When Qiu Baoxing left his post as Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, he had reached the age of 61, the retirement age for vice-ministerial officials. In 2001, when he left his position as Mayor of Hangzhou to take up a post in Beijing at the Ministry of Construction (now the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development), Qiu Baoxing was 48 years old.
　　On June 5, the website of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced that the State Council had removed Qiu Baoxing from the post of Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. This was another personnel change in the Ministry following Jiang Weixin's departure from the post of Party Secretary and Chen Zhenggao's appointment.
　　Compared with the cautious and low-key Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Jiang Weixin, Qiu Baoxing is more outspoken and high-profile.
　　At the 2014 National “Two Sessions,” Jiang Weixin was tight-lipped when pressed by the media on issues such as real estate regulation, housing information networking, and small property rights housing. Qiu Baoxing, also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, gave detailed introductions and interpretations of real estate regulation approaches, future trends, and shared property rights.
　　According to the functional arrangements of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Qiu Baoxing's main portfolio was urban planning. Therefore, compared with real estate regulation and later market trends, this former vice minister with a rich background in urban planning was more willing to talk about urbanization and urban planning.
　　In recent years, Qiu Baoxing has delivered public speeches on urbanization and planning many times. This vice minister, who well understands the importance of planning, said: “My audience is mainly urban decision-makers. The results of urban construction are rigid; once fixed, they are difficult to reverse and cannot be corrected or restored. If the opportunities, challenges, and dual nature of urban construction are not clearly explained to urban decision-makers, blindness is likely to occur, and blind planning and construction will cause huge losses.”
　　Last Speech Before Departure
　　A week before Qiu Baoxing was announced to be leaving his post as Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, on May 28, a reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald met Qiu Baoxing in Conference Hall 305 of the Beijing International Convention Center.
　　That day was the “2014 Beijing Fair · China Urbanization Conference,” and Qiu Baoxing was invited by the China Professional Committee on Industrial Clusters to attend the event.
　　This was perhaps Qiu Baoxing's last public speech in his capacity as Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
　　Sitting in the front row and listening carefully to speeches by several guests, including Liu Thai Ker, known as the father of Singapore's planning, Qiu Baoxing occasionally took notes on paper. Taking notes is a habit Qiu Baoxing has maintained for a long time. Reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald have seen him on many occasions and always found him carrying paper and pen to take notes.
　　Apparently unaffected by his impending departure, during the 1.5-hour speech and Q&A session, this “scholar-official” interacted frequently with the guests, and his openness was no different from usual.
　　In response to Liu Thai Ker's advice on Beijing's planning, which proposed dividing Beijing into functional zones, Qiu Baoxing did not hide his regret in his speech: “The suggestion is very good. As early as the 1980s, Liang Sicheng already raised the regret of modular planning for Beijing, but it was not realized. Now Beijing wants to be cut into cities of 5 million or 3 million, but it cannot be cut.”
　　Citing this example, Qiu Baoxing said that the lack of scientific thinking in early planning has provided profound lessons.
　　In his speech that day, when discussing the various problems facing China's urbanization, this vice minister with a background in urban planning from Tongji University did not conceal his regret and helplessness.
　　“Ghost cities in other countries, such as those in the UK, are based on industrial transfer, but China's ghost cities are rare in the world, driven by officials' image projects and political achievements in a city-building campaign,” Qiu Baoxing said.
　　“Small property rights housing is hard to imagine in a country governed by the rule of law, with no planning guarantee, and no guarantee of quality or property rights,” Qiu Baoxing said. He believes that building urban communities in rural areas is a wrong approach. China's aging population is faster than that of any other country. According to the current population structure, in the next 10 years, there is likely to be a large-scale return wave. A flexible flow mechanism for urban and rural residents is also a manifestation of a healthy urbanization mechanism.
　　“Many leaders now have an obvious misunderstanding: they believe the urbanization rate is not high enough. Some provinces have reached a 60% urbanization rate but still pursue 90% or even higher, blindly expanding urban construction, not paying attention to protecting cultural heritage and the living environment, and turning rural areas into cities,” Qiu Baoxing said. Rural and urban areas develop in a complementary way. If rural areas disappear, urban population will only flow in and not out. Without a stable urban-rural flow mechanism, it is not a healthy development model.
　　30 Years as a “City Steward”
　　His insight into the various drawbacks of urbanization development is also based on Qiu Baoxing's nearly 30 years of practice and research as a “city steward.”
　　Before serving as Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Qiu Baoxing had served as a leading Party and government official in Yueqing and Jinhua in Zhejiang, where the market economy started early, and as Mayor of Hangzhou from 1999 to 2001.
　　His emphasis on urban planning was also reflected in his early local governance. During his three years as Mayor of Hangzhou, what people most often talked about was his “iron-fisted demolition of illegal structures.” In June 1999, Hangzhou held a mobilization meeting for demolition work. Qiu Baoxing raised the severity and urgency of the demolition work, and the slogan at the time was to declare war on illegal buildings.
　　According to public reports, by December 1999, Hangzhou had demolished 739,300 square meters of illegal buildings and expired temporary structures, accounting for 53.8% of the city's illegal buildings to be demolished. Among them, the demolition rate in scenic areas was 26.9%. By 2001, illegal buildings belonging to 598 officials had been handled and publicized. Famous holdouts at the time, such as Taoyuanling and Zhejiang Auto Parts City, were also demolished.
　　In addition to nearly 20 years of rich urban management experience accumulated from frontline work, Qiu Baoxing's academic credentials are also substantial.
　　After graduating from Hangzhou University with a bachelor's degree, Qiu Baoxing successively studied in the graduate program in urban planning at Tongji University and the doctoral program in political economy in the Department of Economics at Fudan University. He also studied overseas at Stanford University in the United States and the University of Sydney in Australia, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and MIT.
　　This resume earned Qiu Baoxing the label of “scholar-official.” In his office at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, many books were placed, with stacks more than two feet high on the tea table alone, mostly related to urban construction.
　　In fact, Qiu Baoxing himself has published several academic works on urban planning, construction and management, urbanization strategy research, and property rights system reform.
　　It is precisely because of his dual experience in urban management practice and planning research that Qiu Baoxing well understands the drawbacks of China's urban planning. “I have served as a mayor and later as a vice minister in the ministry,” Qiu Baoxing said at the Beijing Fair forum. Local mayors and party secretaries think about how to make good use of land finance, while the central government thinks about how to manage land finance well. This is like the relationship between cat and mouse.
　　Under the current mechanism, urban decision-makers have absolute authority over planning, but once urban construction is fixed, it is difficult to correct or restore. Therefore, during his tenure as Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Qiu Baoxing stated on many occasions that healthy urbanization must maintain five key bottom lines: coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and small towns; complementary and coordinated development of cities and rural areas; compact urban spatial density; prevention of ghost cities; and protection of cultural and natural heritage.
　　On the other hand, this former vice minister in charge of planning also drew on foreign experience and established the urban and rural planning supervision system in 2005. Its core is that higher-level governments dispatch urban and rural planning supervisors to lower-level governments to supervise the implementation of local plans in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, departmental rules, related policies, and plans.
　　Up to now, 116 urban and rural planning supervisors have been dispatched to 103 cities whose overall urban plans are approved by the State Council, forming a work system of ministry, provincial, and municipal territorial management with graded classification. This is also an important measure for the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to implement new urbanization and strengthen planning supervision.