GUIYANG, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- A surging river that impeded the maneuver of the Red Army, led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), for days more than 90 years ago can now be crossed in just several minutes.
Looking down at the turbulent water from the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in southwest China's Guizhou Province, it's hard to imagine how the Red Army crossed the river using improvised floating bridges and other means.
In April 2026, the bridge was certified by Guinness World Records as the world's highest, with a confirmed height of 626.01 meters.
It is another striking example of how Guizhou, home to multiple old revolutionary base areas and a rich revolutionary history of the CPC, is committed to building a prosperous future for the people.
Wang Haijun, a YTO Express courier, recalled that local villagers once had to cross mountains and valleys to get to the town market, leaving before dawn and trekking for about eight hours along mountain paths to arrive in the afternoon.
"Travel is much more convenient for our fellow villagers now, and we save both time and energy when delivering packages," he said.
Starting from early design, the bridge and more than 50 square kilometers of surrounding area were incorporated into an overall tourism plan.
A maintenance passage inside the steel truss was converted into a 796-meter sightseeing corridor. A range of entertainment options, including bungee jumping at over 600 meters, a glass observation hall, artificial waterfall water screens and nighttime light shows, are drawing a constant flow of visitors from home and abroad.
Dozens of homestays and restaurants are now in operation on both sides of the river, and local agricultural product sales have also grown significantly, as I observed.
"Since the bridge was built, many young people who had gone out to work have come back and opened homestays, restaurants and local specialty shops," said Sun Yuming, a staff member of the Huajiang bridge tourism development company, under the Guizhou Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd.
Pan Yinglan, 37, who sells a glutinous rice specialty of the Bouyei ethnic group, told me how her life has changed since the bridge opened to traffic.
"I used to work at a small restaurant near my home. After the bridge was built, I decided to come here to work after hearing that business was booming," she said, adding that income derived from high tourist numbers during the recent holidays had greatly improved her life.
By the end of 2025, Guizhou, a mountainous province, had 9,563 kilometers of expressways in operation and more than 32,000 bridges built or under construction. Guizhou is now home to nearly half of the top 100 highest bridges in the world.
Over 100 kilometers away from the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, another of the province's tourism landmarks is boosting local development.
The scenic area of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), dubbed "China Sky Eye," located in Guizhou's Pingtang County, received more than 600,000 visitors between January and August this year, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent, according to Liu Chen, marketing director of the scenic area.
Statistics show that between 2016, when FAST was completed, and 2025, the county welcomed about 80.4 million tourists and generated total tourism spending of 77.8 billion yuan (about 11.6 billion U.S. dollars).
Liao Liangmin, a 25-year-old guide at a Red Army memorial hall in Zhenfeng County in the province, told me that nearly a century on, the stories about the close bonds between the Red Army and locals have never been forgotten.
"The stories, such as Bouyei youth risking their lives to deliver water to Red Army soldiers, have been passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth for over 90 years," she said, adding she and her colleagues have received nearly 90 visiting groups at the exhibition hall since the beginning of this year.
New stories of building a better life for the people are still unfolding. In November 2020, the Guizhou provincial government announced that the last nine counties in the province had been removed from the poverty-stricken county list, marking that the province, once with the largest poor population in China, had been lifted out of poverty.
The province has also built a diversified industrial landscape encompassing the digital industry, tourism, agriculture and other fields. The digital industry, in particular, posted average annual growth of 16.2 percent during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025). ■
