中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

Authors: Yongnian Zheng, Minjia Chen

Date: septembre 2007

Published by Copyright China Policy Institute

URL: www.nottingham.ac.uk/china-policy-institute/publications/documents/Briefing_25_China_Regional_Disparity.pdf

Since the reform and opendoor policy of the late 1970s, China has achieved magnificent economic growth. The fruits of this growth, however, have not been distributed fairly across China’s regions. In the early stages of the reform, the Chinese government gave preferential policy treatment to coastal regions and greatly promoted their development. China’s regional inequalities are to a great extent due to regional development policies by the government.

In order to control rising regional inequality, China has shifted its focus from the coast onto the interior regions. The central government put the “western development strategy” into practice in 1998, with the “northeast revival strategy” following in 2003. Most recently, the “rise of central China” strategy has been implemented.

China’s early reforms were focused mainly on the development of the coastal areas, with the aim of attracting investments from abroad. China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have contributed enormously to economic growth in general and to export industry in particular. However, FDI has been highly concentrated in the eastern costal areas and this has caused unequal development among regions.

The Deng Xiaoping leadership expected that by supporting the growth centres in the eastern regions first, these centres would ultimately lead the rest of the economy to expand. However, the spillover effect from growth centres in the coastal provinces to inland areas has not happened as expected.

The central government has made enormous efforts to control regional disparities. In 1998, the Zhu Rongji government launched the western development programme. The programme was expected to boost domestic demands by promoting economic development in the western part of the country. At the beginning of this century, the government started to revive the economy in some old key industrial bases, especially the northeast region, in order to ease growing social conflict caused by laidoff workers. Furthermore, under Wen Jiabao, the central government initiated the “rise of central China” programme to balance regional economic development. It is hoped that all these regional development policies will also support the development of minority peoples, especially in remote areas.

The interior regions of China have benefited substantially from these regional development programmes. Inland China also gains from shifting comparative advantages, as the land and labour prices in the east have risen significantly. Interior China is a potentially huge market for foreign and domestic investors.

However, in spite of this great endeavour, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to control and direct the economy, as market economy mechanisms now have a far greater influence than the government. Central government’s policies and various administrative methods cannot easily reach the bottom level of the economy. Unsurprisingly, compared with Deng’s opening up policies, the later development policies initiated by both Zhu and Wen are becoming less and less effective in terms of their implementation.

Regional inequality in China continues to be serious. The lessons learned by the eastern economic centres should be taken into account during the development of the noncoastal provinces as well as all the nongrowthcentre areas within the eastern provinces.

Whether or not China’s trickledown approach to development and the consequent increase in regional inequality will eventually lead to a higher per capita income for all regions depends on whether or not the Chinese government’s regional development policies can enhance efficiency of production and increase the rate of returns on investment. Overall, if China ultimately could employ equitable policies all over the country, the process of growth in China would generate income convergence and more regional equality.

The people-centred approach of the current HuWen leadership has paid increasingly substantial attention to regional development disparities in its attempt to build a “harmonious society” in China. Nevertheless, China needs further extensive reforms if all these measures for reducing regional disparity are to be effective.

This document in different languages

• English: doc_798.pdf (330 KiB)

Page translations:

• 中国的地区差异及政策回应