Chinese officials last May were celebrating the start of construction on a northern city’s first subway line.
Today the Rmb30.5bn ($4.7bn) project in Baotou, an industrial centre in Inner Mongolia, lies walled off and abandoned after the central government ordered a halt because of concerns about the city’s ability to pay for the scheme.
On Thursday China will announce that its economy grew 6.9 per cent last year, compared with 6.7 per cent in 2016, the first year-on-year growth increase in seven years.
This is despite the dawn of what President Xi Jinping has called a “new era” in which local governments will be forced to abandon their traditional bias towards rapid growth and pay more attention to financial risks and environmental protection.
“In the past we were focused on meeting people’s basic needs,” says Cui Qiang, the party boss of a new residential district on Baotou’s western outskirts. “Now we need to focus on people’s demands for happier lives.”