About an hour's drive from Beijing, a futuristic city is rising on the North China Plain -- the Xiong'an New Area.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday inspected Xiong'an in Hebei Province, which is dubbed the "city of the future," underscoring his sustained attention to the fledgling modern city with his fourth visit.
During the latest trip, Xi toured the new area's start-up zone by vehicle. There, what he saw outside the window was a landscape that is rapidly taking shape -- universities, headquarters of centrally administered state-owned enterprises, hospitals, residential communities, sci-tech innovation centers, and IT companies.
Official data reveals a more detailed picture: the developed area spans around 215 square kilometers with more than 5,300 buildings shaping the urban skyline, housing 1.41 million residents and 669 high-tech enterprises.
Seeing that the construction of the new area is progressing in an orderly manner with full vitality, Xi expressed his appreciation.
On Feb. 23, 2017, Xi made his first visit to what would become the Xiong'an New Area, traveling by vehicle over 100 kilometers southwest from central Beijing to inspect the planned start-up zone. Standing in an open field, he surveyed the future core area of Xiong'an and, over a planning map, examined its layout while receiving briefings on relocation and resettlement, as well as local geological and hydrological conditions.
More than one month later, the Xiong'an New Area was officially established. It aims to relieve Beijing of functions nonessential to its role as the nation's capital, while also advancing the coordinated development of Beijing and neighboring Hebei and Tianjin Municipality.
This key decision was rooted in the question of "how to develop the capital." For a long time, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region faced significant development disparities, with Beijing's sprawling urban expansion pushing its carrying capacity to the limit. Tackling urban maladies like overcrowding and congestion became an urgent imperative, making the establishment of the Xiong'an New Area a strategic masterstroke -- a plan designed for the millennium.
During Monday's visit, Xi once again emphasized the importance of upholding the area's primary functional positioning as the major recipient of those functions relocated from Beijing.
Xiong'an has, from the very beginning, adhered to high standards of planning and design, adopting a "moving in after infrastructure is in place" approach, ensuring that networks of water, electricity, gas, roads and bridges are established first.
In the first two years, the whole of Xiong'an was largely a quiet place, with hardly a brick or tile laid, following Xi's instruction that "construction should start only after every inch of the land is clearly planned," leaving no room for regret.
When Xi visited Xiong'an for a second time in 2019, the area was transitioning to substantive construction. He stressed the need for patience and strategic resolve, calling for high-quality and high-standard planning and construction.
Xi reiterated the importance of "sustained efforts" during his third inspection trip to the area in 2023, when Xiong'an was bustling with large-scale construction projects amid intensified moves to receive functions relocated from Beijing.
Each of his trips was made at key moments for the development of the area. The trip earlier this week came at a critical juncture as China just kicked off the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for development.
Chairing a meeting on further advancing the high-quality construction and development of Xiong'an, Xi urged efforts to build it into an innovation hub in the new era and a model of promoting high-quality development.
Xiong'an should take reform and innovation as the driving force, promote the deep integration between technological and industrial innovation, develop new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions, and cultivate a modernized industrial system suited to the new area's realities, he said.
Xi underscored the need to improve the public service system, ensure people's well-being, actively explore future-oriented models of smart city management, and build a beautiful Xiong'an with blue skies, green fields and clean waters.
In his view, constructing a future-oriented city is "not for the sake of creating a dazzling new city. Rather, the new city is built precisely to ensure a better life for the people."
During his Monday tour, Xi met with people working for relocated companies and also spoke with teachers and students at the Xiong'an campus of Beijing No.4 High School.
Yang Xinya, an employee of Sinochem Holdings, is one of many workers now based in Xiong'an following the company's move-in last year. The biggest change for them, Yang said, is that they can now walk to work in just 15 minutes and easily access smart, tech-driven public services.
"There's a shopping mall just being built near my home. I feel that Xiong'an is changing every day," said Zhou Zhuoyuan, a junior high school student.
