CHENGDU, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) — Marco Polo might have been the primary Westerner to set foot in Yibin in southwest China within the late thirteenth century, however it’s stated that “the first city on the Yangtze River” was coined by American archaeologist and anthropologist David Crockett Graham, who resided in Yibin in the course of the 1910s and Nineteen Twenties.
Local historians, nevertheless, dispute this declare, arguing that the identify has a for much longer historical past. They keep that it was bestowed by the native folks in recognition of Yibin’s distinctive geographical location and wealthy historic and cultural heritage.
The Yangtze River, the longest river in China and the third longest on the planet, originates from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Its higher reaches are known as the Jinsha River which merges with the Minjiang River in Yibin, Sichuan Province. From that time, it is called the Yangtze River and this reality is recorded in numerous geographical and historic paperwork.
According to Marco Polo, within the thirteenth century, Yibin was already a “large and beautiful city” teeming with retailers and artisans. As an vital node on the traditional Southern Silk Road and the traditional Tea Horse Road, this place was a bustling heart for the commerce of numerous commodities akin to ceramics, tea, textiles, bamboo utensils, alcoholic drinks, medicinal herbs and minerals.
Taking benefit of the Yangtze, the commodities have been shipped to southern and japanese components of China, so far as the present Shanghai, which is over 1,600 km away from Yibin.
The historical past of this metropolis will be traced again 2,200 years. But its most well-known product, baijiu, or Chinese liquor, has a historical past of greater than 4,000 years. The Yangtze supplies very good situations for the brewing of top-rated liquor.
For a very long time, Yibin has additionally been often called the “capital of baijiu.”
“Baijiu has been significantly supporting the development of our city,” stated Zhou Yongkui from the native producer of Wuliangye, one of many nation’s most well-known baijiu manufacturers.
Today, guests to town can nonetheless catch the aroma of liquor within the air, but indicators of change are already evident.
CHANGES
Previously, town’s development rested on two pillars — the “white” business of baijiu manufacturing and the “black” business of coal mining. Today, the “blue” and “green” industries have injected contemporary vitality into its economic system.
The “blue” business refers back to the digital sector, whereas the “green” business refers to eco-friendly initiatives, reflecting China’s financial transition towards innovation-driven and inexperienced high-quality growth with the purpose of mainly attaining socialist modernization by 2035.
A pivotal second got here in 2019 when CATL, China’s main battery producer, established its Sichuan Times energy battery manufacturing base in Yibin.
To date, CATL has invested over 60 billion yuan (about 8.5 billion U.S. {dollars}) in Sichuan. With seven factories already operational and three extra tasks beneath building, Yibin has solidified its place because the world’s largest single-site energy battery manufacturing base — for each 10 energy batteries produced worldwide, one comes from Yibin.
Power batteries are extensively utilized in rising industries akin to electrical autos and robots, offering clear and environmentally pleasant vitality. Yibin’s central location in Sichuan’s lithium-rich area, together with handy transportation linking it to different industrial and business hubs in southwest China, helps this rising business.
This anchor funding has spurred the expansion of a whole industrial ecosystem, attracting over 120 supporting tasks throughout the availability chain.
Consequently, the facility battery business has grown into Yibin’s second 100-billion-yuan sector, rivaling its famed baijiu business. The metropolis has now proudly earned an extra title — the “capital of power battery.”
The wave of high-tech transformation extends past the brand new vitality sector. Projector producer XGIMI is one other flagship instance. The firm, headquartered within the provincial capital of Chengdu, opened its clever optoelectronics industrial park in Yibin in 2021, a fancy integrating an optical R&D and manufacturing heart, high quality testing laboratories, and automatic manufacturing strains.
Within the park, guests can spot a variety of high-tech projectors, together with fashions that includes facial recognition with anti-dazzle safety, and others outfitted with automated display screen recognition and calibration.
Products manufactured right here now attain markets throughout Europe, North America and Japan, marking a big enlargement of the corporate’s international footprint.
Even the standard cornerstone is embracing the brand new development. Wuliangye has deployed applied sciences such because the Internet of Things, large information and AI to raised handle the manufacturing processes and perceive the altering client calls for. The firm has newly launched a wastewater remedy plant to advance its low-carbon manufacturing objectives.
The modifications in Yibin replicate Sichuan Province’s ambition as a serious inland financial powerhouse to contribute to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In 2024, Sichuan registered a complete GDP of 6.47 trillion yuan, rating fifth amongst 31 provincial-level areas, solely trailing Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang — all provinces located within the nation’s southern and japanese coastal areas.
The high-tech business in Sichuan has developed quickly in recent times and has grow to be the core engine driving high-quality financial growth all through the province. By the top of 2024, the variety of nationwide high-tech enterprises within the province had reached 18,000, with 1,200 new ones added that 12 months. The development price of rising industries akin to synthetic intelligence and biotechnology exceeds 20 p.c.
