourists to take on character roles, interact with non-player actors, and complete themed challenges centered on traditional folk dances and historic Chinese sports. The innovative activation delivered impressive results: official data shows Hua’an’s Tulou scenic area welcomed more than 100,000 tourists during the holiday week, with ticket revenue rising 23% year-on-year to more than 6.2 million yuan (approximately $904,000). Driven by popular intangible heritage night parades, nighttime visitor numbers surged by 73.72% compared to the previous year, turning a former half-day sightseeing spot into a multi-day destination.

Lin Ying, director of the Hua’an Cultural, Sports, and Tourism Bureau, outlined the long-term vision for the region’s Tulou tourism transformation. “We aim to transform Tulou tourism from a half-day trip into a full-day, overnight experience,” Lin said. “Our goal is to move beyond visiting a single building to creating a regional destination where visitors can experience a life that begins with nature and returns to the warmth of the hearth.”

This adaptive reuse model has turned declining historic structures into economic drivers, proving that cultural heritage can thrive when paired with innovative hospitality and thoughtful modernization, rather than being locked away as static museum pieces.

A landmark milestone for regional connectivity in eastern China was reached Tuesday, as construction crews finished full track-laying for Shanghai Metro Line 22, the city’s first ever rail transit project that crosses the Yangtze River. The completion marks a critical leap forward in advancing the long-term integrated development strategy for the Yangtze River Delta, one of China’s most economically dynamic urban clusters.

Also widely referred to as the Chongming Line, this new transit link is set to drastically shrink travel times between Chongming Island and central Shanghai, expand regional accessibility, and unlock fresh growth potential across the entire delta region. Chongming Island, China’s third-largest island, is a geographic formation created entirely by sediment carried and deposited by the Yangtze River over thousands of years, and has long faced connectivity gaps with mainland Shanghai that have limited its economic and social development.

Stretching 42 kilometers from Jinji Road Station in Pudong New Area to Yu’an Station at the northern end of Chongming Island, the new line is designed to handle operating speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour. Its route crosses the Yangtze River twice, passing through mid-route Changxing Island, and includes eight stations along its full alignment. Once the line enters full commercial operation, it is expected to reshape regional mobility patterns, support balanced economic development across Shanghai’s riverine regions, and strengthen interconnectedness between major cities across the Yangtze River Delta, supporting coordinated growth in trade, tourism, and industry.

A landmark cross-border energy infrastructure partnership between China and Laos has reached a major milestone, with the 500-kilovolt China-Laos power interconnection project officially entering commercial operation on Monday, April 21, 2026. Developed to deepen bilateral energy cooperation, this new facility stands as the largest and highest-voltage cross-border power grid project ever constructed between the two neighboring nations.

According to data released by China Southern Power Grid Lancang-Mekong International, the project delivers a transformative upgrade to bilateral energy exchange capacity. Prior to the launch of this new infrastructure, the maximum power transmission capacity between China and Laos stood at just 50,000 kilowatts. The newly commissioned project pushes this capacity to 1.5 million kilowatts — a 30-fold increase over the previous interconnection line.

Beyond expanding capacity, the project is designed to facilitate large-scale cross-border exchange of clean energy. Project operators project that the interconnection will support the annual transmission of approximately 3 billion kilowatt-hours of low-carbon electricity between the two countries, helping to balance energy supply and demand while supporting decarbonization goals on both sides of the border.

The project’s completion comes amid growing regional cooperation on energy infrastructure across the Lancang-Mekong region, where cross-border interconnection projects are increasingly seen as a tool to improve energy security, expand access to affordable clean power, and strengthen economic ties between participating nations.

Against a backdrop of mounting global geoeconomic instability – driven by the second Donald Trump U.S. presidency and escalating hostilities in the Middle East – China’s evolving strategic approach to economic cooperation with Africa has grown increasingly critical for both sides. This strategic shift, which first began taking shape in 2019, is centered on a new investment-focused framework anchored in central China’s Hunan Province, developed to address longstanding flaws in earlier cooperation models and adapt to shifting domestic and global demands.

