Mother River’s Legacy
Chen Fu, an associate research fellow with the Aerospace Information Research Institute, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, studied the changes taking place along the Yangtze River Economic Belt by comparing satellite images of lights across the region. “The lights are visibly turning brighter over the past five years,” he said, adding that the increase in brightness usually stems from more active production and human activities.
His conclusion is backed by official statistics. As of November 2020, the economic belt accounted for 46.6 percent of China’s economic aggregate, up from 42.3 percent in 2015. Its total trade in
