Beijing 2022 brings new life to old 'Steel City'

A former industrial quarter is being transformed into a hub for the Winter Olympic Games. Zhou Jie, Ji Ye and Zhang Han report for Xinhua.

On a sunny winter afternoon, barbershop owner Huang Jinzhi stood on the balcony of her home 13 stories above the ground in Beijing's Shijingshan district and pointed at a group of iron ore storage towers and blast furnaces about 300 meters away.

"They look beautiful," she said.

The towers and furnaces that were once operated by Shougang Group, one of China's largest steel enterprises, are now setting a vivid example of urban regeneration at Shougang Industrial Park.

The park is not only home to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games Organizing Committee, but it is also being transformed into a Big Air snowboarding venue for the Winter Games.

It is the second time Huang has lived in the area, having left about 15 years ago because of the polluted air produced by the plant.

However, the environment began to improve ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, when Shougang began a relocation program to return blue skies to China's capital.

The last fire

"With the last of the heavy smoke breaking out, the fire in the No 3 blast furnace was extinguished, signaling that Shougang had ceased steel production in the Beijing metropolitan area. The pressure gauge fell to zero, the pipeline was cut off, the machines stopped working, and the roaring sound no longer echoed."

This is part of the voice-over in a documentary called Shougang Relocation.

Furnace operator Ai Hongbo clearly remembers the event. "I could not hold back my tears. Neither could my six colleagues on the shift," he said. The seven men were on duty when No 3 furnace, the last one working at the plant, ceased operations on Dec 19, 2010.

Ai had spent 20 years in Shougang as a blast furnace operator.

"The iron latch of the furnace was opened, and then it closed," he said, looking skyward to hold back the tears.

It was a sudden and dramatic change. Without the heat of steel production, Qunming Lake in the surrounding area began to freeze during winter.

According to statistics, at the turn of the millennium, about 100,000 people worked and lived in the area.

From the construction of the plant to the end of production, Shougang produced 197.5 million metric tons of steel, employing 260,000 people nationwide at its peak.

From 1979 to 2009, the company accounted for about 61 billion yuan in profits and taxes paid. During the steel market's most prosperous period, Shougang Group's profits and taxes accounted for a quarter of Beijing's total income.

However, the rapid development of the steel industry ultimately exceeded the capital's environmental capacity. There was a saying in the past: "There is a black cover over the city of Beijing. The center of the cover is in Shijingshan - the western district of the capital where the old industry is located. At night, it moves to the city and sinks."

Liang Zongping, a top official with Shougang, recalled that when Beijing bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, there was a warning that the environmental problems that arose from the plant would hinder the attempt.

As a result, Shougang's entire steel-making complex (a city within a city) accelerated its relocation process in the run-up to, and aftermath of, Beijing 2008.

In February 2005, the National Development and Reform Commission officially approved the Shougang relocation plan and gave the green light for the company to gradually cease steel production at the Shijingshan plant.

"We had to face reality and relocate," Liang said. "It can be hard to accept reality, but we cannot live by nostalgia alone. The relocation of Shougang was in line with the country's overall development. With the rise in living standards, everyone had the right to ask for a better environment."

By 2011, 64,700 Shougang employees had been relocated to different working sites. Ai went to Shougang Jingtang Iron and Steel Co, the company's new steel plant in Caofeidian, a district of Tangshan in Hebei province on the Bohai Sea coast.

The relocation allowed Shougang to transform production from low-end construction steel to high-end sheet and long products, and fully implement waste recycling.

A new landmark

The relocation of Shougang has been a catalyst for Caofeidian, which is developing into a 21st century town, but it left huge industrial relics in the capital.

"At the time, many industry experts gave us advice on how to use the land. At first sight, I have to say that their ideas seemed well-planned. But on second thoughts, we realized that we would have to be careful about how we revamped this precious area," Liang said.

Beijing's city planners chose not to bulldoze the industrial park, instead they took on the difficult but rewarding task of urban regeneration.

They were waiting for the perfect time to get to work.

Ai and his young colleague Li Hongji did not have to wait. Ai chose to work in Caofeidian, while Li decided to stay in the Shougang area, guarding the equipment in the old plants. In 2015, Li joined the security detail at the site, taking care of high-end property projects in the silos.

As was the case with Shougang, everything changed for Li very quickly. He swapped his flame-retardant protective clothing for a suit, his sledgehammer became a walkie-talkie, and he had to learn how to wear a tie. Feeling uncomfortable, he was ready to resign.

