150 universities in China have signed talent introduction plans with Xiongan. 15 universities in Beijing have established branch campuses in Xiongan

150 universities in China have signed contracts with Xiongan to locate their campuses there to expand the scale of Xiongan city.

150 universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University, signed a "Letter of Intent on Cooperation to Jointly Establish a Talent Introduction Workstation" with Xiongan New Area, and 23 school-enterprise, school-based real estate, academic and research projects were signed together. Fifteen universities including Beijing Jiaotong University, University of Science and Technology Beijing, and China University of Geosciences will build campuses in Xiongan New Area. According to a university graduate, a university in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, will also build a campus in Xiongan.

Over the past few years, the Xiongan New Area, which the Chinese government has invested in and built, has still shown little improvement. The Beijing Daily website reported on October 29 last year that Xiongan New Area signed cooperation intentions with 150 universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University to jointly build talent introduction workstations, 20 internship bases for college students were listed, and 23 school-enterprise and school real estate institutes were established. Research cooperation project signing. Among the 150 universities that have signed contracts with Xiongan New Area to build a talent introduction workstation, more than 80 are from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei (including those directly under the Ministry of Education), accounting for "half of the total". Recently, Beijing Daily reported that 202 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Beijing and Tianjin have cooperated with 273 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Hebei, and 15 subordinate universities in Beijing will be transferred to Xiongan New Area.

Ms. Guo, a graduate of a Chinese university, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Thursday (29th) that many universities have been asked by the authorities to build branch campuses in Xiongan New Area, but the response from school teachers and students has not been enthusiastic because of the urban construction in Xiongan. Although the facilities are perfect, no one wants to go there. She said: "Recently, I heard them say that even universities in Shijiazhuang and universities that are not first-tier cities have to move there. I haven't heard that many people want to go there. Because I haven't heard of the prosperity of a city. It was your government that succeeded with just a few orders."

Universities in Shijiazhuang and other places will also build campuses in Xiongan

On February 25, the 2024 Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Education Collaborative Development Forum was held in Beijing. The research results on the innovative mechanism for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Education Collaborative Development released showed that Beijing Jiaotong University, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing Forestry University, and China University of Geosciences ( The Xiongan campuses of four universities in Beijing officially started construction in November last year, and other universities have also started construction in the near future.

However, Chinese netizens are not optimistic about universities setting up branch campuses in Xiongan New Area. They left messages in the comment area such as "People really don't want to go", "Isn't Peking University and Tsinghua University also a subordinate university?", "Who says we don't have 985 211 in Hebei", "I went, The house can’t be sold,” and “It is estimated that college teachers will go there in turn.”

Wang Li, a former middle school teacher in Taiyuan, Shanxi, told this station that from the planning of Xiongan New Area to the large-scale civil construction, the plan is a typical "face-saving project" and "head-patting project." She said: "It was one of his (leader's) political achievements and a political project. It did not develop naturally in a city. It was forcibly launched like the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River. It has many problems. Because the formation of a city's scale has It’s determined by many factors.”

Wang Li believes that the government has invested huge funds in Xiongan New Area, but in the past six years, what people have seen is an empty city with abundant social resources, but insufficient population and poor mobility. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is "unfinished".

China announced the establishment of Xiongan New Area in 2017, known as the "Millennium Plan Project" with an investment of more than 800 billion yuan. In January last year, some netizens photographed the square in front of Xiongan Railway Station, which was overgrown with weeds and no one was around. There were only a few trains running to and from Beijing every day. In November, Xiongan New Area launched 16 policies and measures including “top talents, skilled talents, young talents” and other types of talent introduction, as well as incentives for the implementation of major platforms. Among them, top scientists who come to work in Xiongan will be given 20 million to 50 million yuan in scientific research funding, 3 million yuan in living allowances, and a house of no less than 200 square meters.

Xiongan’s natural environment is not suitable for urban development

Mr. Gao, a media person from Hebei, said in an interview with this station that in terms of geographical location, Xiongan is low-lying and difficult to withstand severe floods. Xiongan has not been the most suitable area to live in since ancient times: "Its geographical location is not very good, and the entire natural environment It is relatively poor, and there are many hidden dangers around it. It is also in an earthquake zone and is prone to natural disasters, so the local management costs will be very high."

Mr. Gao said that it takes hundreds of years for human settlements to be formed, and it is not possible to build them just because you want to. He took Hong Kong as an example: "Deng Xiaoping said back then that Hong Kong is very prosperous and we should build more Hong Kongs. The results are obvious to all."

Anhui current affairs commentator Shen Liangqing told this station that Xiongan New Area is the product of bureaucratic planning, but the government also uses bureaucratic planning to solve Xiongan's problems, resulting in this strange phenomenon: "The bureaucratic plan itself has unscientific and uneconomical characteristics. problem. So I am not optimistic about this approach. This approach will create new burdens, and it is definitely uneconomical to rely on central planning bureaucrats to make decisions based on their heads."