Original: Shenzhen ningnanshan source: ningnanshan
Today is a talk,
We all say that China is vast in territory, rich in resources and rich in territorial diversity. Today, let’s look at the role of provinces from the perspective of natural resources.
We all know that grain is the top priority of China’s national security. The main grain producing areas in China are familiar to everyone. They are concentrated in the northeast and North China, especially Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia. Because of their vast territory and sparse population, the per capita grain output is among the top three in China, and they are the main grain transfer out provinces in China.
Of course, in terms of output, Heilongjiang, Henan and Shandong rank among the top three provinces in China. They are the only three provinces in China with a grain output of more than 50million tons in 2021. However, Henan and Shandong also have a large population. Although they are more than self-sufficient, they are not as good as heijimeng.
We may not be very clear about the status of heijimeng’s grain in the country,
China’s per capita grain output is 484kg in 2021. What is the per capita grain output of Heilongjiang Province?
I calculated according to the grain output in 2021 and the population at the end of 2021,
In 2021, the per capita grain output of Heilongjiang Province reached 2518 kg, which is the only province in China with an average grain output of more than 2 tons.
The per capita output of Jilin Province and Inner Mongolia in 2021 is exactly 1700kg and 1600 kg respectively.
None of the other provinces in China has a per capita output of more than 700 kg. In 2021, Xinjiang, Anhui and Henan had a per capita output of more than 600 kg, and Liaoning had just 600 kg. These four provinces are also the closest to heijimeng, but it can be seen that the per capita output is less than half of heijimeng.
The grain production must use chemical fertilizer, which is a necessary means to ensure output. After mankind entered modern society, chemical fertilizer was one of the core factors to increase grain production. China introduced large chemical fertilizer plants from developed countries in the “four three” plan in the 1970s, which made China’s grain production increase significantly.
So which provinces in China have the highest fertilizer output? The two provinces with the highest output of agricultural chemical fertilizers in China in 2021 are Hubei Province and Qinghai Province.
The reason behind it is still closely related to natural resources. Agricultural fertilizers mainly include nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, as well as mixed compound fertilizers. Nitrogen fertilizer is mainly made from coal, natural gas and other raw materials, while phosphate fertilizer requires phosphate rock, while potash fertilizer requires potassium ore and potassium salt. Hubei Province is the largest province in China in terms of phosphate rock output,
According to the data of China Commercial Industry Research Institute, China’s phosphorus ore output in 2021 was 102.899 million tons, while Hubei Province’s output was nearly half, reaching 48.3529 million tons, accounting for 47% of the national output, followed by Guizhou’s 24.1536 million tons (accounting for 23.47%) and Yunnan’s 20.2371 million tons (accounting for 19.67%), which accounted for almost 90% of the national phosphorus ore output. In fact, due to the high output of phosphate rock, these three provinces are also the three provinces with the highest output of phosphate fertilizer in China.
Why is Qinghai the second largest fertilizer producer in China? A province in Qinghai produces 80% of the country’s potash fertilizer. In 2021, the output of potash fertilizer in Haixi Prefecture of Qinghai was 7.43 million tons, accounting for 81.8% of the country’s output. China’s exploitable potassium resources are mainly distributed in Qinghai Qarhan Salt Lake and Xinjiang Lop Nur Salt Lake, of which Qarhan Salt Lake is the absolute main force, and Qinghai Haixi prefecture has therefore become the most important and largest potash fertilizer production base in China.
Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Co., Ltd. is located in Chaerhan Salt Lake District, Golmud City, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province. The potassium fertilizer output has been stable at more than 5million tons for three consecutive years, accounting for 60% of China’s domestic potassium fertilizer output. The nitrogen fertilizer in the chemical fertilizer is mainly made of coal and natural gas, so the output distribution of each province in China is relatively average compared with that of phosphorus fertilizer and potassium fertilizer, but also has a high coincidence with the ranking of coal output of each province. For example, the output of chemical fertilizer in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Xinjiang ranks among the top six in China, and these three provinces are also the top four in China. The output of chemical fertilizer and coal in Henan, Shandong and Guizhou are among the top ten in China.
The relationship between grain production and chemical fertilizer is very large. What is interesting is that due to the distribution of natural resources of phosphate rock and potassium, the two provinces with the highest production of chemical fertilizer in China are Hubei and Qinghai. The grain production of these two provinces ranked 11th and 28th in the country respectively in 2021. In particular, the grain production of Qinghai was only 1091000 tons in 2021, but the potassium fertilizer contributed by Qinghai accounted for 80% of the country, Hubei also contributes nearly half of the country’s phosphate rock output, which not only improves the fertilizer output of Hubei Province, but also transports it to other provinces, supporting the fertilizer industry of other provinces in the country.
