Wang Jiawei has long been proud that his small village in southwest China boasts some of the country’s best Arabica coffee beans. But for many years, that distinction was not enticing enough to prevent local adults from leaving.
The problem was that the coffee-bean output and price were too low to support the 2,200 people living in Xinzhai in the city of Baoshan, Yunnan province, which promotes itself as “the first coffee village in China”.
Like many Chinese people from relatively poor agrarian regions, farmers were generally more inclined to migrate to southern coastal factories to make a living.
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In recent years, however, Wang said a change has been brewing in the mountainous region, and now, not only are adults beginning to return, outsiders have begun flowing in.
“You can earn as much as what you make in [a top-tier city such as] Shenzhen,” Wang explained at a seminar on the local economy in Xinzhai in November.
“And there are affluent job opportunities. Returning young people can easily find work.”
Xinzhai has also become an example of what can happen when a region undergoes a digital transformation – including a buildout of 5G infrastructure and an embrace of live streaming – to modernise farming practices, promote rural entrepreneurship, enhance social services and lift people out of poverty.
For policymakers, a bigger consideration is how to narrow the digital gap and empower tens of thousands of similar villages to realise President Xi Jinping’s vision for rural revitalisation and common prosperity.
“The idea is to bring digital infrastructure to remote areas to empower local development,” Su Ruiping, a director with the Yunnan Provincial Communications Management Bureau, said during a media round table in November.
The seminar and round table were organised by the Yunnan provincial government and telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies.
Huawei, having joined the International Telecommunication Union’s Partner2Connect digital alliance last year, said in November it has helped advance the digital transformation for around 90 million people living in remote areas in nearly 80 countries.
China had 3.21 million 5G base stations by the end of October, covering more than 90 per cent of the population, while three out of every five 5G users in the world are in China, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
New infrastructure and the digital economy are key areas being prioritised by Beijing. Currently, China has the world’s second-largest digital economy after the United States, accounting for 41 per cent of its gross domestic product.
A solid digital infrastructure enables people, even from the most remote villages, to participate in China’s booming digital economy, from e-commerce to live-streaming sales.
Liao Yongsong, a rural policy researcher at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that digital infrastructure would certainly shorten the rural-urban information gap, but the key to success lies in the development of local specialities or industries.
“Only when a village has strong support from certain industries, and integrates the application of digital technology into the overall development of rural industries, can it become replicable,” he added.
In the case of Xinzhai, its small-grain coffee has become a nationally known brand and sold at a high price comparable to imported beans. Last year’s sales of its coffee and related products reached 120 million yuan (US$16.8 million), including 10 million yuan sold via live streaming.
Moreover, the village is becoming a draw for hordes of tourists.
Liao, however, warned that there are many other factors to consider, including the construction and operation costs of digital infrastructure, to ensure that success can be extended nationwide and be sustainable.
Huo Peng, a researcher with China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said that a significant portion of grass-roots governments, including organisations in China and elsewhere, lack the capacity to advance digital deployment or implement innovative digital solutions.
“Digitalisation and innovation rely on market-driven entities, while a predominant number of enterprises are concentrated in the coastal regions in eastern China, in comparison to a relatively limited digital presence in rural areas,” Huo said during Huawei’s Sustainability Forum, held in Dongguan last month, with a subforum also taking place in Yunnan.
“This poses several major challenges that need to be addressed in the future.”
Long-term cooperation between governments and corporations is seen as a key framework in the development of digital infrastructure, and authorities need to continue policy support, while companies need to better understand the needs of the rural population, he added.
“[Local governments] should provide subsidies to telecom operators so that they have the motivation to invest in infrastructure developments throughout rural areas,” added Yunnan official Su.
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