The old Angola Model, which paired Chinese infrastructure construction in African nations for access to natural resource extraction, ran into significant sustainability challenges. Many African economies, inherently vulnerable to external market shocks, struggled to keep pace with growing debt repayment obligations under this framework. Simultaneously, shifting domestic economic priorities in China and rising trade barriers on traditional global trade routes pushed Beijing to pursue a new path. The country selected Hunan as the core implementation hub for this next era of China-Africa trade and development, giving rise to what analysts now call the Hunan Model. Its strategic importance grew further following the formal approval of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Deep Cooperation Pilot Zone in early 2024, building on the momentum of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition launched that same year.

At its core, the Hunan Model aims to deepen balanced trade and industrial integration between China and African nations. It is designed to directly address three of the most persistent barriers to African development: chronic shortages of capital, skilled labor, and reliable infrastructure, while also providing China with a stable, expanding supply of critical natural resources.

### The Structural Framework of the Hunan Model
The model is built around two flagship national policy initiatives: the China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition, and the integrated logistics, trade, and investment system of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Deep Cooperation Pilot Zone, which is designed to align Chinese and African supply chains for mutually beneficial development.

Hunan’s capital city Changsha hosts China’s third-largest wholesale market, the Gaoqiao Grand Market, which serves as the primary distribution hub for non-commodity imports from Africa. The market operates expedited “green lanes” that speed African exports to Chinese consumers, and hosts a permanent trade facilitation hall where African nations can directly showcase their goods and access targeted trade support services.

To connect landlocked Hunan to global markets with a focus on African trade, the model leverages three geographically focused functional hubs:
1. The Changsha Free Trade Airport Zone, a national airfreight hub that added the direct Changsha-Addis Ababa cargo route in 2022 to expand direct connectivity between China and East Africa.
2. Yueyang Chenglingji Port, which links Hunan’s heavy industrial sectors – including timber processing and machinery manufacturing – to global shipping routes via the Yangtze River.
3. The Changsha Jinxia Economic Zone, which supports combined sea-rail trade corridors from Hunan to southern China’s Guangdong province, before goods continue onward to Africa.

Five specialized industry clusters drive targeted trade, investment, and industrial development across both regions, focusing on sectors where Hunan already holds strong competitive advantages that align with African industrialization goals. Key sectors include construction machinery, mining equipment, and precious metals processing. Beyond the permanent exhibition space in Changsha, the China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition now hosts regular expos in both China and African nations, with events already launched in key African economies including Kenya and Nigeria in recent years.

### Global Shocks Accelerate the Model’s Expansion
Analyst Lauren Johnston, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre who has studied China-Africa trade relations for years, argues that recent geopolitical shocks – particularly the ongoing Middle East tensions and their cascading global economic disruptions – are speeding two key Chinese policy shifts that play directly to the Hunan Model’s strengths: China’s accelerated transition to renewable energy and economy-wide electrification, and its push to open new emerging markets for Chinese goods. Both shifts carry profound implications for Africa.

Already, the second Trump presidency and escalating U.S.-China trade tensions have boosted the Hunan Model’s importance. As Western markets have grown increasingly restrictive for Chinese exports, China has rapidly pivoted toward deeper economic engagement with the Global South, and Africa has been a major beneficiary. In 2025, while China’s total global foreign trade grew by just 3.8%, bilateral China-Africa trade surged by 17.7%.

Disruptions to global energy supply chains from Middle East hostilities are only intensifying China’s push for renewables and electrification. That has driven skyrocketing global demand for electric vehicle (EV) technology – and Hunan is home to one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers, Chinese giant BYD. Hunan’s central role in China’s domestic renewables industry, from electric mobility to critical minerals processing and infrastructure construction, positions the Hunan Model to lead a new renewable-powered phase of China-Africa cooperation.

