Just some 100 km southwest of Beijing, a new economic zone called Xiongan New Area is dynamically developing.

From laying the first brick, this city of the future today enters an important stage of simultaneously taking over non-capital functions from Beijing and advancing its own development.

First announced in April 2017, Xiongan New Area serves the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. President Xi Jinping said its establishment marked a strategic choice—one of profound historic significance.

The combined forces of Beijing and its environs are important drivers of national economic growth. Yet on the north China spectrum, the two poles of Beijing and Tianjin are too "thick," whereas the neighboring small and medium-sized cities are too "thin" by comparison. Hebei Province, especially, lags far behind Beijing and Tianjin in development, resulting in an imbalanced urban-rural structure.

Xi has outlined the major strategy for the promotion of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region's coordinated development. Its primary principle is to explore a model of optimized expansion in densely populated areas by relieving Beijing of functions nonessential to its role as the national capital and find a Chinese way to address the nation's "urban disease," referring to a variety of problems existing in social management and public services stemming from the imbalance between a rising population and comparatively limited urban resources. 

This also serves as the overall blueprint for China's concept of coordinated development. China's economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to one of high-quality development, raising the bar for synchronized regional progress. Different regions should adapt to their respective essential functions and local conditions. It is necessary to create new powerhouses that can drive nationwide change, especially the three major regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

Coordinated development involves improving and implementing the strategy of functional zoning, formulating different policies for key development areas, eco-fragile areas as well as areas with abundant energy and resources, making the market take on a crucial role in resource allocation, and expanding the regional cooperation mechanism.

Ready to take over Beijing's non-capital tasks and walking its own path toward success, Xiongan has set its priorities.