“Only 8,000 people in the county, just 9 cabs, no traffic lights, no KFC McDonalds ….”
A small county of 30,000 people
Recently there is a “pocket” county named Foping, fire.
Where is this place? Northeast of Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province, southwest of the provincial capital Xi’an.
If you go through the Qinling Tunnel from Xi’an, you will arrive at a long, narrow flat area surrounded by mountains like the bottom of a shoe, and this is Foping County.
Foping County is miniature in any sense of the word: only 1,279 square kilometers in area, 32,000 registered residents, and only 8,000 permanent residents.
What is this concept? The number of employees of any large Internet factory is more than the local population.
Some data show that the population of Foping County also shows a decreasing trend year by year: in 1990, the population of Foping County was 35,710; in 2010, it became 32,999; in 2019, the resident population of the county was 30,181, and in 30 years, the total population of Foping County not only did not increase, but also decreased by 5,529.
In this place, there are no large supermarkets, no McDonald’s, no online cars, no traffic lights, and even cabs are only 9, or added because of the promotion of tourism…
In the local area, the most popular occupation, is to take the civil service examination, and again, is to go to work in institutions, state-owned enterprises, and therefore, although the permanent population of the entire county is only more than 8,000 people, but in the government, institutions to work, only the public data there are more than 2,000 people.
A source from the Office of the Establishment Committee of the Foping County Committee shows that by the end of 2020, the county had 2,194 establishments of various types, including 640 administrative establishments and 1,554 career establishments. And the “Foping County 2019 National Economic and Social Development Statistics Bulletin” shows that the number of pension insurance for the county’s institutions and institutions is 2,991.
Earn 70 million a year, but spend 800 million
What about the financial situation of this county?
Media data show that Foping County’s National Economic and Social Development Statistical Bulletin for 2018 and 2019 shows that in 2018, the county’s total fiscal revenue was 71.798 million yuan, while in 2019, the figure was 62.622 million yuan, down 12.8% year-on-year; in 2018, the county’s local finances were 39.43 million yuan, while in 2019, the figure was 36.6 million yuan, down 7.2 percent year-on-year.
And Foping County’s fiscal expenditures for the two years were 800 million yuan and 797 million yuan, respectively.
But this can’t be helped. With no people and no industry, how much money can be made by tourists alone?
(Foping County People’s Hospital)
In Foping, industrial and commercial development is even degraded.
Mines and logging sites have been closed one after another because of the South-North Water Transfer and the nature reserve.
In 1999 and 2000, Foping County Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank and Foping County Branch of Construction Bank were abolished one after another.
Cornus is a specialty of Foping and one of the main herbs used in the production of Liu Wei Di Huang Wan, but for a small place like Foping, it is difficult to develop from technology, financing, to the extension of the industrial chain.
At this year’s two sessions, Li Dongyu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and vice chairman of the CPPCC of Shaanxi Province, suggested optimizing county-level administrative divisions, saying that the smaller the population size and the more serious the population loss in less economically developed counties. A western province lost 52% of its counties to population loss. A county had a resident population of 30,200 in 2019, local revenue of 36.61 million yuan, general public budget expenditure of 865 million yuan, more than 120 administrative and social organizations, and more than 6,000 financial supporters. She therefore suggested a pilot merger of small counties with a population size of less than 100,000 to reduce the waste of administrative resources.
The talk of merging has been a constant irritant to those who are concerned about the fate of Foping. So when this proposal came out, the voices of opposition immediately followed.
Among the most vehement attitudes are none other than those of the local retired veteran cadres. In March of this year, they also jointly wrote a “disapproval proposal” to the relevant parties.
According to the old people, Foping is responsible for the protection of the local natural environment and the needs of the people of Xi’an and Shaanxi, so it has its own unique value in terms of history and reasoning.
But is this really the case?
Population loss
In fact, there are many other small counties like Foping.
Data shows that there are more than 200 small counties in China with a population size of less than 100,000, half of which have a population of less than 50,000.
Shanxi province, for example, has a population of only 37.29 million (end of 2019), about one-half that of Hebei, 45% that of Sichuan, 38% that of Henan, and 77% that of Yunnan, but has 117 county-level divisions.19 China had an average of 492,200 people per county-level administrative district in 1919, but Shanxi had only 260,000 people each.20 In addition to this, Shanxi has five small counties with populations under 100,000: Guxian, Bali, Anze, Daning, and Yonghe.
And the just-released census is a constant indication that population mobility is accelerating.
Throughout 2020, the size of the country’s mobile population will be 376 million, 140 million more than in 2019, which means that on average one out of every four people chooses to move, which is a really low ratio.
From 2000-2010, there are only 4 provinces with shrinking populations, namely Guizhou, Chongqing, Sichuan and Hubei, with population decreases of 490,000, 1.66 million, 1.93 million and 2.27 million respectively.
By the time we get to 2010-2020, the number becomes six, namely Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, with decreases of 550,000, 650,000, 790,000, 1.15 million, 3.37 million, and 6.46 million respectively over the decade.
Where did all the people go?
Public data show that Guangdong has the highest incremental growth, with a big increase of 21.7 million people in 10 years, becoming the biggest winner of population migration, and now the population of Guangdong has reached 126 million, the country’s first populous province.
The country grew by 11.72 million in 2020 compared to 2019, and Guangdong added 10.8 million people in one province, basically contributing to more than 90% of the country’s population growth. It is a long way ahead of other provinces and cities, riding high.
The previous goal for Guangdong was to reach 125 million people by 2030, but that population goal was accomplished a decade early.
Not a bright future for small counties
Today’s small counties seem to have no room for young people other than in the system.
In Zhihu’s question “Is there a future for China’s small counties?” Under the question, a netizen answered: “My neighborhood downstairs, during the day, is selling vegetables, a few bundles of vegetables sold out, but also earn less than 30 yuan. They have land at home, self-sufficient almost not spend money, this income is basically their monthly expenses. In small counties, there are not a few factories, no large enterprises, living in a small population, family economic strength and far less than major cities, entrepreneurship basically can not jump food and clothing two, but the impact of e-commerce, and many clothing stores are on the verge of closing down.”
“Restaurants, hot pot restaurants and other food and beverage individuals, is one of the few industries that can earn money in the county. Three or four large and medium-sized supermarkets monopoly on retail, four or five KTV business is booming, in addition to this, clothing, decoration and other businesses half dead. In addition to the system, there is no skilled work, in addition to delivery and labor work, you can not find a monthly salary of more than 2,500 yuan in the county. This is the most typical face of counties in the Midwest and is the real underbelly of our country.”
Apparently Foping is one of them.
Young people are increasingly moving to the more economically developed southeast coast or to provincial capitals, where there are not only better jobs, but also more developed health care, education, and living and entertainment environments. Those left behind are often older people who have lived there all their lives, but people will grow old and die, and what happens when they disappear?
It can be said that the plight of small counties is not only the inevitable result of urbanization, but also the “industry” caused by some people in small counties themselves, and want to change the predicament of small counties, you need to start from many aspects, to give young people the opportunity to live in small counties memory, to give small counties good business investment opportunities.
Before various places have tried this and that way, some borrowed money to issue debt to build buildings, some investment in industry, but there are also Dushan County Shanshui building, Rugao to build a car, a small town with such negative examples.
For those counties close to big cities, perhaps they will also be annexed by big cities with the urbanization process. But what about remote counties like Foping, where is their future, a question that needs to continue to be explored.
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