This shift is already visible in trade data: In 2025, the fastest growing segment of Changsha’s exports to Africa was the so-called “new three items” – lithium batteries, electric vehicles, and photovoltaic products. Year-on-year, Hunan’s exports of these goods to Africa jumped 160.4%, 840.4%, and 62.1% respectively, earning them the status of a new calling card for Hunan’s trade with the continent. Beyond EV maker BYD, Hunan is also headquarters for rail giant CRRC, which is leading a surge in exports of green electric railway infrastructure to African nations. Following recent supply disruptions linked to Middle East tensions, China also announced plans to establish a new national rare minerals research and innovation hub in Changsha, further strengthening Hunan’s position in critical global supply chains.

### Addressing Remaining Risks for Mutually Beneficial Growth
While the Hunan Model represents a clear improvement over older extraction-focused frameworks, and prioritizes reducing non-tariff barriers to balanced trade, notable risks remain. The divergent growth rates of bilateral trade – China’s exports to Africa rose 17.7% in 2025, while African exports to China grew by just 5.4% – highlights a growing trade imbalance that needs to be addressed to ensure long-term sustainability.

For long-term inclusive growth, African nations and sub-regions need to build out their own domestic industrial supply chains, following the path China took when it attracted foreign investment to build its own industrial base. While the Hunan Model already supports a research alliance of Chinese scholars and industry experts to guide its development, African nations need to develop equivalent local research and governance capacity to shape cooperation on their own terms.

In an era of repeated global economic shocks that have upended traditional trade and growth frameworks, the Hunan Model is no longer just an experimental policy idea. It is already driving tangible economic transformation across China and Africa, and carries significant potential for shared, sustained growth for both regions in the decades ahead.

Driven by shifting generational attitudes that position pets as beloved family members rather than simple companions, China’s pet sector is undergoing rapid expansion, with cities in northern Shanxi province emerging as a key example of the industry’s evolution beyond basic retail into a diversified, professionalized ecosystem.

Across Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, this growing demand for high-quality pet care has spawned a wave of new specialized services, ranging from standardized in-home pet sitting and high-speed rail pet transport to advanced veterinary care for aging animals. One of the professionals at the heart of this booming market is Chen Hong, a 40-year-old full-time in-home pet sitter who turned her years of personal pet ownership experience into a full-time career last winter.

During a recent service call, Chen followed strict industry hygiene protocols: putting on disposable shoe covers and gloves, and spraying disinfectant throughout the entryway before entering the client’s home, where two friendly cats immediately greeted her with affectionate attention. As she played gently with the animals, Chen explained the core driver of rising demand for her work. “More and more people consider their pets as family members and emotional anchors, ” she said. “As a result, pet owners are increasingly demanding higher quality services that put their pets’ comfort first.”

Chen’s work focuses on supporting pet owners who travel for work or leisure, providing in-home services that include feeding, litter box cleaning, and dedicated playtime. On an average day, she travels between Taiyuan’s residential communities to complete five to six appointments, with peak demand during national holiday seasons pushing her daily schedule to more than a dozen bookings.

Chen’s career transition mirrors a much larger national trend, as skyrocketing pet ownership across China creates thousands of new professional roles and opens up major new economic opportunities. Data from the 2026 China Pet Industry White Paper underscores the scale of this growth: urban China is now home to nearly 126 million pet dogs and cats, pushing the national pet industry market size to 312.6 billion yuan, equivalent to roughly $45.5 billion. Industry forecasts project that total consumer spending on pet-related products and services will climb to 405 billion yuan by 2028.

Unlike traditional pet boarding facilities that require owners to leave their animals at an off-site location, in-home pet sitting aligns far better with pets’ natural routines and reduces the stress animals often experience when separated from their owners in unfamiliar environments. That benefit has made the service increasingly popular among younger pet owners like Zhang Zining, a 28-year-old Taiyuan resident who owns an Abyssinian cat. Zhang says she always books in-home sitting services whenever she plans to travel for more than two days, citing the peace of mind it gives her knowing her pet is comfortable in its own home.

