State-level regional development programs in China

Abstract

Significant interregional disparities in socio-economic development are one of the most prominent features of modern China. By initiating market reforms and integration into the global economy in the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership gave a way to the inevitable rise of the gap between best-positioned coastal areas and the rest of the country. In line with the economic theories of growth-poles and the Kuznets Williamson regional development curve, successful development of those regions market would naturally lift the rest of the country as well. As famous Deng Xiaoping quote goes, “let some areas become reach first, then lead and help other regions”. However, 3 passed decades showed that market forces took it too long for spillover effect to develop, if any. Chinese researches provided couple of explanations to that. After coming to power, Xi Jinping set an ideological goal to eliminate poverty by the 100th anniversary of the CPC's founding (2021). Without abandoning of market mechanisms, state strengthened its role in the resources redistribution and spatial development management. Existing 4 national programs for the development of the Western, Central, Eastern and Northeastern macro-regions continued, and a number of new ones were adopted for the Capital region (including Xiong’an New Area), the Yangtze Delta, the Zhujiang Delta (Greater Bay Area), the Yangtze economic belt and the Hainan province. The global-reaching Belt and Road Initiative has its regional inter-China dimension as well.

Keywords

• china
• regional policy
• xi jinping
• socialism with chinese characteristics
• budgetary relations
• poverty elimination
• belt and road initiative.