China’s economic ”miracle” has so far been largely confined to the country’s east coast. This is mainly due to the ease of shipping export goods manufactured in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas out of ports in Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.

Facing wide regional income disparities, the central government is looking for ways to spread economic development into places like Anhui and Jiangxi – two inland provinces that sit nestled like twin ice-cream scoops in the bowl of rich coastal provinces such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.