Editorial: Virtual Issue of Regional Studies on China
Editorial: Virtual Issue of Regional Studies on China
Michael Dunford and Weidong Liu,
Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
The aim of this virtual issue of Regional Studies is to mark the establishment of a Chinese
division of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) by bringing together some of the
articles on China recently published in the Association’s flagship journal.
This step is an extremely significant one for the RSA, which has evolved from a
predominantly Anglo-American origin into an organization with an increasingly international
scope. The establishment of a Chinese division is an extremely important step in this
process due to the rapidly increasing significance of Chinese perspectives and the vital
importance of increased understanding of China and Chinese issues.
China is often considered an economic miracle. In 1949 it was more or less the
poorest country in the world, falling way behind India (US$619) and Africa (US$852)
(Maddison, cited in Dunford, 2014). The Conference Board (Dunford, 2014) total economy
database placed China 81st out of 82 countries in 1950. Malawi was marginally poorer.
The rest of sub-Saharan Africa was richer. Taiwan was 2.7 times richer, and Hong Kong
6.4 times richer. In 1978 China was ranked 72nd. In 2012 out of 124 countries it came
36th. In 2012 therefore China had joined the ranks of the upper-middle income countries of
the world. Due to the size of its population however it was the second largest economy in
the world after the United States, which it will, on present trends, overtake within the next
10 years. In 2012 China was also the world’s leading commercial power. As one of the
world’s oldest and most enduring civilizations China is, in short, re-emerging as a major
economic force in the world (Dunford and Yeung, 2011).
These remarkable achievements are largely attributable to China’s economic and
social model and in particular to reform and opening-up, processes which were designed
to make China a unified and modern economic power capable of catching up with and
perhaps surpassing the western world, and of raising the living standards of the
population, while preserving social and political stability. The strategy was designed to
preserve the leading role of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and to establish what
came to be called a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics in which the
state retains significant economic assets (Aglietta and Bai, 2012; Cui, 2011; Huang, 2012).
China’s development has involved the joint transformation of economic structures and
public institutions and has seen a series of transformations designed to move the country
forward, while dealing with the contradictions generated by earlier phases of development.
China is also in many ways a mystery to scholars and practitioners living and
working outside of the Chinese mainland and is certainly ill-understood. This situation
derives in part from two factors. The first is the relatively limited extent to which mainland
Chinese understandings have been communicated with the wider world. The second
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derives from the dominance of western values and understandings, which emerged out of
the Enlightenment emphasis on the individual, and the subsequent evolution of western
property rights, politics governance and culture. These developments profoundly
influenced the evolution of the social sciences and the disciplines connected with the study
of urban and regional development providing a set of lenses through which the world as a
whole is, and, it is often argued, should be viewed. The export of these values and ideas
and their establishment as the standards against which other perspectives should be
judged has for many years been a core part of the mission of western nations. This
situation is however starting to change not least due to the growing economic, political and
cultural significance of emerging economies.
In the recent past the value of generic abstractions has been questioned as more
attention has been paid to institutional variety. And yet the variations considered are
primarily varieties of capitalist market economies, welfare states and representative
democracy. Chinese civilization cannot however be understood in these terms as it derives
from significantly different economic, political and cultural conditions and values. In the
case of contemporary China the underlying value systems derive from an evolving
combination of traditional culture (Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and Buddhism) with
socialist thought and western concepts of modernity (Yang, 2012; Ogden, 1989).
Of particular importance was Confucius’s advocacy of an orderly hierarchical
society (Liu, 2014a), of the ‘great harmony’ (or the harmonious society of former President
Hu Jintao) and the preceding stage of moderate prosperity (xiaokang) that contemporary
China sees as a target for 2020. Confucius insisted for example on the importance of filial
piety which requires that children guarantee materially and spiritually the lives of their
parents, while reminding their parents when they do something wrong. The concept of
benevolence is related to the principle of filial piety. Essentially top-down, it requires that
rulers rule by setting virtuous example, are compassionate and care for others, warranting
obedience and respect (Yang, 2012). Confucius thought that the common people have the
right to evaluate the performance of the government, while Mencius later argued that if the
ruler behaves immorally the people have the right to replace him/her. Confucius advocated
a positive application of the principle do not do unto others what you do not like done unto
yourself by arguing that, if you desire rank and standing you must help others achieve rank
and standing and, if you want to turn your merits to account, you must help others turn
their merits to account.
