For Central Heat, China Has a North-South Divide at Qin-Huai Line

choi

Julie Makinen, For Central Heat, China Has a North-South Divide at Qin-Huai Line. Los Angeles Times, Nov 15, 2014.
www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-heat-20141115-story.html

Quote:

"The line 秦岭-淮河线 divides two of China's largest leading cities, with Shanghai, where the temperature average is about 40 degrees in January, just below the line while Beijing, at a chillier 25-degree average for the month, is well above it.

"In Shanghai, where heating is not provided by the government, many new apartments have their own systems. But expenses for the residents are significantly higher than in cities with government-provided heat. For a 1,076-square-foot apartment in Beijing, a resident pays about $490 for four months of heating [starting 'every Nov 15' throughout China's north]. Shanghai residents using individual gas boilers or electric heaters pay almost double that for gas or electricity.

Note:
(a) "The great heating divide, which traces the Huai River and Qin Mountains near the latitude 33 degrees north, dates from the 1950s. Back then, China started to install centralized systems for residential areas with assistance from the Soviet Union. But China was facing an extreme energy shortage in those years, and Premier Zhou Enlai suggested the Qin-Huai line, a well-known demarcation between north and south, as a cutoff point."

秦岭-淮河线
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/秦岭-淮河线
(b) "The divide was not ironclad. The Huai River runs through Xinyang 信阳市 in Henan province 河南省, but because more than 75% of the people live south of the river, the city was left out of the heating club. About 66 miles north, Zhumadian 驻马店市 in Henan enjoys central heat. But go 43 miles north to Luohe 漯河市, and there are no radiators in sight."

I search the Web and learn that 漯河市 has started building government heating system since 2007--not complete yet--by 漯河天阳供热有限责任公司 (owned in large part by city government).
(c) "Pan Yiqun, a professor from the Institute of Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning and Gas Engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai"

同济大学 机械工程学院暖通空调及燃气研究所 潘毅群教授 (1970- ; a woman; 暖通 = 供暖通风)
(d) Regarding quotation 2. Having been in US for three decades, I subscribe to philosophies of Republican Party. Among them is privatization. So I winder why Beijing city government charges less. Is it due to subsidy, as opposed to efficiency?