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CHINESE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY

Michael Dunford & Thomas Bonschab

To cite this article: Michael Dunford & Thomas Bonschab (2013) CHINESE
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY, Regions Magazine, 289:1, 10-13, DOI:
10.1080/13673882.2013.10662630

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 Regional Survey
CHINESE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY
Michael Dunford, University of Sussex, UK and Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural
Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, and Thomas Bonschab,
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Beijing, China
Introduction: Growth and
Geographical Inequality
The defeat of Japan in 1945 and
establishment of the People’s Republic
of China in 1949 marked the end of
some 100 years of foreign domination
and humiliation for China. In the sixty
years since the establishment of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949, it
has made remarkable progress. Initially
the Chinese communist government
established a planned economic system.
In 1978, however, it embarked on a
new course of reform and opening up
(gǎigé kāifàng) designed to accelerate
economic growth. During the period
1952-77, Chinese real GDP increased
on average at 5.9% per year, although
it started from an extremely low level
and oscillated sharply. At the end of this
period, China was a country that was
relatively equal, but the overwhelming
majority of the people were poor. In
the second phase from 1978-2011,
average real GDP growth grew at 9.7%
per year. Real per capita disposable
income and real per capita expenditure
increased rapidly in all parts of China,
Figure 1: Chinese provinces
and regional policy areas
since the 1980’s
Source: Dunford and Li (2010)
10
and hundreds of millions of people were
lifted out of poverty.
The increases in GDP and income
were however much greater in: (1) areas
on the east coast than in the centre,
northeast and west creating widening
macro-territorial inequalities (see Figure
1); (2) some provinces rather than others
increasing inter-provincial inequalities
and; (3) urban areas rather than rural
areas. At the same time, social inequality
increased.
Figure 2 plots GDP per head at a
prefectural level. At this scale, it is clear
that within the four territorial divisions
and within the provinces there is a con-
centration of economic development in
a number of growth poles. Most of these
growth poles are in eastern China espe-
cially in the Bohai Bay, Yangtze River
Delta and the Pearl River Delta areas.
Within many eastern provinces, however,
there is a core-periphery structure. In the
central and western interior the provincial
capitals have relatively high scores (Hebei,
Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi,
Sichuan and Yunnan). In Inner Mongolia
and Xinjiang, development is very une-
ven. Areas with high GDP per head due
to the presence of resource extraction and
resource-dependent industries lie next to
areas whose GDP per capita is extremely
low: in Xin Jiang oil-rich Karamay pre-
fecture has the highest per capita GDP in
China at 4.9 times the national average,
whereas the border prefectures of Aksu
and Kashgar stand at less than one-quarter
of the national average (Li, 2012).
Figure 2: Chinese regional
disparities: GDP per head by
prefecture in 2007
Source: Li (2012)
Regions No 289 Spring 2013
These geographical imbalances have
seen the adoption of a succession of
policies designed initially to promote a
more equilibrated model of co-ordinated
national development and more recently
a more sustainable and more equitable
development path consistent with the
more recent emphasis on the goal of
harmonious development.
China: Environment,
Ecological Security and
Development
China’s regional disparities are a
consequence of geographical factors, of
the gap between rural and urban areas and
of China’s choice of development strategy.
China’s economic development level and
population density are almost inversely
proportional to its relief which descends
from west to east: the Qinghai-Tibet
plateau standing at 4-5,000 metres above
sea level, and much of the second tier
of mountains, plateaux and basins lying
between 1-2,000 metres are considered
relatively unsuitable for development
(Figure 3). Development potential is
greatest in the third and most easterly
tier of plains interspersed with hills and
foothills lying at 500-1,000 metres above
sea level. If a line is drawn from Aihui
County in Heilongjiang Province to
Tengchong County in Yunnan Province,
the area north-west of this line is arid
with a population density of 11 people per
square kilometre. The area southeast of this
line is very densely inhabited by 96% of
the total Chinese population. In all, only
just over 1.8 million square kilometres are
considered suitable for industrialization
and urbanization (Figure 3). Arable land
per capita is also extremely limited and
increasingly strongly protected.
