The Strategy of Coordinated Regional Economic Development

We should handle the relationship between the east and the central and western regions, and the relationship between the coastal and inland regions, give full play to the comparative advantages of various regions, give priority to the development of the western region, comprehensively revitalize the old industrial bases such as the northeast of China, vigorously promote the rise of the central region, and actively support the development of the eastern region strategy. The first-generation central leaders of the Party with Mao Zedong as the core actively explored the path of socialist construction that suits China’s national conditions and raised ten major issues related to the overall picture of socialist construction, including major issues concerning the development of the east and the west. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, the second-generation central leadership collective with Deng Xiaoping at the core, based on reality and facing the future, formulated a “three-step” development strategy for our country and proposed the idea of “the development of both coastal and inland areas” that promotes rational economic layout and coordinated development of eastern and western regions.

The Party’s third-generation central collective leadership with Jiang Zemin at the core, based on Deng Xiaoping’s “the development of both coastal and inland areas”, put forward the implementation of the strategy of developing the western regions at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee. After entering the new century, the Party Central Committee with Hu Jintao as the general secretary further proposed a strategic layout for promoting coordinated regional development, that is, continue to promote the development of the western region, revitalize the old industrial bases such as the northeast of China, promote the rise of the central region, and encourage the eastern region to take the lead in development, forming the regional industrial structure with reasonable division of labor, obvious characteristics and complementary advantages to promote the common development of all regions. Since 2013, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has put forward three major strategies, “One Belt One Road”, coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and Yangtze River Economic Belt. This constitutes a relatively complete pattern of coordinated development of economic regions.

The coordinated development strategy of regional economy is the need to achieve economic and social goals under China's socialist system. Coordinating regional economic development and narrowing the development gap between regions is related to the overall modernization, social stability and the long-term stability of the country. Deng Xiaoping pointed out, “We advocate that some regions get rich first, in order to encourage and drive other regions to become rich, and to enable the regions that get rich first to help the backward regions develop better.” In order to promote the coordinated development of the regional economy, we should gradually narrow the gap in regional development, focus on realizing the equalization of basic public services, and guide the rational flow of production factors across regions, which is the basic goal of reducing the regional development gap and the basic ways of promoting coordinated regional development for a long time in the future.