"Jiangnan is connected to the north, and the Sui Dynasty has a thousand years of water." Today, what kind of connection will the Grand Canal have with the major initiative of the Belt and Road Initiative? How did the Canal Cultural and Economic Belt come about for thousands of years? What kind of story will the ancient Grand Canal culture play on the new stage? Our reporter interviewed relevant experts.
1. Corridor and Bridge connecting the two Silk Roads
"Building the Canal Cultural and Economic Belt is an important part of the Belt and Road development strategy." The proposal of the NLD Central Committee has a clear meaning from the beginning.
What is the profound connection between the Grand Canal and the Belt and Road Initiative? Chen Manna, president of NLD Central Academy of Culture and Art, summed up the relationship between them with "cultural fit" in an interview.
"The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is not only a river in the physical sense, but also a river with a long history of culture in China." Song Weizu, full-time vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Democratic League, said, "All the urban settlements that the Grand Canal flows through have been intertwined and influenced each other in the long history, forming an economic belt and a cultural belt where the North and the South blend today, and there are still rich material and intangible cultural heritages along the route."
The "Belt and Road" should not only achieve "connectivity" between countries and regions in space, but also achieve "ancient and modern connectivity" in time and "integration" in development content and structure, that is, culture and economy.
The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal connects the five major water systems of Haihe River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River and Qiantang River in China, and can form a double docking with the "Belt and Road" in space; Canal culture and canal economy have been an embedded cultural and economic model since ancient times. Building the Canal Cultural and Economic Belt can be a classic case of China with cultural and economic attributes in the whole "Belt and Road" development strategy.
"The construction of the cultural canal economic belt has a unique multiple historical and cultural foundation endowed by the Silk Road on land and the Silk Road on the sea." Chen Manna told reporters that the overland Silk Road originated in the period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty more than 265,438+000 years ago. At that time, Princess Jiangdu and Princess Pengcheng were married to Wusunguo in the western regions, bringing a lot of silk from Suzhou and Yangzhou.
Chen Manna further analyzed that in 20 15, two important node cities along the canal, Yong-Tai-Wen, were listed as the "Maritime Silk Road" in China and declared as world heritage sites. In the Jiangnan Canal area of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, there are Huangsipu in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, set off by Jian Zhen Du Dong, and Liujiagang in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, where Zheng He, a famous navigator in the Ming Dynasty, made seven voyages to the West. There were two famous ports in Yuan Dynasty-Ningbo Port and Ligang Port in Jintang Town of Zhoushan. Liujiagang and Khan Lee are the starting points of the shipping route from Yuan Dynasty to zhi gu. It can be seen that the Grand Canal of China directly connects the Silk Road on land and the Silk Road on the sea, thus becoming a "corridor" and a "bridge" to communicate the two major Silk Roads.
"If the application for the Maritime Silk Road is successful, China's Grand Canal will become the world's three largest world cultural heritage gathering areas in the future. The construction of the Canal Cultural and Economic Belt, based on three linear cultural heritage resources, will inevitably produce considerable economic and cultural benefits. " Chen Manna said.
2. Create a case of China with cultural and economic attributes.
The Grand Canal is a flowing heritage.
"The Grand Canal is an artificial canal with the earliest construction time, the longest use time and the largest spatial span in the world. It is listed as the most influential waterway in the international canal monument list by the International Industrial Heritage Protection Committee. The area along the canal is an important economic development zone and an important Chinese cultural protection zone. It is a string of pearls of China's economy and culture. " Song Weizu said affectionately.
What does the "Canal Cultural and Economic Belt" look like?
Chen Manna thinks that the Grand Canal has many functions. With the changes of social history and culture, the water conservancy function and traffic function of the Hebei section of land transportation and along the North Canal and the South Canal have disappeared. However, the function of cultural inheritance and cultural exchange with the canal as the carrier has been gradually strengthened, forming a rich and complex multi-value system of canal culture.
"In this system, the first is the unique world cultural heritage value of the canal itself; Second, the value of green ecological corridor; Then there are the flow values of the five major water systems. In addition, the canal has also contributed to our living historical and cultural value and extremely considerable economic value. " Chen Manna said.
Experts generally believe that it is necessary to fully tap the unique humanistic value of the Grand Canal and create a classic case of China with cultural and economic attributes. A zonal regional economic system integrating ecology, tourism, commerce, culture, entertainment and leisure is the development goal. The basic principles to be followed are: based on the transportation function and tourism exhibition function of the canal and various water conservancy projects and transportation facilities built along the canal, based on the cohesion of the communication and integration function of the canal culture accumulated for more than 2,000 years, based on the linear development longitudinal axis of the north-south administrative regions connected by the canal, and oriented to the economic development of both internal and external repair and opening up.
Chen Manna proposed to build a series of canal cultural corridors, including: canal hydraulic cultural relics corridor, canal-related cultural relics corridor, canal culture museum series corridor, and historical and cultural block corridor. ...
3. The canal cultural and economic belt should be developed in an all-round way.
What is the real situation of the current economic situation, industrial structure, ecological environment and cultural history of the Grand Canal? In-depth investigation and study can best explain the problem. The Tianjin Municipal Committee of the NLD conducted a special investigation from four levels and found a series of problems that need to be solved urgently in the development and protection of the canal.
As a participant in the whole inspection, Chen Manna told the reporter that the development and utilization of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has always lacked unified planning at the national level, which has led to the long-term disorderly development of cultural and economic resources along the canal and the inefficient utilization of the coastline. At present, the Grand Canal is mainly used for urban landscape, sewage discharge and flood discharge, and there are few scenic spots and activities that highlight the essence of canal culture. The cultural and economic construction of the canal is still in a shallow stage of development.
The proposal of the Central Committee of the Democratic League suggests that the development plan of the Canal Cultural Economic Belt should be formulated, the Canal Cultural Economic Belt should be included in the important strategic layout of the country, the cultural economic regional construction with the canal as the link should be carried out, the development resources of the Canal Cultural Economic Corridor should be integrated, and it should be combined with major strategic plans such as the coordinated development of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Microscopically, according to the historical and cultural resources of towns along the canal, we plan tourist routes and canal cultural projects, put forward specific measures to protect ecological and landscape resources, establish an interactive and cooperative mechanism with cities along the upstream and downstream, and form a set of strategic planning that highlights local characteristics and takes into account the cultural and economic corridor of the canal.
"In the past, every place wanted to make itself a highland of scientific, technological, cultural and creative ideas, and it was difficult to achieve its goal by repeating construction and wasting resources. Relying on the Canal Cultural and Economic Belt, it is not necessary to engage in a large and comprehensive innovation model along the route, but to integrate resources and work together to achieve * * *. " Song Weizu suggested setting up national and provincial grand canal protection and development funds on the basis of formulating the planning of the canal cultural and economic belt; Seize the opportunity of national adjustment of industrial structure, vigorously support the development of cultural industry and service industry, and actively strive for policy funds around the construction of the canal cultural and economic belt; Do a good job in promoting canal cultural heritage projects and attract all kinds of social capital to participate in development and construction; Strengthen the research on the cultural heritage of the Grand Canal, expand the research content to intangible heritage such as drama, literature and folk art, form a series of research on the cultural heritage of the Grand Canal, compile a series of books on the Grand Canal, and comprehensively explore the canal culture.