Canal city rises

Pearl of Taihu Lake to lead nation in industry, innovation, ecology

Anyone wanting to find one city that is representative of China's economic transition need look no further than Wuxi - a city of 6.5 million residents in the Yangtze River Delta, one of the country's most industrialized regions.

Only 128 kilometers from Shanghai, Wuxi was among the earliest cities in China to produce large numbers of private entrepreneurs and to successfully win over overseas investors. In 2013, the city's GDP reached more than 800 billion yuan ($128 billion), around $20,000 per capita.