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Vessel tests begin along China's major river-to-sea Pinglu Canal_我的网站
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Equipped with China's homegrown BeiDou positioning systems, drones and sensors, four vessels began trial runs along China's Pinglu Canal on Wednesday. The canal, which is planned for opening in September, will greatly inject economic vitality to areas along its route and turbocharge China's trade connection with the ASEAN with its cost-saving transportation, a Chinese analyst said.
The vessels conducting trials on Wednesday represent the main types expected to sail on this canal, namely loaded and unloaded 5,000-tonne ships as well as loaded 3,000-tonne and 1,000-tonne vessels, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The trials began when an unloaded 5,000-ton vessel departed from the Xinfu service area along the canal in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
With sensors collect data on their routes, movements, water currents and safe distances between ships, the tests will assess navigation under both normal and adverse conditions and examine whether the canal's waterways, locks, anchorages, service areas and navigation facilities are ready for operation.
Chinese analysts said the tests starting on Wednesday, days after the canal completed its first full-route patrol, indicated that the canal is one step closer to its scheduled opening in September as final preparation work ramp up.
Zheng Ping, chief analyst at industry news portal chineseport.cn, told the Global Times on Wednesday that as a major project in the nation's water network, the opening of the canal later this year will bring sea changes to areas along its route with fresh economic opportunities with its role as a low-cost enabler for domestic and international trade.
"Inland water traffic has great advantage in transportation capacity and costs. While a train can typically carry 20 40-foot container or more, a waterborne vessel can easily carry over 100 such containers. So a five-times capacity is gained here, greatly reducing transportation costs for goods," Zheng said.
For goods that are not time sensitive, or for bulk cargo such as coal, aluminum or fertilizers, waterborne traffic has unparallel advantage, the expert noted.
The 134.2-kilometer-long Pinglu Canal is a key project of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. With total investment exceeding 70 billion yuan ($10.37 billion), the canal begins at the Pingtang River estuary in Hengzhou, administered by Nanning, follows the Qinjiang River into the Beibu Gulf, according to Xinhua News Agency.
It is China's first major river-to-sea canal project planned and coordinated at the national level since 1949 and is designed to accommodate vessels of up to 5,000 tons.
In addition to facilitating transportation, modern canal system will also have the function of water resource diversion, flood control and irrigation, greatly boosting up local economic development, Zheng said.
Lei Xiaohua, deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the Pinglu Canal will serve as a new engine for the deep integration of industrial chains between China and ASEAN.
"Raw materials from ASEAN can enter China's hinterland via the Beibu Gulf ports at lower costs, while Chinese exports including aluminum products and building materials can reach Southeast Asia more efficiently," Lei said.
Against the backdrop of deep industrial chain integration between China and Vietnam, the canal, which offers a low-cost, high-capacity transport route, is poised to foster new models of cross-border industrial capacity cooperation, said Lei.
When operational in September, the canal will give inland regions in Southwest China a more direct river route to the sea. Cargo that previously had to travel eastward through the Port of Guangzhou will be able to head south directly toward ports in the Beibu Gulf, shortening some inland waterway journeys by about 560 kilometers, according to Xinhua.
The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor is an international trade and logistics network connecting China's western regions to ASEAN countries and other overseas markets.
The corridor has continued to record strong trade growth. During the first half of 2026, imports and exports transported through the corridor by its participating regions reached 517.23 billion yuan, up 13 percent year-on-year and setting a new record for the same period, per data released by Chongqing municipal government.
The corridor's rail service handled a record 1.425 million 20-foot equivalent units of cargo in 2025, up 47.6 percent year-on-year. As of early June of 2026, its network reached 593 ports in 128 countries and regions.
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At 29, Shi belongs to a new generation of desert-control workers equipped with drones, machines and remote irrigation systems. An earth auger can now do in a day what once required about 200 laborers, while a single phone can control drip irrigation across more than 1,000 mu (about 66.67 hectares) of woodland.
For the older Shi's generation, the challenge was getting trees to survive in moving dunes. For the grandson, it is figuring out how to make those forests healthier and more resilient for decades to come.
Their story captures a broader shift in desert control along the southern edge of the Maowusu Desert in northwest China's Shaanxi Province: turning shifting sand into forest was only the beginning.