Local authorities in Shanxi have also moved to standardize this fast-growing sector, introducing formal guidelines to ensure service quality and consumer protection, laying the groundwork for the pet economy’s sustained long-term growth across the region.

Against a backdrop of rising global food security uncertainties fueled by geopolitical turbulence, a landmark long-term agricultural outlook report released Monday projects that China will record a modest but steady uptick in domestic grain output in 2026, while seeing the first decline in imports of major agricultural commodities – most notably soybeans – in recent years.

The *China Agricultural Outlook (2026-2035)*, compiled by the agricultural market analysis and early-warning team under China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, forecasts total national grain production will hit 716 million metric tons this year, a 0.2% year-on-year increase. Oilseed output is also set for stronger growth, projected to rise 2.6% to 42.04 million tons. The expansion is driven by consistent improvements in crop productivity, with average national grain yields expected to cross the 6,000 kilograms per hectare threshold in 2026.

“Large-scale improvements in crop productivity will continue to support a stable grain supply,” noted Xu Shiwei, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ key laboratory of agricultural monitoring and early warning technology. Alongside rising domestic output, the report forecasts a pullback in imports of several major agricultural goods, paired with ongoing growth in exports of China’s competitive agricultural products. Xu confirmed that soybean imports will fall 6.1% year-on-year in 2026, marking the first drop for that metric in recent years. Pork imports are projected to decline 8.2%, while dairy imports will see a 4.1% decrease, per the report.

At the same time, exports of high-demand Chinese agricultural products are on track to expand: vegetable exports are forecast to grow 6.4% in 2026, and fruit exports are set to rise 5%. Even with the projected decline in some import volumes, the report stresses that global agricultural markets will remain a critical supplement to China’s domestic supply, noting that imports of goods including poultry are still expected to increase this year.

The report comes as global agricultural markets face mounting headwinds from global geopolitical instability. Li Ganqiong, head of the agricultural monitoring and early-warning research center at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, pointed out that rising geopolitical risks – including ongoing conflict in the Middle East – have driven up global oil prices, fertilizer costs and shipping expenses, creating greater uncertainty for global agricultural production and trade. “These factors could heighten risks to global food security,” Li said, adding that shoring up domestic agricultural production remains the most critical strategy for buffering against external volatility.

Beyond 2026, the report outlines a decades-long trajectory of steady growth for China’s agricultural sector. Total national grain output is projected to climb gradually to 733 million tons by 2030 and 753 million tons by 2035, with average grain yields per hectare expected to rise 6.3% over the next 10 years. On the demand side, national grain consumption is forecast to grow slowly before peaking at 842 million tons around 2032, after which it will stabilize and enter a gradual decline.

As domestic productivity improves and China’s agricultural goods gain stronger global competitiveness, the country’s reliance on imports for major agricultural commodities will continue to decrease over the long term, Xu explained. By 2035, total grain imports are projected to drop to 115 million tons, a 25.5% reduction from the 2023-2025 average. Soybean imports are set to fall to 82.55 million tons by 2035, a 21.5% drop from current average levels.

Other agricultural sectors are also set for structural adjustment and steady growth. The Chinese dairy industry will continue expanding, with domestic milk production projected to reach 45.07 million tons by 2030 and 51.17 million tons by 2035, for an average annual growth rate of 2%. This growth aligns with shifting domestic consumer demand: the report notes rising demand for fresh milk, alongside growing use of cheese and butter in beverages and baked goods across China.

For the pork sector, the report forecasts a gradual output decline over the next decade, as the industry transitions from a period of rapid expansion to a focus on higher-quality, more efficient production. By 2035, pork output is projected to reach 55.11 million tons, with an average annual decline of roughly 0.5%.

First launched in 2014, the annual China Agricultural Outlook report has become a core authoritative platform for evaluating China’s agricultural trends, supporting more accurate market forecasting and guiding evidence-based policy planning, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said.