Hebei is the mysterious doughnut province surrounding Beijing — and it's quietly becoming one of the smartest ways into the world's biggest marketplace. In this bumper final episode, we discover why.

Here, China's future is already running. Xiong'an — a city of 1.2 million built on farmland in a decade — is run by an AI brain wired to a million sensors, with driverless taxis for a dollar a ride and incentives on the table for foreign entrepreneurs who want in. Beyond it, a gaggle of towns, each the world capital of something: 800 million bags a year from one city, enough wire mesh from another to carpet Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne — including the screen on your back door. Chances are, Hebei is already in your house.

Then the machinery that's driving its growth: a port with no ships and no water, shifting 35 million tonnes a year, steel still hot from the mill — and a free trade zone with routes already open to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The blunt message for Australian business: there's money to be made here — come and have a look. We sign off with a donkey burger and a rock and roll band at volume 11. Hebei isn't a mystery anymore. The question isn't whether you can do business there — it's why aren't you there already?

For five years, The Big Picture has covered Australia-China business from the places everyone knows: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. This year we went somewhere else. An hour from Beijing lies a province of 75 million people the outside world has never heard of. It's shaped like a doughnut, and the hole in the middle is Beijing. For centuries the capital took the glory while Hebei did the work. Now Hebei is opening up, and we got the first invitation.

There's no guidebook, so we made one. Every city here has a speciality, and every speciality is world-scale: enough handbags a year to circle the equator eight times; more steel than America and Australia combined, now going green; a new city run by AI and Shakespeare-quoting robots.

But the real story is people, and the long game. We meet entrepreneurs like Bob, who arrived in 1999 with one friend and no Mandarin, and made a fortune. The question isn't can you do business in Hebei. It's why aren't you there already?

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Sixty years ago the steel in China’s Hebei province came out of backyard furnaces, and the pears went to market on a handcart. Today one mill makes more steel than Australia does in a year, and those pears land in Australian supermarkets by the ten million.

Episode three of The Big Picture is about opportunity and how fast a place can change, and what that speed is worth to anyone paying attention. In Botou, the Prince of Pears took his grandfather's handcart business to a hundred countries by pairing 500-year-old trees with spray drones and hand-wrapping every pear in a paper bag.

In Qian'an, we meet the Woman of Steel running a world-pioneering steelworks from a NASA-style nerve centre — producing low-emission green steel that China wants Australian tech to help perfect.

It’s a new offer of collaboration for Aussie businesses, not just rocks out and cars back, but building a better future together. Ancient. Modern. Same postcode. The mystery isn't Hebei anymore — it's how much money is being left on the table by the people who still haven't shown up.

Don't Break the China!

For five years, The Big Picture has covered Australia-China business from the places everyone knows: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. This year we went somewhere else. An hour from Beijing lies a province of 75 million people the outside world has never heard of. It's shaped like a doughnut, and the hole in the middle is Beijing. For centuries the capital took the glory while Hebei did the work. Now Hebei is opening up, and we got the first invitation.

There's no guidebook, so we made one. Every city here has a speciality, and every speciality is world-scale: enough handbags a year to circle the equator eight times; more steel than America and Australia combined, now going green; a new city run by AI and Shakespeare-quoting robots.

But the real story is people, and the long game. We meet entrepreneurs like Bob, who arrived in 1999 with one friend and no Mandarin, and made a fortune. The question isn't can you do business in Hebei. It's why aren't you there already?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

China's answer to Detroit is a city you've never heard of — and its cars are already parked in your street.

Episode two of The Big Picture adventure through Hebei Province heads south to Baoding — home of Great Wall Motor, the first Chinese car maker to launch in Australia and now the fastest-growing. They've built a city block around themselves: a headquarters, a car-themed hotel, and a shopping mall where you can buy a coffee, the weekly groceries, and a new car from one of seventeen showrooms. Two llamas were also shopping. Nobody blinked.

Back in Australia, 52,000 GWM cars were sold last year, while Toyota, Ford and Nissan went the other way. The reason, in seven words: come for the price, stay for the tech.

Australia stopped building cars. China didn't.

So here's the billion-dollar question. It's not: will Chinese cars take over the market?

It's: why did you only just notice — and when are you test-driving one?

Don't Break the China!

For five years, The Big Picture has covered Australia-China business from the places everyone knows: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. This year we went somewhere else. An hour from Beijing lies a province of 75 million people the outside world has never heard of. It's shaped like a doughnut, and the hole in the middle is Beijing. For centuries the capital took the glory while Hebei did the work. Now Hebei is opening up, and we got the first invitation.

There's no guidebook, so we made one. Every city here has a speciality, and every speciality is world-scale: enough handbags a year to circle the equator eight times; more steel than America and Australia combined, now going green; a new city run by AI and Shakespeare-quoting robots.

But the real story is people, and the long game. We meet entrepreneurs like Bob, who arrived in 1999 with one friend and no Mandarin, and made a fortune. The question isn't can you do business in Hebei. It's why aren't you there already?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.