Ch ina’s econom ic advance has
gener ated ser iou s env i ron ment a l
problems, particularly in environmentally
fragile areas. In addition, fast growth
has put pressure on critical resources
(agricultural land, clean air, water and
energy) whose availability is limited. In
2006, these considerations led the State
Council to approve general proposals
for functional zoning. The adoption
of this strategy involved a significant

Figure 3: Areas suitable for urban and industrial development China’s Urban-Rural Divide
Source: CEC (2010)
change from the earlier focus on narrow
conceptions of regional economic
performance to a wider concern with the
carrying capacity of the environment,
the sustainability of development and
an equalization of the provision of
public services. On the basis of their
environmental carrying capacity, the
density of current development and their
resource development potential, four
types of regions have been identified:
. Optimized development zones:
regions with high density land
development and a declining resource
and environmental carrying capacity;
. Prioritized development zones:
regions with relatively strong resource
endowment and environmental
carrying capacity as well as favourable
conditions for the agglomeration of
economic activities and people;
Figure 4: China’s bloc areas
Source: Dunford and Li (2010)
. Restricted development zones: regions
with weak resource endowment and
environmental carrying capacity, poor
conditions for the agglomeration of
economic activities and people, and
which are crucial to wider regional or
national ecological security and food
safety; and
. Prohibited development zones:
legally established natural and
cultural reserves, where any industrial
development is prohibited.
Many of the most ecologically
vulnerable areas are in western China
explaining their unsuitability for
economic development (Figure 3) and
making the quest for a new balance
between the protection of ecosystems
and socio-economic development a
major challenge.
Regional Survey
A second reason for the disparities in
development is the gap between rural
and urban areas. In the fi rst 50 years of
the PRC, Chinese spatial inequalities
have expanded in phases of industrial
expansion and contracted in phases
favourable to agriculture. In 2010,
50.1% of the population was still rural,
36.7% worked in agriculture, and yet
agriculture accounted for just 10.1 per
cent of GDP. Clearly if 36.7% of the
occupied population produce just 10.1%
of GDP, average income will be low,
although in many cases, rural incomes
increase as a result of remittances
from some of the 200 million rural
people who work as migrant workers
in China’s larger cities. Of the cross-
provincial flows of labour, some 90%
originate from central and western
regions and some 82% involve moves
to eastern provinces.
The rural-urban division is important
for another reason. Most of China’s
residual poverty is found in fourteen
mountainous rural areas in western
and central China (Figure 4): some
are former revolutionary base areas,
many are inhabited by minorities, all
are ecologically sensitive, often the
physical environment is very harsh,
the incidence of natural disasters is
high, most are inaccessible and without
good infrastructure, in many cases out-
migration results in an ageing population,
many are border areas or cross provincial
borders and all are areas with unresolved
problems of education, health and
drinking water. In recent years, the
government has increased support
to these so called ‘bloc areas’. More
recently, fourteen (集中连片特殊困难地
区 ji zhong lian pian teshu kunnan diqu –
concentrated contiguous poor areas with
special difficulties) or bloc areas were
identified as the key battleground for
poverty alleviation and development in
the China Rural Poverty Alleviation and
Development Outline (2011-2020) issued
in 2011. In these areas, the aim is to deal
with the problems of poor households
and poor areas. As far as households are
concerned, the aim is to achieve ‘the
two don’t worries’ (food and clothing)
and ‘the three guarantees’ (basic health,
education and housing). As far as area
development is concerned, the solution
entails the design and implementation
of an innovative regional development
model and system.
11
 Regional Survey
China’s Evolving Development
Strategy and Chinese Regional
Development Policies
China’s regional development strategy
has passed through three phases: a
balanced development strategy in
1949-78; an unbalanced strategy from
1978-mid 1990’s and a co-ordinated
regional development strategy since
the late 1990’s. In the planned
economy period, the development
of energy, raw materials and heavy
processing industries was prioritised,
and the geography of development
was driven by resource availability.
In the mid-1960’s, tense relationships
with the United States and its allies
saw the government launch the Third
Front programme relocating strategic
industries in mountainous areas in
central and western China. Once
international tensions eased, priority
was switched to the coast. After 1978,
reform and opening up saw growth
concentrated in eastern coastal areas.
