The Analysis of the Western Development Strategy of China--The Viewpoint of Geo-political Economy
Date Issued
2005
Date
2005
Author(s)
Huang, Wu-Hsiung
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Generally speaking, China’s development strategy has been characterized by shifting patterns towards the east and west depending on different circumstances both from within and from without and changing government’s objectives at the time. In setting the nation’s development strategy, the Chinese government has to balance between emphasis on economic efficiency and the political necessity for balanced development between regions. At different stages, different objectives prevailed. When the government focused on redressing past imbalances in the 1950s, it allocated most investment resources to the western region. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, increasing military and national security concerns made the government launch the third-front projects. From the mid-1980s, when maximization of economic growth became the primary goal, the central government pushed through the Coastal Development Strategy.
Since China began its program of economic reforms in late 1978, the eastern coastal region has developed more rapidly than the western inland region. As a result, the economic gap between the eastern and western regions of China has been widening rapidly over the past 20 years. The confluence of widening regional disparities, mounting complaints from western leaders, increasing separatist activities and the perceived worsening security environment along China’s southeast coast has led the central leaders to reverse the development priority from fast growth of the coastal region to emphasis on a more balanced regional development strategy. In such historical context, Chinese leaders have embarked on the so-called ‘Go West Program’. However, Envisioned as a move to reinvent another China, this major policy reorientation may have significant implications both for China and the world beyond, especially its surrounding regions. Historically, the western region always had seen as an important zone strategically because it’s linkage with central Asia. Therefore, we can thrust that China’s development strategy from an emphasis on fast growth of the coastal area to a more balanced development, and also compassed the aim to national interest and national security.
After 911 event especially, there is a dramatic change in the balance of power in Eurasia. U.S. performed anti-terrorism projects in the Central Asia region, by the way the region has seen as it’s influence of sphere. From the perspective of geopolitics, China’s west region means the Heartland mentioned by Halford J. Mackinder. So we can claim boldly that who rules the region conmmands China. If we observed the Western Development Strategy of China from the viewpoint, we will find that the launching of the new policy implied strategical significance. In accordance with the above- mentioned, the focus of this article is to analyze the process of the Western Development Strategy in the view of geo-political economy. Only think in integrated with economical, political and geographical levels we can truly understand that the implication for China’s performance of the Western Development Strategy.
Subjects
西部大開發
地緣政治
地緣經濟
戰略
區域經濟
geo-political economy
Go West Program
the Western Development Strategy
regional inequality in China
regional development policy
the coastal development strategy
Type
thesis
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