The tide of regional integration surges across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, composing a new chapter in collaborative development. Beijing and Tianjin, geographically adjacent and culturally connected, are continuously breaking down administrative barriers and enhancing functional complementarity under the national strategy for coordinated regional development. By improving connectivity to consolidate development momentum and leveraging comparative advantages to stimulate endogenous growth, the two cities are jointly writing a high-quality development "dual-city narrative" for the new era.
From high-speed rail networks weaving a convenient commuter circle to the accelerated transformation of innovation achievements spawning new productive forces; from the relocation and expansion of industries strengthening the real economy to the co-construction and sharing of public services benefiting people's livelihoods—a vibrant panorama of integrated transportation, interconnected industries, collaborative innovation, and blended social services is unfolding across the Beijing-Tianjin landscape.
Key projects are delivering results, critical technological breakthroughs are being achieved, and high-end platforms are coalescing into formidable clusters. With the release of the Spatial Coordination Plan for the Modern Capital Metropolitan Circle (2023–2035), which delineates commuter, functional, and industrial collaboration zones, the twin cities are poised to transform their locational advantages into developmental strengths through tighter cooperation and heightened dynamism, jointly composing a new chapter in building a modern capital metropolitan circle.
Actively Integrating into the Capital Commuter Circle Worry-Free Living and Working, Rail Links Connect Twin Cities Liu Ming from Zhangjiakou joined a Beijing-based company after graduating university in 2012. During over a decade as a "Beijing drifter," he and his wife lived in a roughly 10-square-meter rental apartment, moving four times. In 2023, the couple purchased a home near Tianjin Station, his wife found employment in Tianjin, and their child was successfully enrolled in a local school. Liu now commutes daily between the cities: 30 minutes from his office to Beijing South Station, followed by just over 30 minutes on the high-speed rail to Tianjin Station, allowing him to reach home within 1.5 hours one-way. He expresses great satisfaction: "Calculations show my monthly train ticket expenses are even lower than the rent I used to pay in Beijing."
Similar dual-city stories unfold daily in Wuqing District. By 2025, Wuqing Station is projected to handle up to 70 daily train stops, with average daily passenger flow exceeding 20,000, over half of whom are commuters and business travelers. To attract industrial talent, Wuqing District has introduced policies including talent apartments, rental subsidies, and schooling guarantees for children. Within two kilometers of the core area of the Beijing-Tianjin Industrial New Town, two hospitals, five primary and secondary schools, and over ten residential communities house a permanent population exceeding 100,000. As large numbers of professionals settle down, transportation flow is rapidly translating into incremental regional development.
Currently, four high-speed rail lines—Beijing-Tianjin, Tianjin-Xinglong, Beijing-Binhai, and Beijing-Shanghai—along with six expressways including the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu, directly link to Beijing. The regional "Yikatong" transit card covers all subway and bus services. This efficient commuter circle facilitates 225,000 cross-city trips daily, tightly connecting the two megacities and accelerating the release of metropolitan integration effects.
As Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordination deepens, the "dual-city narrative" is becoming a tangible reality for countless ordinary people. This year's Tianjin government work report explicitly emphasized leveraging the spatiotemporal advantages of comprehensive hub nodes to accelerate the upgrade from rail coordination to industrial coordination.
As a key node in the coordinated development, Tianjin West Station has seen continuously rising passenger numbers since its renovation and expansion in 2011. The redevelopment of surrounding shantytowns freed up 1,550 mu of contiguous land, providing crucial space for the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Same-City Business District. Guided by planning to attract industrial clusters and supported by services to ensure project implementation, the district is rapidly building a development pattern featuring comprehensive coordination above ground, underground, and in the cloud.
Currently, focusing on themes like "Beijing work, Tianjin residence," "Tianjin production, Beijing talent," and "Beijing business, Tianjin expansion," Tianjin is deepening "high-speed rail+," "industrial park+," "live-work+," and "service+" synergies. It is continuously optimizing and enhancing the industrial cooperation functions of hubs like the West Station Same-City Business District, South Station Sci-Tech Business District, Binhai Station's "Yuxiang" Business District, and Wuqing Station Business District, propelling the Beijing-Tianjin "dual-city narrative" to new heights.
Proactively Integrating into the Capital Functional Circle Mutual Integration Fosters New Momentum "Our order book is full; we must ramp up production promptly!" Just after the Spring Festival holiday, production lines were running at full capacity at Qinghe Chip Semiconductor Technology (Group) Co., Ltd., located in the Tianjin Binhai High-tech Industrial Development Area. Chairman Mu Fengwen was also immersed in intense work.
As a provider of advanced semiconductor heterogeneous integration technology and solutions, Qinghe Chip relocated its headquarters from Beijing to Tianjin last year, attracted by Tianjin's solid IT application innovation industry foundation and manufacturing strengths. It also built a second-phase expansion plant for bonding equipment. "The High-tech Area hosts renowned semiconductor enterprises and boasts an excellent industrial foundation. Since settling here, our scale and效益 have doubled, and we've achieved continuous technological breakthroughs," Mu Fengwen stated.
Currently, Qinghe Chip maintains R&D centers in Beijing and other locations. With the new Tianjin production line operational, the company's annual bonding equipment capacity exceeds 100 units, significantly enhancing delivery assurance. Last year, order value increased by 65% year-on-year, and revenue surged over fourfold, injecting fresh momentum into the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei IT application innovation industry cluster.
