A villager washes a mop in the river in Xiaomei village, Wuxing district, Huzhou, opposite a building in which former fishermen have been resettled. (GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY)
Natural advantages
During his 2005 tour of Anji, Xi hailed the village's move to close polluting mines and adopt ecological tourism by taking advantage of its natural scenic views.
"We should never follow outdated modes of development. In fact, clear waters and lush mountains themselves mean gold," he said.
In an article published by Zhejiang Daily in 2006, Xi further explained the theory by elaborating on the three stages of developing ties between green development and economic growth.
During the first phase, people sought quick economic returns by ignoring environmental protection. In the second phase, they began to realize the importance of green development, but still pursued high economic growth, leading to contradictions between achieving high economic growth while maintaining and improving the environment.
It was only during the third phase that people finally realized that green development also produced true "gold", and it is only through green development that humans and nature can coexist harmoniously.
"Xi's Two Mountains theory definitely solved the long-term puzzle and unlocked the development path for Huzhou," said Qian Sanxiong, the city's mayor
Since then, Huzhou has trodden the path of sustainable, green development using measures and efforts from the government and residents.
Clearer waters
In Zhushan, a village in Huzhou's Changxing county, Zhou Guoqin was washing clothes in the Zhushan River near her home. She said the water is now so clean that the villagers all wash their rice, vegetables and fruits in the river.
"The water in the river now is definitely clear and safe. I usually cook my rice directly after washing it here," she said.
The improved quality of the river water has been made possible thanks to the implementation of pollution control measures in villages across Huzhou during the past 10 years.
All the villages are now equipped with facilities that treat wastewater and sewage before it is discharged into Lake Taihu. Take Zhushan, for example, the 1,500-strong village has built a small sewage treatment factory that has a daily treatment capacity of 60 cubic tons.
To further monitor water quality and protect water resources, all the villages in Huzhou have implemented the "river chief" system, in which officials and village heads are assigned to take charge of protecting the waterways in their areas.
Changxing was the first pilot county in China to implement the river chief policy as early as 2008. It was later followed by Jiaxing, Wenzhou and Shaoxing in Zhejiang.
The system has been rolled out nationwide as part of wider efforts to prevent water pollution. So far, there have been about 320,000 river chiefs in the four-tier system which reaches down to the township level, said Chen Lei, then minister of water resources, last month.
Zhou Libin, head and river chief in Xiaochendu, a village close to Lake Taihu, said his responsibilities mainly lie in checking the three river courses under his jurisdiction every week, which requires him to walk about 6 kilometers.
"Once floating pollutants and wastewater discharges are spotted, we deal with them directly," Zhou said.
Industrial transformation
Although some observers have stated that environmental protection efforts may hinder the long-term growth of the local economy, Huzhou has definitely benefited from implementing the Two Mountains theory, and has maintained robust economic growth through innovation and industrial upgrading during the past 10 years.
Huzhou was one of the places where China's silk culture originated, and the fabric has been produced there for more than 2,300 years.
The Qianshanyang archeological site in the city has been known as the "source of the world's silk textiles" since fabrics dating back 4,700 years were unearthed there in the 1950s.
As the industry has been transformed and upgraded in recent years, the city has introduced more modern technologies to improve its production process. Now, a quarter of all silk made in China is produced in the city.
"Over the past 10 years, we've always put green development as the top priority and improved the pace of the upgrading and transformation of the traditional sector, launching specific campaigns to adjust the mode of production for polluting sectors such as textiles and dyeing," said Qian, the mayor.
The proportion of the city's two traditional sectors－textiles and building materials－among its GDP has fallen to 29 percent from 50 percent in 2005.
"One thing to note is that the transformation has translated into higher industrial revenue and profits, because technological innovation plays a bigger role," Qian said.
Greener development
Mizuda Group, which is headquartered in Huzhou's Wuxing district and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, is a good example of how a former polluting company has successfully transformed into an outfit that helps to provide a greener environment.
A traditional dyeing and textile enterprise, it reduced production in response to rising labor costs and the heavy pollution it was causing in the lake, and developed new core businesses in garbage treatment and recycling industrial waste.
Last year, it paid 300 million yuan in tax, the most paid by any company in Wuxing.
"We will stay with the core green, environmental protection sector because there is so much potential in the "gold rush" that has arisen from the building-up of China's ecological civilization," said Shan Jianming, Mizuda's president.
