Guizhou Province

In the 1880s the Guizhou Machinery Bureau was set up in Guiyang to copy arms and equipment — the start of Guizhou's modern machine industry. The Wanshan mercury mines had supplied the court with cinnabar and quicksilver since the Ming, and from the late Qing into the Republic were known as "China's mercury capital"; mercury long ranked as Guizhou's most important export. The distilleries of Maotai town strung along the Chishui River, and the Sichuan-salt-into-Guizhou trade brought prosperity to ports along the route. Mountainous and short of farmland, Guizhou's early modern industry concentrated in mining, liquor, ordnance and a few machinery-repair workshops — small in scale, but leaving the resource and craft base on which the later Third Front siting was laid.

During the war of resistance Guizhou lay deep in the south-western rear area; a batch of ordnance, machinery and chemical enterprises moved to or transited through the province, and modern ordnance repair and machinery production appeared at Guiyang, Zunyi and Tongzi. The Yunnan-Guizhou and Sichuan-Guizhou highways were built, turning Guizhou from a transport backwater into a strategic corridor. The relocated enterprises brought skilled workers and management experience; some stayed after the war, forming Guizhou's first ranks of modern industrial workers.

From 1964 the Third Front programme unfolded in Guizhou at unprecedented scale: the three great defence systems were built in succession — Base 011 centred on Anshun (aero-engines and aircraft, the Liyang family), Base 061 centred on Zunyi (aerospace, the Jiangnan Aerospace family), and Base 083 centred on Duyun and Kaili (electronics and radar, the Zhenhua family) — supported by the Liupanshui coal base (the "southern coal capital"), Shuicheng Iron & Steel, the Kaiyang phosphate mine and the Chishui gas-fertiliser plant, while the Guiyang-Kunming, Sichuan-Guizhou and Hunan-Guizhou railways opened one after another. The programme embedded aviation, aerospace and electronics — three cutting-edge industries — into Guizhou's mountains in one stroke, forming the industrial skeleton of the following half century and the technological source of Guizhou's equipment manufacturing to this day.

After reform and opening-up, Third Front enterprises converted to civilian production: Liyang aero-engines, Jiangnan Aerospace and Zhenhua Electronics turned to civilian goods and export supply; Liupanshui's coal and pithead power plants backed the west-to-east power transmission programme, Shuicheng Iron & Steel and the Kaiyang phosphate mine expanded, and Moutai's capacity and brand kept growing. With transport improving, Guiyang and Zunyi took in coastal industrial relocation, forming regional clusters in aluminium processing, tyres, fertiliser and building materials.

Since 2015 Guizhou has built the national big-data pilot zone; Guiyang became one of the world's densest clusters of hyperscale data centres, with Apple, Tencent and Huawei facilities landing as power and climate advantages turned into a computing industry. The liquor industry formed a hundred-billion-yuan cluster led by Moutai; phosphorus-coal chemicals extended from phosphate resources into new-energy battery materials (lithium iron phosphate, phosphorus-based electrolytes); and the "six major industrial bases" (new integrated energy, new-energy power batteries and materials, liquor, modern chemicals, big-data electronic information, aerospace and equipment) are being built at speed. In 2025 equipment-manufacturing value added rose 26.6% and vehicle output 42.3% — the Third Front's defence inheritance is converting into high-end equipment and NEV capacity.