The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

On the helicopter.

Liu Tao looked down at the entire 011 Air Base.

By now, the entire 011 Air Base has reached its limit and can no longer be expanded.

The area designated back then was still too small!
I thought it was about right back then!
It turned out that in just ten years, there was not enough land.

It's already very difficult to change.

The surrounding area is already well developed, and the cost of land acquisition and demolition will be very high.

This is totally not cost-effective. It would be better to build a production base somewhere else.

China's development speed is so fast that even Liu Tao was caught off guard. It is far faster than the development speed in his previous life.

In just over twenty years, it seems like the world has changed.

Although there are still many problems now, the merits outweigh the flaws and it is undeniable that there has been rapid development over the past two decades.

Without considering the real purchasing power, according to the exchange rate between the RMB and the US dollar, China's GDP last year was already equal to that of the United States, and its total economic output has caught up with that of the United States.

If measured by real purchasing power, or PPP, China has surpassed the United States, with the total PPP amount far exceeding that of the United States.

Moreover, China is still in a stage of rapid development and has great potential for development.

Most of the money Hua Xia earns every year is converted into fixed assets.

In terms of the current gold reserves of various countries, China's national gold reserves have exceeded 7000 tons, second only to the United States' 8135 tons of gold reserves.

But to be honest, Liu Tao doesn't really believe whether the US government really has 8135 tons of gold reserves.

Because of the nature of the Americans, no one knows how much gold they have secretly sold over the years.

In recent years, many countries have wanted to transport gold stored in the United States, but they have all been rejected by the United States for various reasons.

The United States promised Germany to withdraw American and British troops stationed in Germany and hand over military bases to Germany. It was not out of kindness, but out of necessity, and it also required Germany to make a lot of exchanges of interests.

One of the conditions is that Germany is not allowed to transport the gold stored in the United States before 2030.

"It will be soon. When China's GDP is twice that of the United States, many problems will be solved." Liu Tao muttered to himself.

If China's GDP reaches twice that of the United States, it means that the per capita GDP will be around 66.67% of that of the United States.

If we take purchasing power into consideration, then the two countries are at almost the same level and life is almost equally affluent.

China's per capita GDP is now about 1.15 US dollars. According to some standards, it is a high-income country.

Of course, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's per capita GDP is US$3000, which is still far behind that of the United States.

China also constantly emphasizes that it is the world's largest developing country.

The helicopter flew towards Guangxi Province.

It was already evening when we arrived in Guangxi Province.

I had a midnight snack with the leaders of Guangxi Province. It was a simple snack, just pork ribs porridge, but it had a strong Guangxi flavor.

At the hotel, the secretary handed two floor plans to Liu Tao. This time, Liu Tao was commissioned to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Pinglu Canal.

Pinglu Canal is a major project listed in the 134.2th Five-Year Plan for Guangxi Province. The starting point of Pinglu Canal is located at the mouth of Pingtang River in Xijin Reservoir Area, Hengzhou City, Nanning, Guangxi Province. It enters the Beibu Gulf along Qin River through Luwu Town, Lingshan County, Qinzhou. It is 8900 kilometers long with a designed annual one-way capacity of 300 million tons. The project mainly includes the transformation of waterways, shipping hubs, water conservancy facilities and the construction of supporting cross-river projects along the line. The total estimated cost of the project is billion yuan.

After completion, the Pinglu Canal will not only support the development of Guangxi Province, but will also become the shortest, most economical and most convenient sea access channel in the southwest region, and will greatly promote the industrial development of the areas along the route.

Most of the canal was renovated on the existing Shaping River and Qin River, and a 6-kilometer section of the river at the watershed was newly excavated. The entire canal has a drop of 60 meters and can accommodate 3000-ton ocean-going vessels.

Once completed, the distance from Nanning to the sea from Qinzhou Port via the Pinglu Canal will be only 291 kilometers, which is more than 560 kilometers shorter than going to the sea via Guangdong Province.

Another drawing is the design plan of the Hunan-Guangxi Canal in Guangxi Province, which the province intends to promote during the 12th or 13th Five-Year Plan.

The Hunan-Guangxi Grand Canal, also called the modern version of the Lingqu Canal by Guangxi Province, connects Yongzhou in Hunan Province to Guilin in Guangxi Province by digging the east and west lines of the Hunan-Guangxi Grand Canal, and opens up a waterway from the Xiangjiang River in Hunan Province to the Lijiang River in Guangxi Province. The west line is to dredge the original Lingqu Canal, and the east line is to build a new canal to Pingle, with a total length of 300 kilometers, of which the Hunan section is 212 kilometers and the Guangxi section is 88 kilometers.

Since the Xiangjiang River directly connects to the Yangtze River and the Lijiang River connects to the Xijiang River in the Pearl River Basin, even Jingchu Province will be able to use this channel to reach the seaport in Guangdong Province in the future, greatly saving logistics costs along the coast of Jingchu, Xiang Province and Guangxi Province.

Both of these canal projects are major projects. For Guangxi Province, once these two canals are opened, the benefits to the development of the province will be self-evident.

As more and more discussions are being held about the Beibu Gulf national city cluster and coastal cities are developing rapidly, there are even voices within Guangxi Province calling for moving the provincial capital to a coastal city.

This kind of thing is naturally not suitable for support.

Because the development of Guangxi Province is not only about developing the coastal areas, but also the inland areas.

Liu Tao's attendance at the Pinglu Canal Project this time also expresses the country's attention to the Pinglu Canal Project.

As for the Hunan-Guangxi Canal, Guangxi Province also hopes that Liu Tao will help. After all, the total planned investment of this project is about 800 billion yuan, which will be a relatively large investment for both Guangxi Province and Hunan.

Of course, this is also the norm in local areas. If national investment is possible, local investment is never used; if provincial investment is possible, city or county investment is never used.

Local people are also constantly complaining about being poor.

Most of these so-called poverty are not really poverty, but a game of interests.

People complain about hardship and poverty every year, but in fact life goes on as usual, and even everywhere is prosperous.

For Liu Tao, who has been traveling around the local area for many years, he is very familiar with the local situation.

Personnel, financial power, etc. are always in game.

This game has never stopped.

Just like the Hunan-Guangxi Canal, do Hunan and Guangxi provinces have enough financial resources to invest in its construction?
Given Liu Tao's understanding of Guangxi and Hunan provinces, he is capable!

However, Guangxi and Hunan provinces will have to go through hard times for two or three years.

But obviously no one wants to live a hard life, and Guangxi and Hunan provinces are no exception.

They all hope that the project will be included in the national key engineering projects and then the state will invest in its construction. In this way, the local people can continue to live a good life and the project construction can also drive economic development.

This kind of game has always existed not only in engineering construction, but also in the tax sharing ratio, transfer payments, and land fiscal revenue distribution ratio.

Especially land finance. It was fine in the past, but in recent years, land has become more and more valuable, and land finance has become more and more, especially for big cities. However, a large part of the land finance belongs to the state, which is undoubtedly equivalent to cutting one's own flesh.

Local governments are always thinking about how to increase the proportion of local land finance. Even if it is increased by one percentage point a year, it can be increased by ten percentage points in ten years. The interests involved are huge. (End of this chapter)