Leveraging Beijing's strengths in technological innovation and Tianjin's advantages in advanced manufacturing R&D, an increasing number of enterprises like Qinghe Chip are benefiting from Beijing-Tianjin dual-city linkage. The two cities are deepening cooperation in leading industries, accelerating the development of new quality productive forces along the Beijing-Tianjin corridor. They have jointly established nine national key laboratories and cultivated five national-level advanced manufacturing clusters. Key industrial platforms like the Tianjin Binhai-Zhongguancun Science Park and the Baodi Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Science City are flourishing at multiple locations.
Focusing on functions like科技成果转化, modern logistics, and advanced manufacturing, the Binhai New Area attracted over 290 billion yuan in investment for major projects originating from Beijing during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, powerfully driving the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains. The area is now accelerating the construction of the National AI Innovation Application Pilot Zone and a hub for the IT application innovation industry, while also building the Bincheng Sci-Tech Area to high standards.
The Port of Tianjin continues to expand international shipping routes, building a one-hour cold chain logistics network for the region and creating a convenient maritime gateway. The establishment of the "Beijing CBD—Port of Tianjin Coordination Service Center" brings port services to Beijing, enhancing connectivity with Beijing's air and land ports, and accelerating the agglomeration of industries like shipping finance and marine engineering equipment.
The "Rail-based Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei" network is becoming denser; public services such as education, healthcare, and social security are being co-developed and shared; 230 government services across the region have achieved standardization; all 23 of Tianjin's government service nodes have been connected to the Beijing Sub-center's cross-provincial online service network; and joint ecological environment construction, protection, and治理 have yielded significant results... The Beijing-Tianjin "dual-city narrative" of the new era is being written with increasing substance and resonance.
Connecting and Integrating into the Capital's Industrial Collaboration Circle Linked Development and Openness Accelerate Achievement Delivery Entering the production facility of Tianjin Zhiqing Future Technology Co., Ltd., located in the Tiankai Jinnan Park, a 100-meter-long intelligent manufacturing line for micro-nano functional powders comes clearly into view.
This 5,000-square-meter workshop vividly demonstrates the speed of "Beijing-Tianjin R&D, regional transformation"协同发展. Building on core technologies accumulated over 30 years at Tsinghua University, this world's first advanced intelligent manufacturing line for micro-nano functional powders has achieved multiple breakthroughs: utilizing particle-stabilized foam combined with spray drying, it enables powders to possess multifunctional characteristics, achieving a compressive strength of 14.8 MPa while reducing reliance on natural mineral resources. From the company's establishment in the core area of Tiankai Park in June 2024 to its production launch in Tiankai Jinnan Park in January 2025—a mere six months—it successfully propelled the technological achievement from the laboratory to the market.
Last year, Zhiqing Future's annual output value surpassed 50 million yuan, with production volume exceeding 6,000 tons, and it successfully secured overseas orders from countries including South Korea, Canada, and Indonesia. "This year's performance will certainly be even better!" expressed Chen Jie, the company's responsible person, with full confidence.
The rapid growth of Zhiqing Future is a vivid microcosm of the deepening Beijing-Tianjin "dual-city narrative." In recent years, Tianjin has closely aligned with Beijing's innovation resources, headquarters resources, industrial resources, service resources, and platform resources. It has deeply integrated into Beijing's key industries, universities, research institutes, and parks like Zhongguancun, striving to promote the industrialization of capital-originated科技成果 in Tianjin and the expansion of industrial resources within its borders.
Simultaneously, focusing on the supporting service needs of Beijing's industries, Tianjin has proactively optimized its industrial layout and improved its service system. It actively engages with enterprises associated with the relocation of central state-owned enterprises, supports local enterprises in deeply integrating into industrial chains and clusters, and strengthens the foundation for coordinated development through efficient, high-quality, and competitive services.
Coordination mechanisms are becoming more substantial. Efforts led to Wuqing District and Xiqing District successfully being selected for the second batch of pilot cities for new-type technological transformation in manufacturing. The three regions jointly issued the "2025 Work Points for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Industrial Coordination Task Force," clarifying 17 key tasks across 7 areas. They are deepening the mechanism for cultivating collaborative industrial chains and implementing action plans for realizing the Six-Chain图谱, jointly promoting the落地 of industrial chain maps.
Breakthroughs are continuously being made in tackling key "bottleneck" technologies. Focusing on "bottleneck" segments like proton exchange membrane hydrogen production membrane electrodes and high-performance intelligent cockpit chips, the industry authorities of the three regions have jointly organized two rounds of project unveiling for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei High-precision and Sophisticated Industrial Foundation Projects. Breakthroughs have been achieved in several technical challenges, including the plastic liner for 70MPa Type IV hydrogen storage cylinders.
The agglomeration of relocated functional resources is accelerating. Targeting industry leaders such as central SOEs and top private enterprises, Tianjin actively attracts high-quality project resources from Beijing. It has conducted outreach to leading companies like Aviation Industry Corporation of China, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and Lenovo Group, and invited China Telecom and State Grid to Tianjin for cooperation talks. China Telecom Emergency Communications Co., Ltd., the nation's first carrier-owned emergency communications company, was registered and established in Wuqing District.
From collaborative innovation to shared industrial prosperity, from port-city linkage to integrated livelihoods, the Beijing-Tianjin twin cities are leveraging regional integration as a strategic approach and empowering development through metropolitanization. They are jointly building a regional development highland, emerging as a powerful engine for the construction of the modern capital metropolitan circle.
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