Guizhou

Guizhou is one of China’s poorest provinces, yet its villages of rice paddies, buffalos and mud-brick homes have long been a proving ground for rising stars in the Chinese Communist Party. The former president, Hu Jintao, once ran this mountainous...

But it is not only because more developed cities are slowing that the rest of China is advancing. Smaller, poorer cities are also innovating their way out of the doldrums. Guiyang, capital of Guizhou, China’s poorest province, tops this year’s...