Suqian
Jiangsu's poorest city runs on baijiu and JD.com's founder — a salmon who left poverty, built a tech empire, and is pumping nutrients back home.
The poorest city in China's richest province smells of baijiu. Suqian, a prefecture of nearly five million in northern Jiangsu, ranks dead last in GDP per capita in a province whose aggregate economy rivals South Korea's. Wikipedia mentions Xiang Yu, the ancient rebel king born here. What it undersells is Suqian's dual identity: a city still economically defined by hard liquor, now being rewired by a tech billionaire who grew up in its poverty.
Yanghe Distillery, one of China's top three baijiu brands alongside Maotai and Wuliangye, is headquartered in Suqian. At the industry's peak, much of the city's workforce was employed producing the spirit, servicing its supply chain, or — as local accounts note — drinking the profits. The smell of fermenting grain once hung over entire districts. Suqian's GDP reached ¥439.8 billion ($61 billion) in 2023, but that figure sits at the bottom of Jiangsu's 13 prefectures by any per-capita measure.
The second economic story is JD.com. Richard Liu (Liu Qiangdong), founder of China's second-largest e-commerce company, grew up in rural poverty in Suqian's Sihong County. After building JD.com in Beijing, he directed the company's call centre and significant investment back to his hometown — a decision that attracted other national brands to follow. The Suzhou-Suqian Industrial Park formalises a more systematic transfer: Jiangsu's wealthiest southern city partnering with its poorest northern one to replicate the economic model that made Suzhou globally competitive.
The biological parallel is the salmon run. Pacific salmon hatch in nutrient-poor streams, migrate to the open ocean where they accumulate enormous biomass, then return to their natal waters to spawn — and in dying, they flood those streams with marine-derived nutrients that sustain the entire freshwater ecosystem. Liu Qiangdong followed the same trajectory: born in Suqian's poverty, enriched in Beijing's tech ocean, now pumping capital and jobs back into the stream where he started. The question is whether one salmon's return can sustain the ecosystem — or whether Suqian needs an entire run.