"As a furnace operator, I never wore a tie, and I seldom wore a white shirt." Li had to search online to learn how to knot a tie. "It took me a week to become familiar with it," he said. On July 31, 2015, less than a month after Li took up his new position in the security detail, Beijing was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics, which gave Shougang new possibilities.

"After the successful bid for the Winter Olympics, our group's management was thinking about whether Shougang could have a rebirth through the Games," Liang said. "We submitted a report to the Beijing government, which finally decided to base the headquarters of the Beijing 2022 Organizing Committee in Shougang Industrial Park."

The decision encouraged Li to stay. On the eve of the 2016 Chinese New Year, he received news that the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee was about to move in. "I was excited by the change," he said.

A year later, the national ice sports team chose to base its training camp in the park in four new venues commonly known as the "four ice rinks", all converted from old plants. The clean coal workshop was converted into a base for short track speedskating, figure skating, and training camps for curling. The coal station was transformed into a hockey arena.

Liu Boqiang, a welder was shocked by the changes.

"One day, my supervisor asked whether I was interested in learning how to make and sweep ice. I asked if it was to make ice cubes," he said.

In the summer of 2017, the 41-year-old spent three months learning about ice-surfacing in the Capital Gymnasium, the winter sports center in Beijing. He found the new job interesting.

"It was beyond my expectations. During the 2008 Olympic Games, I was a spectator. Ten years later, I could be part of the staff participating in the Winter Olympics, helping Chinese skaters prepare for the Games," he said. "The Winter Olympics renewed my hope. The surfacing of the ice rink will lead the second half of my life."

In addition to skating, the Shougang park will witness the first Olympic snow sports competition to be held in a city center. On the shores of Qunming Lake, a platform backed by three huge cooling towers will rise into the sky, forming a new landmark. During the Beijing 2022 Big Air competition, the world's finest snowboarders will fly down the ramps after pushing off from the side of the old 70-meter-plus cooling towers in the heart of the former industrial district.

As part of the mission to use the Games to introduce 300 million Chinese to winter sports, there are plans for further sports facilities among Shougang's 100-plus smokestacks. Additional plans for the district, which is a pilot project for the reformation of antiquated industrial zones nationwide, will include offices, a museum, a conference center, an innovation business complex, a water park and a waterfront music stage.

On June 5, Shougang Group officially became a cooperative partner of the official urban renewal service of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, called the reuse of the industrial heritage "amazing". During the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, he said Beijing set a new benchmark for a sustainable Olympic Games, one that is in line with the IOC's affordable, beneficial and sustainable new normal for the hosting of future Games.

Dreams come true

"I was on top of the world when Shougang was relocated," Huang, the barbershop owner, said. Although four of her family members were working at the steel mill, she was still "very happy" to hear the news.

After the relocation, she decided to return to Casting Village, where the residents are all either Shougang employees or relatives. Compared with when she first arrived in 2000, the smokestacks, warehouses and factory buildings look no different, but everything else has changed.

"I had my child in 2002. When thick smoke spewed from the smokestacks, it smelled awful. It was dirty, even though I swept the floor three times a day," she said.

"The environment was unhealthy. I did not like to walk outside. I usually took my child to Pingguoyuan, more than an hour's walk from Casting Village," she said.

In 2003, she moved to Pingguoyuan, where she took over a barbershop. Her family lived in the shop.

In 2011, the steel mill was relocated, and she was happy to move her family back to Casting Village. She found the pungent odor had gone and the floor stayed clean for three days without being swept.

By 2011, the number of blue sky days in Beijing had risen to 286, from 100 in 1998, according to data from the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. In the same year, Beijing's energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP fell by 6.95 percent, electricity consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP fell by 6.1 percent, and indicators of concentrations of various air pollutants fell dramatically.

The 108 smokestacks of Shougang are still there, but smoke no longer issues from them.

In October, four world cultural heritage experts from UNESCO, the International Council of Ancient Ruins and the University of London visited Shougang Industrial Park.

They were amazed by the rebirth of the site, saying Shougang has set a good example to the world. Michael Turner, a UNESCO professor of urban design and conservation studies, said Shougang's new idea of renewal and renovation is worth promoting "from the old factory building to the future Winter Olympics Stadium".

IOC president Bach has encouraged the world to visit Shougang. "If you are interested in urban renewal, if you want to know how the Olympic Games drive urban development, and if you want to know how it helps in planning the development of a city, a region, or even a country, then please look around. Looking at this exemplary Shougang Park, you will get all the answers," he said.

Shen Nan, Ding Wenxian, Xiao Shiyao, Wang Yong and Li Bowen contributed to this story.

(China Daily 01/17/2019 page5)