The establishment of special economic
zones, open cities and open economic
zones, the introduction of a wide
range of other preferential policies and
the mission, set out in an ‘economic
development strategy for coastal areas’
put forward at the end of 1987, to
develop an export-oriented economy
and play a leading role in international
competition led to a sharp increase in
regional disparities (Figure 4).
In response, in the mid-1990’s,
the n inth Five Year Plan ( F Y P)
indicated that economic and social
development should ‘adhere to the
coordinated economic development
among regions, and gradually reduce
the regional development disparities’,
Figure 5: GDP shares of four main territorial divisions
Source: elaborated from National Bureau of Statistics data
12
and put forward a series of policies
to accelerate the development of the
central and western regions: these areas
were given priority in the scheduling of
resource development and infrastructure
projects, the prices of natural resources
were adjusted in their favour, and
central fi nancial transfer payments were
put in place. Nonetheless disparities
continued to increase leading to a
reinforcement of regional policies.
In 1999, the government established
the Western Development Strategy.
The Tenth (2000-2005) and Eleventh
(2005-2010) FYPs included proposals
for co-ordinated regional development,
and programmes were developed for
each of the four main territorial entities.
These programmes were designed to
mobilise their resources, exploit their
respective advantages and potentialities
and increase inter-regional co-operation
and the inter-regional division of labour.
The 1999 Western Deve lopment
St r ateg y i nvolved l a rge - sca le
inf rastr ucture projects, econom ic
upgrading and the development of
specialized local industries, managed
urbanisation, and human capacit y
development. The 12th Five-Year
Plan (FYP) for 2012-2015 attaches
special emphasis to the strengthening
environmental protection and geological
disaster prevention, the construction
of key ecological function areas and
national ecological security barriers.
In 2003, the Revitalization of the Old
Northeast Industrial Bases strategy was
adopted. In this case, the policy regime
paid special attention to restructuring
and upgrading technological capabilities
and reducing pol lution. Measures
were adopted to transform resource-
based cities. During the 12th FYP, a
Regions No 289 Spring 2013
focus is to lie on protection of black
lands, wetlands, forests and grassland,
as well as the promotion of ecological
protection and economic transformation
of mountain areas.
China’s coordinated development
strategy also comprises policies for
Upl i f t i ng Cent ra l Ch i na, wh ich
since 20 04 ha s prov ided specia l
support to reinforce the construction
of an integrated transport system
and energ y and strategic material
base, expanding markets in central
China and strengthening competitive
manufacturing and high technology
industries. The 12th FYP foresees an
enhancement of resource efficiency and
the development of a recycling economy.
The East Coast has been strengthened
in its role of spearheading China’s
development with a view to enhancing
its capacity to carry out independent
innovation, achieve structural upgrading
and a shift from capital and resource-
driven to innovation-driven growth,
pushing forward its social, economic
and institutional transition. According
to the 12th FYP, a focus will be
attached to enhancing its capacity for
sustainable development, as well as
further improving its resource efficiency
and pollution control, in order to resolve
present environmental bottlenecks.
Since 2006, the GDP growth rates in
western, central and northeastern China
have surpassed eastern China, and the
shares of the three less developed areas
have started to increase at the expense
of the east coast, although absolute
differences in GDP per head continue
to increase.
Conclusions
China’s regional policy has undergone
constant evolution in the light of the
results of past policies and the emergence
of new problems. At present, these policies
aim to contain the regional development
disparities, to enable regions to exploit
their potential advantages and to promote
regional competitiveness. More recently,
these measures have started to address a
series of other problems. The first is the
gap between the spatial agglomeration of
economic activities and the integration of
rural migrants into urban life. Although
industrialization and urbanization have
propelled economic growth through
increased industrial and infrastructural
investment, an increased urbanisation of
the rural population has the potential to

add massively to domestic consumption
demand as a result of changes in lifestyle
and to help put in place an inward-
looking rather than an export-oriented
model of development. A second is
the need to promote the transfer of
industries from the coast to central
and western China. The third derives
from environmental and ecological
challenges. These challenges have made
environmental protection, ecological
compensation and the co-ordination of
economic life with the carrying capacity
of the resource environment vital
elements of regional development policy.
