Editor's note: Starting June 10, the Central Propaganda Department organized central and local media to launch the 2026 "Vitality China Research Tour" themed interview campaign, covering four batches — "Sci-Tech Innovation Vitality," "Consumption Vitality," "Rural Vitality," and "Opening-Up Vitality" — to present from multiple angles and in three-dimensional fashion China's economic momentum of steady progress, abundant driving forces, and surging vitality.
Guangxi's ocean-oriented economy is undergoing a "three-stage leap." How is this transformation happening? In recent days, reporters followed the "Vitality China Research Tour" interview team to Guangxi, conducting on-site visits to Nanning, Liuzhou, Qinzhou, Beihai and other cities, discovering that the "three-stage leap" transformation path is clear: the first leap is about how corridors connect, the second leap is about how platforms gather, and the third leap is about how industries thrive. With the navigation of the Pinglu Canal, this transformation has taken on new meaning.
How Corridors Connect
In Guangxi, the Pinglu Canal is both a hot topic online and a focal point offline. On September 16, the century-project Pinglu Canal officially opened to navigation, breaking Guangxi's dilemma of being coastal yet lacking a river route to the sea, allowing goods from the southwestern region to reach the sea via the Pinglu Canal. A golden waterway directly linking river and sea is reshaping the economic geography of Guangxi and even the greater southwestern region.
When the canal opened, inland river ports were the first to feel the change. The Liujing operation area of Nanning Port is only 50 kilometers from the canal's starting point at Pingtang River mouth, making it the closest and most sizable dock on the river side of the Pinglu Canal. "During this year's National Day holiday, cargo throughput increased 21-fold year-on-year," said Wang Fakun, general manager of Nanning Port Development and Investment Co., Ltd. After the canal opened, Nanning Port is no longer a "transit stop" on someone else's corridor, but its own "sea gateway," becoming the first stop for goods from the southwestern hinterland heading to the sea.
With the canal open, industrial layouts along the route are also being adjusted. Around Nanning Port, the "port-front, city-behind" pattern is growing, with more water-appropriate cargo sources and water-oriented enterprises gathering. Flowing downstream, as the sea outlet of the Pinglu Canal and an important hub for river-rail-sea intermodal transport on the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, Qinzhou has also welcomed a brand-new strategic variable due to the canal's opening. For the Qinzhou Central Station, this means that goods previously relying solely on rail-to-port transport now have a new direct river-sea route. "The Pinglu Canal connects inland waterways such as the Xijiang shipping trunk line with the coastal ports of Beibu Gulf Port, making the multimodal transport system of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor more complete," said Yuan Qiuhong, deputy manager of the business department of Beibu Gulf Port Qinzhou Terminal Co., Ltd.
Zhang Minghe, deputy manager of the operations department at Qinzhou Automated Container Terminal, said the terminal will leverage the opportunity of the Pinglu Canal's navigation and the policy dividends of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor upgrade, continuously densifying domestic and international shipping routes, deeply exploring hinterland cargo sources, and upgrading intelligent operating systems, using automation, smart technology, and scale advantages to help Qinzhou Port accelerate the building of a modern port industrial system oriented toward the sea.
In the view of Ding Jinxue, an expert at the Comprehensive Transport Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, the opening of the Pinglu Canal reshapes the strategic position of the southwestern region, helping it transform from an "inland hinterland" into an "open frontier," injecting strong vitality into high-level development and opening-up. He believes Guangxi should accelerate the tapping of the Pinglu Canal's high-quality development potential as a backbone corridor, platform carrier, economic driver, regional link, and opening-up gateway, speed up building the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt, and promote the canal's transition from "built well" to "operated well" and "benefiting well," powerfully advancing Guangxi's in-depth implementation of the strategy of becoming strong through the sea.
For goods to flow, roads must come first. Railways, water transport, ports, and other infrastructure extend along the veins of the ocean-oriented economy, with different cities each fulfilling their roles, jointly weaving a multimodal transport network. The "first leap" of corridor connectivity is both about opening up and the prerequisite for everything.
How Platforms Gather
After goods flow, a second question emerges: how do platforms gather? As of December 2025, operating under the path of "R&D in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou + integration in Guangxi + application in ASEAN," the China-ASEAN National Artificial Intelligence Application Cooperation Center in Nanning has signed 61 domestic AI projects and 14 ASEAN enterprises, releasing 54 "AI+" opportunity lists and 84 ASEAN scenario demands. Also in Nanning, the China-ASEAN Commodity Convergence Center brings together more than 6,000 types of goods across 18 cultural-themed pavilions, receiving over 5,000 visitors per month on average, creating a "China-ASEAN Expo that never closes, 365 days a year."