A result of principles of this kind is the existence even in contemporary China of a
number of important governance-related values that include concepts of status and
administrative grade (which is more honest than the western claim that everyone is equal
at least as a citizen), a strong collective ethos and spirit, obedience to authority,
benevolence and guanxi (the abililty to solicit the assistance of people with whom one is
inter-personally connected to secure favourable outcomes for oneself, family members,
friends and organizations (Taormina and Gao, 2010) and the obligation to act in a
reciprocal manner). The Chinese political order, its administrative structure and its system
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of governance are all strongly influenced by these and other Confucian ideas. To
understand Chinese development it is essential to appreciate these underlying principles
and the specific modes of governance to which they give rise including, in contemporary
China, the cadre appointment system, mandatory planning, vertical (tiao-tiao) and
horizontal (kuai-kuai) government relationships, land control, the Hukou system, and the
system of fiscal allocation (Liu, 2014a; see also Lin and Yi, 2011).
Academic research and scholarship reflects the circumstances in which it is
conducted. In Europe and North America contemporary conditions differ profoundly from
those that prevailed in the years after the Second World War. In that period structural
transformations and adjustments included rapid industrial growth, substantial rural-urban
migration, and high rates of infrastructure investment in many countries. At the time, urban
and regional research drew on theories and methods designed to interpret, assist and
shape these transformations. Emerging countries are at present undergoing similar
structural transformations. Of course the conditions in which they are taking place differ,
but the methods of analysis and the instruments of planning are in some ways similar to
ones that are considered a part of the past in more developed countries. This situation
implies that there is a need for a significant re-assessment of the value of different types of
research and scholarship and their appropriateness in different contexts.
Since the establishment of the new China and especially since the start of reform
and opening up of its earlier planned economy, real GDP, per capita disposable income
and per capita expenditure have increased rapidly in all parts of China, lifting hundreds of
millions of people out of poverty. Until recently, these increases were however much
greater on the east coast than in the centre, northeast and west creating widening macroterritorial inequalities. Until about 10 years ago increases were also greater in some
provinces than others increasing inter-provincial inequality. More recently these disparities
have decreased. Other disparities exist between prefectures and counties. In addition
increases were greater in urban than in rural areas (Kanbur and Zhang, 2005), although
relative trends varied over the course of time. Since the 1990s social inequality has also
increased. The Chinese government has adopted a series of regional policy measures to
address these imbalances. In the last 10 years these measures have achieved a degree of
success reflected in the acceleration of growth in central and western China and the
relatively slower growth of coastal areas.
Growth has however also generated serious environmental costs. In all only just
over 1.8 million square kilometres mainly in eastern China is considered suitable for
industrialization and urbanization. Arable land is also extremely limited and increasingly
strongly protected. Fast growth has put pressure on critical resources. The drivers of
China’s regional macroscopic terrestrial ecosystem change, the challenges posed by
China’s major ecologically fragile areas, the impact of policy measures including the
decision in 2006 to establish optimized, prioritized, restricted and prohibited development
zones and the dilemmas posed by the quest for a new balance between ecosystem
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protection and socio-economic development are therefore critical regional issues in China
(Liu, 2014b).
In China urban-rural dynamics and urban-rural integration are major drivers of
regional growth and development. In 2010 50.1% of the population was still rural,
36.7%worked in agriculture, and yet agriculture accounted for just 10.1% of GDP. Rural
incomes are therefore low, although rural incomes increase as a result of remittances from
some of the 260 million rural migrant workers in China’s larger cities. 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 (jizhonglianpianteshukùn
nan di qu- concentrated contiguous poor areas with special difficulties). Household
development goals and area development goals (an innovative regional development
model and system that includes green industries, the exploitation of local resources and
cultural assets and re-settlement) come together.
At the same time China is embarking on new-style urbanization strategy that is
environmentally friendly and puts people first (see Chan, 2014, for an early account of this
strategy). The next phase involves granting urban residency to 100 million people who
have moved to cities from rural areas, renovating slum areas that include about 100 million
residents and guiding about 100 million rural residents in central and western areas of the
country to urban lives in nearby cities.