Of course, for nitrogenous fertilizer, which needs coal and natural gas, the output distribution in domestic provinces is relatively scattered.
Let’s talk about Sichuan Province. Sichuan Province has always been regarded as China’s strategic backup province. In addition to its easy terrain and remote location from strong enemies, Sichuan Province also has its own advantages in resource endowment.
As a province with a large population, Sichuan can be self-sufficient in grain, and the output of water, natural gas and iron ore required by modern society ranks among the top three in China. During the war of resistance against Japan, Sichuan Province (including Chongqing at that time) was regarded as the rear area of the war of resistance against Japan. On the one hand, it was easy to defend but difficult to attack. On the other hand, Sichuan was endowed with sufficient resources and food. Before the founding of the people’s Republic of China, Sichuan had a population of 50million, accounting for 10% of China’s total. In the 20th century, Sichuan has almost always been the largest province in China’s population. It did not lose its status until Chongqing’s 30million people were separated in 1997, It can be said that Sichuan, as a province with a large population in China, has been in a position almost throughout the 20th century.
In 2021, the grain output of Sichuan Province will be 35.821 million tons. According to the calculation of 83.72 million people at the end of 2021, the per capita output will be 427.9 kg, which can achieve self-sufficiency. In terms of energy, despite the lack of oil and coal resources, Sichuan has world-class hydropower resources in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River (Jinsha River), so electricity is not a problem. The natural gas reserves and production are among the top two in China, and Sichuan is also a major iron ore Province in China. 1: Coal: at present, Sichuan is short of coal in general. In recent years, the coal output is about 20million tons. In 2021, the coal output is 19.072 million tons. In China, which is rich in coal resources, it ranks only the 15th in the country and needs to be transferred from other provinces. During the Anti Japanese War, Sichuan had enough coal, but today it is far from enough. By the end of 2020, Sichuan consumed about 65million tons of coal a year, mainly in the power, metallurgy and building materials industries, The current output is about 20million tons, and about 45million tons are purchased. 2: Water resources: Sichuan has the first water resources in China, so it is the largest province of hydropower generation in China. In 2021, more than 80% of Sichuan’s electricity will come from various hydropower stations in China, making the fluctuation of coal price have little impact on Sichuan’s power generation. At the same time, Sichuan’s electricity will be sent out in large quantities. As hydropower generation is cleaner than thermal power generation, and Sichuan does not need coal for heating in winter, Sichuan’s coal consumption only accounts for about 2% of the country.
Although China pursues carbon peaking and carbon neutralization, it has been inseparable from a large amount of coal use for a long time, but for Sichuan, its dependence on coal is much lower.
3: Natural gas: in 2021, Sichuan ranked second in the country in terms of natural gas output, and is one of China’s major natural gas exporting provinces. In 2021, Sichuan’s natural gas output was 48.4 billion cubic meters, the second in China; Natural gas consumption was 26.8 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 13%. The famous Sichuan East gas transmission pipeline, with a total investment of 62.676 billion yuan, is another long-distance natural gas pipeline network transmission project in China after the west east gas transmission project. The project starts from Puguang gas field in Dazhou, Sichuan in the west, and spans 6 provinces and 2 cities in Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. The total length of the pipeline is 2170km, and the annual transmission of natural gas is 12billion cubic meters. 4: In 2021, the iron ore output of Sichuan Province was 112 million tons, ranking the third in China after Hebei and Liaoning. It is one of the provinces with the highest iron ore output in China. The steel output of Sichuan Province is not high, only more than 28 million tons in 2021. Therefore, there is still room for Sichuan to transfer iron ore.
Of course, when we talk about Sichuan, we must talk about Shaanxi Province in the north of Sichuan.
Shaanxi Province has a special position in China, that is, the province with the most abundant energy output in China, which can be said to be the strongest energy province in China.
According to China Statistical Yearbook 2021, the data of 2020 are used,
In 2020, the top five in China’s oil production are Tianjin, which ranks first in China with 32.42 million tons, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, 29.15 million tons and Shaanxi, 26.94 million tons.
Tianjin’s oil output ranks first in China because of the Bohai oil field.
In 2020, the top five natural gas production in China are 52.7 billion cubic meters in Shaanxi, 46.3 billion cubic meters in Sichuan, 37 billion cubic meters in Xinjiang, 13.2 billion cubic meters in Guangdong and 8.6 billion cubic meters in Shanxi.
