Southeast Asia Information Port News (www.dnyxxg.com) On December 20, 2025, Jingdong Yi Autonomous County, Pu'er City, Yunnan Province, held a grand celebration to mark its 40th anniversary. People of all ethnic groups in the county, dressed in festive attire, sang and danced to celebrate this momentous occasion.
Jingdong is located in the northern part of Pu'er City, home to 26 ethnic groups including Yi, Han, Hui, Dai, and Hani. The Wuliang Mountain and Ailao Mountain National Nature Reserves traverse the county, making it one of China's most biodiverse regions, known as a "natural green treasure trove."
Li Bayi, Deputy Secretary of the Jingdong County Party Committee and County Head, stated in his address that over the past forty years, the people of Jingdong have worked together, breaking through ideological constraints and overcoming backwardness. The county's GDP has jumped from 120 million yuan to 13.5 billion yuan, and per capita GDP has increased from 363 yuan to 45,600 yuan. Industries such as tea, ecotourism, and new energy have flourished, writing a new chapter in the county's transformation from poverty and backwardness to prosperity.
The Tang Dynasty text *Man Shu* records that "tea comes from the mountains within the borders of Yinsheng City," confirming Jingdong's thousand-year tea history. For forty years, the county has designated the tea industry as its primary pillar for enriching its people and revitalizing the county, issuing a series of supportive policies, promoting the organic transformation of tea gardens, and establishing 176 standardized primary tea processing workshops. It has jointly established the "Two Mountains" Pu'er Tea Research Center with Zhejiang University, introduced leading enterprises such as Nongfu Spring, and created the "Wuliang Babu" regional brand. The county's cultivated tea garden area has expanded from 50,000 mu to 265,000 mu, and the comprehensive output value of tea exceeded 3.2 billion yuan in 2024, and is expected to reach 5 billion yuan in 2025.
To protect its green mountains and clear waters, Jingdong has built a solid foundation with regulations. Over the past forty years, the county has successively issued environmental protection regulations and the Wuliang Mountain and Ailao Mountain protection and management regulations, taking the lead nationwide in implementing dual assessments of GEP (Gross Ecosystem Product) and GDP, implementing fishing and hunting bans, and hiring nearly 10,000 ecological forest rangers. Today, the county boasts over 4,300 species of higher plants and over 800 species of vertebrates. It is home to nearly half of the world's western black-crested gibbons and the largest population of Indochinese gray langurs in China, with an air quality excellence rate consistently exceeding 98%. In 2022, it successfully became one of the first batch of national "Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains are Invaluable Assets" practice and innovation bases in the province, and in 2024, it was selected as one of the top 100 counties for "Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains are Invaluable Assets" development.
Jingdong has long been committed to solving the problem of transportation difficulties. Over the past forty years, Jingdong has expanded its total road mileage from 943 kilometers to 10,767 kilometers with the determination to "build roads through mountains and bridges over rivers." The Molin, Jingwen, and Nanjing expressways are now open, and all 166 administrative villages in the county have access to bus services. "Four Good Rural Roads" have been paved for every household.
Ethnic unity is the foundation of Jingdong's development. For forty years, the county has integrated the strengthening of the sense of community of the Chinese nation into all its work, improved the legal system for ethnic regional autonomy, implemented five rounds of the "Ten Counties, One Hundred Townships, Ten Thousand Villages, Ten Thousand Households" demonstration project in 47 areas, and by 2024 had established 120 villages where the national common language and script were widely spoken. It also signed agreements with relevant counties and districts in six prefectures and cities, including Dali and Lincang, to promote regional cooperation. In 2022, the county was named a provincial-level model county for ethnic unity and progress.
On the same day, a themed cultural performance was staged at the celebration. Programs such as "The Flame of Life: A Prosperous Beginning," "Forty Years of Winding Mountain Roads," "Song of the Mountain Soul," "Landscapes Coexist: Realizing Dreams Together," "The Oath," and "I Love You, China" were performed, showcasing the county's forty-year development and the spirit of unity and progress among its various ethnic groups. (End)
