“Build it and they will come” is the Chinese motto, but things do not always work out as planned.

In 2004, the Communist Party secretary in a poor rural county in the landlocked eastern province of Anhui decided to put his district on the map by building an airport. The county town of around 30,000 people is located 130km from Hefei, the nearest major city, and is endowed with unremarkable scenery, very little industry and limited economic prospects.