Also significant are China’s industrial and urban development model choices. The
urban share of the population has increased from 20% to almost 50%. Cities with a
population of half a million or more rose from 51 in 1980 to 236 in 2010. China’s regional
development strategy has passed through three phases: a balanced development in 194978; an unbalanced strategy from 1978 to the mid-1990s that favoured the development of
an export-oriented economy on the east coast; and a co-ordinated regional development
strategy since the late 1990s with programmes for western, central, north-eastern and
eastern China. Coastal development saw rapid growth and increased exports (up to the
financial crisis), foreign reserves and internationalization of Chinese enterprises. At
present however spatial development faces new challenges. The first is the gap between
the spatial agglomeration of economic activities and the integration of rural migrants into
urban life. An increased urbanisation of the rural population has the potential to add
massively to domestic consumption demand and contribute to an inward-looking rather
than an export-oriented model of development. The second is transfer of industries from
the coast to central and western China, which is already under way. Third the
concentration on economic growth has seen disparities emerge in the quality and quantity
of (urban-rural and inter-urban) public investment and public service provision emerge
leading to a need to investigate the relationships between investment in infrastructure,
industry and housing and services for the growing urban population.
At the same time China’s enterprises are going out, investing abroad and reshaping
global value chains (Yeung and Liu, 2008), while the Chinese government is embarking on
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ambitious projects of regional economic and political integration including a China-ASEAN
community of common destiny, a new 21st century Maritime Silk Road, and a new Asian
infrastructure investment bank. China is also planning a land-based New Silk Road.
Beginning in Xi’an in western China, it stretches through Lanzhou, Urumqi and Khorgas
near the border with Kazakhstan before running from Central Asia to northern Iran, Iraq,
Syria, and Turkey, whence it crosses the Bosporus Strait and heads northwest through
Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Duisburg in Germany to Rotterdam in the
Netherlands. From Rotterdam it runs to Venice in Italy meeting up with the equally
ambitious Maritime Silk Road. Advanced as ‘win-win’ these projects involve major
infrastructure investments (especially railways and ports) along the routes, technological
and financial assistance, and a trade network drawing on comparative strengths and
synergies in which goods are more abundant and trade is more high-end. The
enlargement of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization and the establishment by the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) of a New Development Bank (NDB),
to foster greater financial and development cooperation among the five emerging markets
are other ambitious regional and international integration and development projects.
These issues are just a few of the many posed by the rise of China and that are
relevant to the extension of the activities of the RSA in its efforts to engage with Chinese
issues and Chinese researchers and practitioners. Inevitably dominant theorizations
rooted in European and North American experience will have to change, as they will,
notwithstanding the self-confidence of many of their advocates, prove incapable of
analysing multiple forms of regional and urban development.
As for this issue, of the 13 papers included in this virtual issue, three are written by
overseas Chinese or non-Chinese authors, four bring together mainland Chinese and
European and American authors, three are written by mainland Chinese scholars and
three emanate from Hong Kong.
Zhang and Peck (2014) explore the nature of the Chinese social model in the light
of the literature on varieties of capitalism and in particular the distinction between the
Rhine and the neo-American models. Hu and Lin (2013) analyse the machinery sector in
the Shenyang city-region of north-east China and argue for more context sensitivity in
studies of the transformation of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Wei (2013) deals with
the foreign direct investment (FDI) in Suzhou and argues that government intervention is
declining and agglomeration economies are increasing in importance. Sun et al. (2013)
examine the impact of subcontracting on supplier innovativeness in the Chinese
information technology (IT) sector. Wang et al (2014) examine the impact of industrial
structure in north-east China on regional technological spillovers from foreign direct
investment. Li (2012) examines horizontal networking between lead firms in the Hangji
toothbrush cluster. Chen and Partridge (2010) argue that the market potential in China’s
mega-cities is inversely related to the growth for smaller cities and rural communities,
while medium-sized cities have positive spread effects. Ramirez et al. (2011) argue that
mobility in the Zhongguancun area in Beijing is more beneficial if it is local rather than non5
Editorial: Virtual Issue of Regional Studies on China
local. Su (2013) examines the role of network connections in driving multi-scalar
regionalization in Yunnan in south-west China. Bai (2011) examined the innovation
efficiency of different regions and showed that innovation efficiency in the eastern regions
was higher than that in the central and western regions. Herrerías and Ordóñez Monfort
(2013) pointed to a significant degree of convergence in capital intensity, labour
productivity and total factor productivity in 28 of China’s provinces in 1952–2008 but
showed that coastal provinces benefited more from the economic reforms than central and
western regions. Ke et al. (2011) argue that for 286 Chinese cities in 2003-08
manufacturing tends to locate in cities in which producer services are located and viceversa. Shen (2013) estimates the effects of changing parameters in migration models and
the changing demographic, social, and economic attributes in origin and destinations on
migration flows.
As is clear from this short editorial these papers touch on just a small part of the
vast and vital agenda opened up by the rise of China.
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