In 1986, Shi Guangyin, Shi Jianyang's grandfather, led more than 300 villagers into Langwosha, a sandy area in Dingbian County in Yulin City. He had raised 60,000 yuan (about 17,377 U.S. dollars at the time) by selling his family's 84 sheep and borrowing from relatives and banks to contract 3,500 mu of barren sandy land.
The early setbacks were severe. Strong winds destroyed about 90 percent of the saplings in the first year, and about 80 percent of those planted the following year failed to survive.
After seeking advice from forestry experts, Shi and the villagers laid out checkerboard-shaped barriers on windward slopes to hold the sand in place, then planted trees, shrubs and grasses within them. Sapling survival rates rose to about 80 percent.
Over the next four decades, Shi and those working alongside him treated 250,000 mu of sandy and saline-alkali land, with more than 53 million trees and shrubs taking root.
Greening the Maowusu Desert is part of a much larger national undertaking. It is one of the three major battlefronts of China's Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, a decades-long effort to curb desertification across northern China.
China has made desertification control a national ecological priority. Since 2023, the country has stepped up efforts under the program, with greater emphasis on systematic restoration and on consolidating earlier gains.
Decades after the first trees took root, a new challenge emerged. Poplars planted decades ago for their rapid growth began reaching the end of their life cycle, with large numbers of trees dying, while forests dominated by a single species were more vulnerable to pests and disease.
Making a forest was one challenge. Keeping it healthy for another generation is another.
Shi Jianyang grew up watching his grandfather and father work to hold back the sand. His father, Shi Zhanjun, spent years planting trees alongside Shi Guangyin before dying in a road accident in 2008 while transporting saplings.
As a boy, Shi Jianyang sometimes resented the work that had taken his father. He spent summer holidays in makeshift tents in the sandy land, eating meals gritty with sand. During planting season, his father would return home with painful blisters in his mouth.
Yet he eventually chose forestry himself.
After studying forestry technology in university, Shi returned home in 2020 and began working in desert control. His team, initially made up of just seven or eight young locals, later brought in university graduates with expertise in soil science, landscaping and pest control.
The younger generation faced a different question: not simply how to make trees survive, but how to make a forest last.
Shi and his team spent more than 40 days in a 5,000-mu woodland setting up sample plots, measuring rainfall, studying soil microorganisms and tracking tree lodging. They proposed renewing aging forests with better-planned forest structures and expanded the planting of Mongolian pine, a long-lived evergreen species that had been successfully tested locally.
To date, about 50,000 mu of land has been planted with Mongolian pine. As some trees fail to survive and require replacement in subsequent planting seasons, the cumulative area of planting operations has reached about 65,000 mu.
Technology has also changed daily work. Drones patrol forests from the air, mechanized equipment dig planting pits, and irrigation can be managed remotely. Sapling survival rates, which Shi Guangyin's generation had raised to about 80 percent through improved sand-control and planting methods, have climbed further to about 92 percent with greater mechanization and more precise management.
Shi said the changes can be felt on the ground. Strong sandstorms have become rare, winds are weaker inside the forest, and the ground stays moist longer after rain. Summer days beneath the trees also feel cooler, while morning dew appears more often. The changes lead him to rethink desert control.
His approach also reflects a broader effort in China's desert regions to link ecological restoration with local livelihoods, giving communities a stronger economic stake in protecting restored land.
With his grandfather's support, Shi and his team have been looking for ways to make better use of the restored land as ecological conditions improve. They have developed potato seedlings suited to sandy soil, promoted greenhouse farming, and set up a livestock cooperative, while increasingly growing potatoes, watermelons and peppers on land once prone to losing water and nutrients.
Shi has also turned to livestreaming e-commerce to market potatoes and other local farm produce, while developing forest-based health and leisure projects. More than 2,000 local residents have seen their incomes rise steadily as farming, livestock breeding and other businesses have developed.
"We used to fear the sand and keep away from it. Now we understand it and know how to make use of it," Shi Guangyin said. "Today, there are opportunities to make a living everywhere in this sandy land."
Across Yulin, forest coverage has risen from 1.8 percent in 1949 to 34.8 percent, while shifting dunes that once encroached on villages have been brought under control.
For Shi Jianyang, however, the green landscape is not proof that the work is finished. "Planting a tree is not difficult," he said. "The difficult part is looking after it for decades."
The grandfather generation learned how to stop the sand. The young generation is learning how to make what grew there last.
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Published on:13:46:35