LEGACY
Throughout historical past, Sichuan has made vital contributions to the survival of the Chinese nation. Eighty years in the past, the wartime capital of China throughout World War II was positioned in Sichuan, often called the “anti-Japanese rear area.” The variety of troopers despatched by Sichuan to take part within the conflict was the biggest in China.
As the Yangtze River changed into a strategic battleground, Yibin earned the title of the “last shelter” on this river. Despite being bombed eight instances by Japanese plane, town turned a sanctuary, welcoming a big inflow of refugees and students.
Lizhuang, a small city in Yibin specifically, harbored a lot of intellectuals, taking part in an important function in preserving China’s cultural heritage in the course of the conflict.
Local villagers supplied their non-public residences, ancestral halls and temples to accommodate greater than 10,000 college students and students of Tongji University who had relocated from Shanghai, in addition to students from different areas.
Architect Liang Sicheng studied historical structure right here, whereas archaeologist Dong Zuobin studied oracle bone inscriptions. They imagine that these historic and cultural heritages are of nice significance to the way forward for China.
When Joseph Needham visited embryologist Tong Dizhou’s rudimentary organic laboratory in Lizhuang, he puzzled how Tong may maintain his work beneath such harsh situations. Tong responded merely, “I am Chinese.”
Google engineer Mu Ming documented the historical past of Lizhuang in a science fiction story. She wrote, “The groups of miniature patterns that they have compiled and recorded, along with the texts that we have explored from the piles of old papers and ancient artifacts, will be sent from Lizhuang to Chongqing, Washington, and even to some unknown place. After aggregation, encryption, and calculation, they will become part of a larger map. It is these subtle details that make a vast pattern depicting the past, present, and future possible.” Mu is a Sichuan native.
“They showed strong patriotism and a belief in China’s victory, which is the legacy we have inherited,” stated Yang Fan, a information working on the Zhao Yiman Memorial in Yibin.
The metropolis additionally honors the legacy of Zhao Yiman, a heroic determine remembered throughout the nation. She traveled hundreds of kilometers to northeast China to withstand Japanese aggression and was brutally killed by the Japanese on the age of 31.
“It was this spirit of loyalty and resilience and a profound sense of history that forges modern Yibin to harness its past to power a new chapter of development.”
“Only when the country becomes strong can we avoid repeating the tragedies of history, including being bullied,” stated Yang.
Tongji University, which as soon as sought shelter in Yibin, has returned and partnered with the native authorities to construct a science and expertise innovation park within the metropolis. Since 2016, Yibin has been creating a college metropolis that now hosts over a dozen universities and 100,000 lecturers and college students, making a wealthy expertise pool for native growth.
“Remembering history is not about remembering hatred, but about peaceful development,” Yang stated.
As one of many earliest cities within the higher reaches of the Yangtze River to have interaction in abroad commerce, Yibin has as soon as once more opened its doorways to the world.
In August this 12 months, representatives from 18 firms, together with Emerson, General Electric, Rockwell and SKF from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Belgium and different international locations participated in an occasion held in Yibin, the place they visited native industrial parks and expressed curiosity in funding.
France’s Dassault Systemes arrange its firm in addition to an innovation heart in Sanjiang New District of Yibin in December 2024, specializing in clever manufacturing and new-energy business options.
The metropolis has additionally established itself as a global vacationer vacation spot, using the distinctive wonders of the confluence of the three rivers, in addition to the world-class scenic space of the Southern Sichuan Bamboo Sea, the place the Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed, and the thousand-year-old Sichuan delicacies, together with the well-known spicy Yibin Burning Noodles.
Yibin, as soon as visited by the good Chinese poet Su Shi of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), has advanced past being a metropolis of liquor and batteries. The metropolis has strengthened its cultural enchantment by revitalizing the historic district and constructing its first giant sports activities enviornment.
Catering to the nation’s booming cultural and vacationer market, Wuliangye opened a vacationer block earlier this 12 months close to the Yangtze River, which incorporates a baijiu tradition museum and a Wuliangye workshop based mostly on a gaggle of historical cellar swimming pools that date again some 700 years.
An rising variety of foreigners now stay and work in Yibin. At a current group marriage ceremony alongside the Yangtze River, two Brazilian {couples} and one American-Chinese couple have been among the many individuals.
Yibin is constructing a brand new metropolis hub close to the high-speed railway station that integrates excessive expertise and commerce, with futuristic skyscrapers formed like bamboo. Among the designers of town hub are firms from the United States and Germany.
Today in Yibin, alongside the banks of the Yangtze, the traditional Wuliangye cellar swimming pools proceed their quiet work, whereas the time-honored aroma of baijiu mingles with the gleam of recent buildings. This harmonious mix displays town’s outstanding journey from its wealthy previous to a dynamic future, formed by the resilient and ever-reinventing spirit of the Yangtze’s first metropolis.