In 2020, the national coal output will be 1.079 billion tons in Shanxi, 1.026 billion tons in Inner Mongolia, 680million tons in Shaanxi, 270 million tons in Xinjiang and 121 million tons in Guizhou.
It can be seen that Shaanxi is the strongest energy province in China, the fourth largest in oil production and the third largest in coal production. In particular, the output of natural gas ranks first in China. The output of Shaanxi Province in these three major energy sources ranks among the top four in China.
Xinjiang can be called “small Shaanxi”. Its coal, oil and natural gas output also ranks among the top four in China. Of course, Xinjiang’s oil output is slightly more than that of Shaanxi, and the other two are less than that of Shaanxi.
Therefore, we can think that Shaanxi and Xinjiang are the two provinces with the strongest comprehensive energy in China, while Tianjin and Shanxi are the single champions of oil and coal respectively.
Of course, in fact, China has potential players in energy supply. For example, in Sansha City, Hainan Province, the oil and gas resources in the South China Sea are a great treasure of China.
Now that we talk about Xinjiang, we must talk about cotton in Xinjiang, which is an important raw material for the textile industry. In the past, China’s cotton production was concentrated in North China. During the Anti Japanese War, Japan plundered cotton in North China and used it as raw material for Japan’s textile industry. When the United States developed the textile industry in the early days, it also needed a large amount of cotton. Therefore, enslaving black people to plant cotton in plantations has become an important work, Cotton has become a sensitive point for the black community to racial discrimination.
Western countries led by the United States are now cracking down on China, including cotton in Xinjiang. This is somewhat surprising, because cotton is not a high-tech product. Why should we crack down on cotton in Xinjiang alone.
But in fact, when we look at the main cotton producing areas in China, we can see that the cotton sanctions in Xinjiang are almost the same as that in China. The picture is from the 11th issue of China National Geographic 2010. In fact, this picture only needs to mark Xinjiang, because Xinjiang is the largest cotton producer in China, far more than the total of other regions in China.
In fact, Western sanctions against Xinjiang cotton are almost equivalent to sanctions against China’s cotton, because Xinjiang’s natural and climatic conditions are too suitable for cotton production. Cotton likes light, does not resist freezing, does not like rain, likes semi-arid environment, and has requirements for soil.
In 2020, China’s cotton output was 5.91 million tons, and Xinjiang accounted for 5.161 million tons, accounting for 87.3%. Moreover, the output per unit area in Xinjiang is also the highest in China. Hebei, the second largest cotton producer in China, is only 209000 tons, which is not an order of magnitude at all. Therefore, sanctions against cotton in Xinjiang are not different from those against cotton in China. However, as a major manufacturing country in the world, China’s domestic cotton production is not enough, and it also needs to import from abroad. India, the United States, Pakistan, Brazil and Uzbekistan in Central Asia are all the major cotton producing countries in the world.
Besides the strategic resource of iron ore, China imported 1.12 billion tons of iron ore in 2021, while China’s iron ore output in 2021 was 980528000 tons, um, 1.12 billion tons imported and 980 million tons self-produced.
Among the 980 million tons of iron ore produced by Hebei Province, the output of Hebei Province is 4011 million tons, Liaoning Province is the second 141.5 million tons, and Sichuan Province is the third 112.6 million tons. The output of Hebei Province accounts for 41% of the country. The rich output of iron ore in Hebei Province also makes Hebei the province with the highest crude steel output in China.
I have always thought that it is not necessarily a bad thing for China to import a large amount of iron ore, because it is actually transporting the global iron resources to China. I checked the downstream application of crude steel in China, most of which are used for various real estate, infrastructure and local industrial products. In other words, most of them are left on China’s land, and only a small part are exported to foreign countries in the form of industrial products.
In addition to iron ore, steel-making can also use a large number of scrap steel. Even if there is a very high-intensity war in the future, China will not have the problem of insufficient steel resources.
We also want to talk about Shandong Province. We all know that Shandong Province is the largest vegetable production province in China. The press conference held by the Information Office of Shandong provincial government in January 2022 announced that in 2021, the total output of vegetables in Shandong Province will be 88.011 million tons, ranking first in the country. Of course, to add a word here, the output of vegetables in Henan Province ranks second in the country. At the same time, Henan Province is also the second largest food production province after Heilongjiang Province, Both grain and vegetables rank second in China, which shows their importance.
However, Shandong Province is still the largest gold production province in China,
According to the report of China Gold daily in August 2021, the China Gold Association released the China Gold Yearbook 2021. In 2020, the gold output of gold mines nationwide was 301.695 tons, while that of Shandong Province was 55.162 tons, greatly exceeding 35.236 tons of Henan Province and 15.707 tons of Yunnan Province, the third.
