Fran O'Sullivan: Building a super city - China style

Chinese Vice-Commerce Minister Ma Xiuhong was on form in Shanghai last week as she told a top-flight audience "informatisation" would be the engine of Shanghai's future.

It is notable that United States giant IBM persuaded her to give one of the opening addresses at its 2010 Smarter Cities forum. She did not disappoint the audience at the forum, which attracted 400 leading Chinese.

They included state government officials, provincial government leaders and managers of major companies like China Mobile, Beijing Capital Airport, State Grid Corporation and the Ministry of Railways - which is rapidly building a humungous high-speed railway network that will criss-cross China and ultimately connect with faraway capitals like London, Iran and Singapore.

In just 20 minutes she laid out the fascinating - and mind-blowing - game plan the Chinese leadership has adopted to ensure that Shanghai "leapfrogs" to the level of an advanced nation in a very short timespan.

Shanghai had been chosen as the "demonstration site" of just what is possible if technology is embraced and its implementation accelerated well beyond the pace of developed nations.

Ma focused on how the Chinese Government views the "internet of things" as a major factor in spurring not only the development of its cities but also economic growth.

The internet of things is commonly described as a self-configuring wireless network of sensors enabling real-time management of many business processes and services through their interconnectiveness.

China would deploy this with traffic control, clean energy and food security - to name just a few areas.

She indicated the Chinese Government had taken the view the world economy would undergo profound changes in the post-global financial crisis arena. Technology - and R&D - would be the "enabler" to spur economic growth and competitiveness. Economic growth would be organic.

China intended to continue opening up globally: trade liberalisation and international investment remained key.

But it also intended to accelerate the reconfiguration of its logistical networks by applying the latest technologies and would actively outsource services where necessary to reach its goals.

The "Better City Better Life" theme for Shanghai Expo 2010 was aptly chosen. Technological change is going gangbusters in China. Of the 100 fastest-growing cities in the world, 97 are in developing economies.

The opportunity to build from scratch smarter, sustainable cities may well be something that only the developing world enjoys. But there are plenty of lessons countries like New Zealand - which have also neglected until recently the need to build good infrastructure - can learn as they play catch-up.

Ma "gets" the role technology plays in urbanisation of the scale under way in China where an additional 1 per cent of the population has to be accommodated in cities each year as the historic shift away from a rural-domiciled society continues.

IBM's three Big Ideas mantra - "instrument the world's systems, interconnect them and make them intelligent" - doesn't faze top Chinese who are already leaders in the field.

Given her background, it is no surprise that Ma - like many other Chinese leaders - embraces technological concepts like the internet of things and the similarly voguish "cloud computing".

I first interviewed this talented woman in Wellington in January 2004 when she was leading China's opening gambit in the negotiations that ultimately resulted in New Zealand being the first Western developed country to ink a free trade deal with the world's most populous nation.

Her biography speaks for itself. Like many other top Chinese officials of her generation, Ma was a field worker during the Cultural Revolution (Shanxi Province). At 22, she joined the People's Liberation Army, studying microwave communications technology at the military's Foreign Languages Institute - recognised as providing higher learning for "special talents".

She then spent seven years as a technician with the headquarters of the general staff of the Army.

In her early 30s, she made a strategic shift to take up a two-year sojourn at the State Import and Export Commission before moving to the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade - a forerunner to the Ministry of Commerce where her portfolio includes the pivotal US relationship and Oceania (read Australia and New Zealand).

Some key metrics laid out by IBM chairman and chief executive Sam Palmisano in his forum speech are worth contemplating.

"Consider transportation. Estimates suggest that in both developed and in developing cities, traffic congestion costs between 1 and 3 per cent of GDP.

"That's big - and it's only going to increase. In the cities of emerging markets - such as here in China, or in India, or in Asean - car ownership rates are skyrocketing. What if they reach the 75-90 per cent we see in OECD countries? Think of the strain on transport infrastructures.

"Cities also face significant healthcare challenges. With growing populations, the fiscal sustainability of urban health systems will be pushed to the limit. Yet some cities are achieving significantly lower costs than others for similar levels of care.

"Ensuring public safety is crucial to cities' quality of life - and to attracting work, investment and talent ... This no longer appears to be a losing battle. New York and other cities are using advanced data analysis to achieve historic reductions in crime.

"Finally, smarter government services are crucial for both citizens and businesses. It is estimated that a 25 per cent reduction - for instance cutting the time spent filling out forms - could yield savings of up to 1.5 per cent of GDP."

In China, programmes such as "digital Guangdong", "healthy Chongqing" and "ecological Shenyang" are being mapped out and turned into reality.

In New Zealand we bicker about the arcane governance arrangements for the new Auckland Council instead of concentrating on the opportunities to build a great city.

In China, they just do it.

Disclosure: Fran O'Sullivan was a guest of IBM at its Smarter Cities symposium in Shanghai last week.