In concentrating finally on economic
growth, disparities in the quality and
quantity of public service provision
have emerged. These disparities include
disparities in the provision of nine years
of compulsory education and in the
provision of healthcare. An equalization
of basic public service provision has
therefore also emerged as a regional
policy objective.
‘REGIONAL’ INEQUALITY IN CHINA AND THE EU: SPATIAL SCALE,
DEVELOPMENT TRAJECTORIES AND POLICY LEARNING
Gordon Dabinett and Alasdair Rae, University of Sheffield, UK
Introduction
According to Fan and Sun (2008),
inequality is a ‘burning issue’ in China.
The same can certainly be said about
the socio-economic conditions in
the European Union, given the raft
of national and supra-national policy
initiatives and mechanisms designed to
reduce territorial disparities. Despite
a perceived common problem, there
has been very little collaborative or
comparative research with respect
to making analytical and empirical
connections between approaches to,
and understandings of, ‘regional’
inequalities in Europe and China. We
use ‘regional’ here with caution since,
as we later explain, notions of what a
Michael Dunford is Professor of
Economic Geography at the University
of Sussex, UK and Visiting Professor at
the Institute of Geographical Sciences
and Natural Resources Research
(IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing, China. His current
research deals with regional impacts
of trade in China and Europe,
geographies of rising powers and
regional, urban and rural development
in China.
m.f.dunford@sussex.ac.uk
Thomas Bonschab is Programme
Director for the Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
At present based in Beijing, he was
responsible for a major Economic
reconstruction programme with
the Chinese State Council Leading
Group on Poverty Alleviation and
Development.
thomas.bonschab@giz.de
region is and what regional policy looks
like can vary drastically despite the fact
that the underlying policy norms and
objectives often seem very similar in
both the EU and Chinese contexts.
We take this approach here not
a s a novel ex per i ment i n cross-
cultural policy analysis (though this
is interesting in itself ) but rather as a
means to furthering our understanding
of approaches to tackling regional
inequalities and how policy makers
a n d a c a d e m ic s i n E u r o p e a n d
China might learn from each other.
This has been done most recently
through collaboration between the
National Development and Reform
C om m i s s ion i n Ch i n a a nd t he
European Commission’s Directorate-
General for Regional Policy (NDRC/
DG - Reg io, 2 010 ) but f r om a n
academic and policy point of view, the
vast majority of studies explore regional
inequalities in Europe and China
from different analytical, spatial and
empirical perspectives. In this paper,
we examine the use of boundaries and
scale in defi ning the ‘regional’ context
Regional Survey
References
CEC (2010) “EU–China Cooperative
Research Program on Regional
Policy: Research Report of the
Chinese Expert Group,” Brussels:
European Commission, Directorate-
General for Regional Policy,
available at http://ec.europa.eu/
regional_policy/international/pdf/
china_study_report_en.pdf
CEC and national Development and
Reform Commission (2011) “Regional
policy in the EU and China. A
comparative perspective.” Brussels:
European Commission, Directorate-
General for Regional Policy, available
at http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/
cooperate/international/pdf/
brochure_eu_china_v17_en.pdf
Dunford, M. and Li, L. (2010) “Chinese
spatial inequalities and spatial policies,”
Geography Compass 4(8), pp. 1039-54.
Li, Li (2012) (中欧区域经济发展差异对比
研究 Zhong Ou qu yu jing ji fa zhan
cha yi dui bi yan jiu – “A comparative
study of regional economic inequality in
China and the European Union”), PhD
dissertation, Graduate University of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
of inequality in China and the EU,
we look at development trajectories
and policy responses and we consider
possible policy learning that might
emerge from such an approach. In doing
so, we are mindful of the central themes
of spatial and territorial justice which
are an explicit part of the ‘regional’
policy lexicon in both contexts.
Context
Regional scholars will, of course,
understand the pertinence of regional
defi nitions and regional constructs (Van
Langenhove, 2011), but nowhere is this
more complex than in trans-national
policy comparative analyses between
the ‘regions’ of China and the ‘regions’
of the EU. Such complexities have been
articulated at length elsewhere (e.g.
Paasi, 2011) so the intention in this
section and the one that follows is to get
to the bottom of the what ‘regions’ are
in China and the EU. This then helps
inform the framing of our discussion of
regional inequalities and development
trajectories in a subsequent section.
13