Liuzhou, a well-known industrial city, while pursuing industrial expansion into ASEAN, has also blazed a trail in vocational education going abroad. Wang Hanqiang, Party secretary of Liuzhou Railway Vocational Technical College, introduced that as enterprises such as China Communications Construction, CRRC, and SAIC-GM-Wuling establish operations in ASEAN, local skilled talent has become a rigid demand. The school jointly sets standards and cultivates talent with project partners, and has worked with China Communications Construction to compile 3.2 million words of operation and maintenance standards, transform 66 teaching course standards, compile 48 volumes of technical regulations and 55 volumes of job operation guidelines, with 2 railway occupational standards incorporated into Laos' national occupational standards, promoting Chinese railway standards from "going out" to truly "going in." Across Liuzhou, vocational colleges have cumulatively cultivated nearly 20,000 local skilled talents for Liuzhou enterprises' ASEAN bases. Zhao Congkui, deputy director of the Liuzhou Education Bureau, told reporters that the city's vocational colleges offer 515 majors, with a match rate to key industries exceeding 90%, and have built 20 "industry-major" integrated clusters.
Platforms gather because of corridors, and cargo corridors are upgrading into skills corridors and standards corridors. The "second leap" of platform gathering adds soft power to the transformation of the corridor economy.
How Industries Thrive
The ultimate test of connectivity and gathering is how deeply industry roots can take hold. In Chongzuo, local enterprises fully leverage the combined advantages of ports and resource endowments: Hualin Food relies on the Friendship Pass port to import Southeast Asian coconuts, building a model of "ASEAN imported raw materials + local fruit and vegetable deep processing + domestic and global distribution"; Nanguo Copper produces 700,000 tons of cathode copper and 2.8 million tons of sulfuric acid annually, a key project of "strengthening leading enterprises, supplementing chains, and clustering groups"; Taishan Gypsum locally consumes phosphogypsum to produce paper-faced gypsum board, with a domestic market share exceeding 50%.
As a well-known engineering machinery leader in Liuzhou, LiuGong actively expands overseas and continuously renews itself. Liu Shuangfeng, business operations director of LiuGong's International Business Unit, said the company has deployed more than 20 manufacturing bases and 17 R&D bases globally, with products and services covering more than 180 countries and regions, and overseas sales maintaining double-digit growth for several consecutive years.
Great corridors bring great logistics, and great logistics attract great industries. At the Guangxi Investment Group Beihai Port-side Circular Economy Industrial Park, the Guangxi Investment Beihai Green Ecological Aluminum Project has begun trial production. As Guangxi Investment Group's first alumina project with independent investment, construction, and operation, it relies on a 200,000-ton high-pile dry bulk terminal, forming an integrated raw material storage and transport system of "overseas mines — ocean shipping — self-built terminal — enclosed conveyance — plant storage." "According to the plan, the industrial park will take the alumina project as its core, next extending into fine alumina and rare scattered metals, cultivating an aluminum-based new materials industry chain, striving to build a highly intensive, circular coastal high-end aluminum industry chain cluster base, achieving sustainable circular development," said Tang Zhenhua, deputy Party secretary of Guangxi Investment Port-side Industry Co., Ltd.
The Nanning Wuxiang Cloud Valley "Token Factory," invested and built by Runjian Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Runjian"), has taken the lead in achieving commercial operation. Relying on a computing power foundation centered on tokens, Runjian is exporting computing services to ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Li Linqiang, general manager of Runjian's public affairs department, introduced that the company packages computing power in token units into standardized products that are quantifiable, tradable, and settleable, allowing customers to use on demand and pay by volume, just like water and electricity. With years of accumulated wind-solar-storage construction and maintenance capabilities, the company has connected green electricity with computing power scheduling, and its token cost advantage has become one of the foundations for computing power going abroad.
From port processing to manufacturing going abroad, from physical workshops to computing services, Guangxi's "third leap" in strengthening industrial cultivation lies in this: the dividends of corridors ultimately land in workshops, factories, and jobs. The "three-stage leap" of connectivity, gathering, and thriving is cashing in the value of corridors. The transformation of the corridor economy is seen in the traffic at ports, the containers on freight trains, and the lights shining in factories. After the Pinglu Canal opens, every region in Guangxi will redefine its position in the new corridor flows. Becoming strong through the sea is not just about having a sea outlet, but about the depth of industry and opening-up. The story of the ocean-oriented economy will continue to be written.
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