Beijing closed 2025 with a headline GDP of RMB 52,073.4 hundred million (roughly RMB 5.21 trillion), growing 5.4% in real terms and, by that accounting, becoming China’s second city to pass the RMB 5 trillion threshold after Shanghai. Shanghai itself recorded RMB 56,708.71 hundred million (roughly RMB 5.67 trillion) in 2025, also up 5.4%, underscoring how economic momentum remains concentrated in the country’s established megacities.
Beyond the two giants, a new round of graduations and near‑misses is reshaping the map of China’s urban economy. Smaller coastal and inland cities such as Wenzhou, Xuzhou and Dalian will reach the RMB 1 trillion mark, while forecasts suggest Suzhou could be within sight of RMB 3 trillion and Shenzhen RMB 4 trillion by the end of 2026. Several provincial capitals and manufacturing hubs — notably Nanjing, Ningbo, Tianjin and Qingdao — have set or been assigned RMB 2 trillion targets, but not all will make the deadline.
The public celebration of GDP thresholds matters because they carry political, fiscal and investment consequences in China. Milestones such as RMB 1 trillion or RMB 5 trillion are shorthand for administrative prestige, help attract talent and capital, and shape leadership claims of economic stewardship. Yet GDP totals are a blunt metric; analysts often point to financial depth and research capacity as more durable measures of city competitiveness, areas in which Beijing scores exceptionally highly.
Beijing’s strength is instructive. The capital combines a first‑rate services complex — finance, consumption and public‑sector services — with an unusually resilient industrial base. Its social retail sales are among the nation’s highest, and its industrial revenue in 2024 was reported at roughly RMB 3 trillion. Beijing also leads China in research intensity: external indices place it at the top of global city rankings for high‑quality scientific output, reflecting concentrated universities, research institutes and corporate R&D centres.
That intellectual backbone underpins Beijing’s push up the value chain. Local statistics show the city has significantly lifted the share of high‑tech manufacturing and industrial strategic emerging sectors in recent years; high‑precision and emerging industries are reported to have an aggregate scale approaching RMB 6 trillion, with several sub‑sectors already at or above the RMB 100 billion mark. Beijing’s planners are explicit about the next phase: prioritising next‑generation digital infrastructure, 6G and embodied intelligence as part of a national push to build international innovation centres in Beijing, Shanghai and the Greater Bay Area.
For other cities, the lesson is stark. The article’s underlying thesis — that industry is the soul of a city — reflects a widely held view among Chinese urban managers: without a solid industrial base that feeds jobs, exports and tax receipts, demographic and economic vitality is fragile. Cities that have leaned too heavily on property or administrative services without upgrading industrial capabilities risk stagnation, a point reflected in the uneven prospects for the RMB 2 trillion cohort.
The immediate policy implication is continuity rather than reversal. Neither Beijing nor Shanghai is pursuing full deindustrialisation; both keep large manufacturing footprints while accelerating high‑end services and R&D. That mixed model is likely to define China’s urban winners over the next decade: deep specialisation in advanced manufacturing and research coupled with vibrant service sectors that can absorb talent and capital. The broader strategic consequence is greater concentration of China’s high‑value economic activity in a handful of globalised city clusters, intensifying regional competition and raising the stakes for national industrial policy.