In this article, we can see that some provinces that seem to have little resources in our impression have their unique advantages in natural resources. For example, Hubei Province accounts for nearly half of the country’s phosphate rock output.
The output of phosphate fertilizer and gold in Yunnan Province in 2021 is among the top three in China.
Another example is sugar, an important industrial product that we don’t pay attention to every day. About a month after the war between Russia and Ukraine, I saw that some Chinese in Russia sent short videos saying that sugar was sold out in some supermarkets. I don’t know if the situation is getting better now, but the war will bring about a shortage of sugar. This is really interesting. During World War II, the shortage of sugar in Japan was even more serious, and the price of sugar also soared. The reason was that sugar was high in calories. It was an important raw material for human food and one of the strategic materials.
According to the sugar output of China in 2021, the national output is 14.571 million tons, and the raw materials mainly come from sugarcane in the South and sugar beet in the north.
Among them, the sugar output of Guangxi is the highest in China, with an output of 6.9274 million tons, accounting for 47.54%, and the second in China is 2.4622 million tons in Yunnan Province, accounting for 16.9%. Shandong Province ranks third in China with 1.4345 million tons, accounting for 9.84%; Guangdong Province ranks fourth in China with 1.3142 million tons, accounting for 9%, which may be related to the fact that Guangdong also produces sugarcane.
In short, Guangxi and Yunnan provinces account for nearly two-thirds of the country. It seems that China has a vast territory and strong diversity is really beneficial.
In fact, Guangxi and Yunnan also rank among the top three in terms of output of one natural resource in China, that is, timber,
In 2020, the timber output of Guangxi was 36million cubic meters, accounting for 36.41% of the country, Guangdong ranked second with 10.17 million cubic meters, accounting for 10.29%, and Yunnan ranked third with 8.46 million cubic meters, accounting for 8.56% of the country.
Guangxi autonomous region has been the largest timber production province in China for more than ten consecutive years, while Fujian Province has occupied the position of the first timber production province in China for many years.
In addition, Yunnan Province, which has Nujiang River, Lancang River and Jinsha River, is also very rich in hydraulic resources. In 2021, the hydropower generation capacity of Yunnan Province is second only to Sichuan Province, ranking second in China. Yunnan’s hydropower will play a major role in the west to East power transmission strategy.
Last year’s high coal prices, the decline in thermal power generation and power rationing had little impact on Yunnan Province. After all, hydropower is the main power.
I once wrote an article called why natural resources are worthless. Indeed, from an economic point of view, the value of natural resources is indeed limited for our country with a population of 1.4 billion. Moreover, the price of resources can not continue to increase, but will fluctuate or even fluctuate. However, the strategic value of natural resources is very important.
Just like grain, you can’t make much money by growing grain. When farmers are the most miserable, the proportion of the primary industry in a country’s GDP is not high, and the United States is the world’s largest agricultural country, with millions of farmers. You can intuitively guess the proportion of the primary industry (agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery) in China’s GDP in 2021? Only 7.3%.
However, in 2021, 35.3% of the people in China will live in rural areas, up to 49835million people, that is, there are about 500million people. If such a large population has so little GDP, it will be very poor. Therefore, it is necessary to develop township industry, tourism, farmhouse entertainment, transfer payment, etc. in rural areas.
However, although it does not make money, the strategic significance of food is very important, which need not be repeated.
In general, the various resources mentioned in this article,
Including grain (Heilongjiang), chemical fertilizer (Hubei), timber (Guangxi), iron ore (Hebei), sugar (Guangxi), coal (Shanxi), oil (Tianjin), natural gas (Shaanxi), hydraulic resources (Sichuan), cotton (Xinjiang), gold (Shandong), vegetables (Shandong) There are also rare earth (Inner Mongolia) and copper ore (Jiangxi), which are not mentioned in this article. Each province in China has its own advantages and disadvantages. In parentheses, it is the largest province in terms of output.
Why should China emphasize the unification of the big market? In fact, it is the same in the exploitation and use of natural resources, or a similar principle. That is, since each province has its own advantages in natural resources and industrial capacity, it can not be artificially divided in various places to form obstacles. Instead, under the unified allocation of the country, it plans and uses the resources distributed throughout the country, Only in this way can the natural resources in all parts of China give full play to their maximum strategic value, form a joint force among all parts of China, and achieve the effect of 1+1 greater than 2.
These are some random talks today.