Assess the effectiveness of China regional development policy in alleviating regional

disparities in China.
The focus of Chinas economic reforms since 1978 was mainly on the urban and
coastal areas. Polcieis, such as the introduction of the SEZs and entry into the WTO
helped to transform Chinas command economy to a market economy. With this
transformation, the urban and coastal areas got the most benefits as FDIs poured
into these regions. Hence, we do see Shang Hai, Senzhen and Xiamen become the
purse-strings for the entire country. While being overly focused on the coastal
regions, the inland regions were forgotten and the gap between the affluent and the
impoverished areas grew bigger by the years. The sharp contrast between the
coastal regions and cities like Guizhou and Tibet reflects the huge disparity China is
facing today. Hence, problems such as rural-urban migration appear. As such, the
CCP launched a series of program to alleviate these legitimacy-weakening
problems, such as the Go West and Northeast Revitalization. This is with the full
support from the Hu-Wen administration, with a huge focus on the western regions
due to political reasons.
The policies implemented helped to improve on the infrastructure of the western
regions so that more FDIs can be attracted. Generally speaking, the CCP hopes to
recreate the infrastructure advantage the coastal regions enjoy to the other parts of
China. Policies such as the Go-West were introduced by the CCP to urbanise the
impoverished regions. This is done so to attract more FDIs into these areas through
better communications and infrastructure. For e.g. the govt spent a total of 1trillion
yuan on building infrastructure as at 2006. A very significant accomplishment for
the government would be the Qinghai Tibet Railway, which connects the western
region to the rest of China. This is one of the many more projects to come in the
future. In fact, with the increase in infrastructure, the annual GDP of the western
regions grew at a rate of 10.6% for 6years in a row. However, the fruits of the labour
may not have been shared by everyone in the western regions. As the house of
many of the ethnic minorities of China, many of these ethnic groups have not
enjoyed the benefits of the urbanization process. On the contrary, the Go West
policy attracted more Han Chinese into the western regions to search for more
business opportunities. As such, the natives of the Western regions did not benefit
from the urbanization process, but rather the Han migrants gained more
economically from these policies. Therefore, the original intention of helping the
natives in the western regions came ironically to a null.
Older and obsolete industrialized provinces have been rejuvenated to keep up with
current economic trends, so that FDIs can be attracted. Traditional industrialized
provinces, especially the Northeastern provinces, such as Shenyang, Jilin, are now
injected with a new life to keep up with the current economic trends. The more
obsolete technology found in the northeast provinces is not replaced with newer
technology. The now-obsolete labour policies found during Maos era are also
replaced with more market economy-linked labour policies to keep abreast with the
current economic transformation. As such, the Northeast Revitalisation policy
aims to rejuvenate these obsolete and loss-making practices and technology. This
injection of new life has brought forth optimism with economists hoping that this will
become Chinas fourth economic growth area after the Zhujiang River, Yangtze
River Deltas and the Beijing-Tianjin area. However, major structural changes have

caused serious social and financial problems for employers. Due to the huge layoffs
of workers, these displaced workers reacted strongly against their employers for
compensation. For e.g. the Daqing oil companies had to compensate RMB 100,000
per worker as severance packages, despite the already depleting oil fields.
Therefore, the restructuring of the industries has its disadvantages, implicating both
the employers and employees on the social and economical basis.
Regions are classified according to their economic niche areas, so that their
potential could be tapped upon to produce the best economical results. Knowing full
well the economical potential of each region, the CCP has developed each region to
their fullest maximize results. For eg. The central region was earmarked for the
Rise of Central China Plan to become the center of grain production and
transportation. Situated between the east and the western regions, grains can be
transported easily to every part of the country, cutting costs on grain
transportation. The Go West policy taps on the western regions vast amounts of
natural gas is a way which helps to transform the region to a center for energy
industry. Hence, it is a common sight to see oil pipelines connecting to other regions
of the country.
Domestic political challenges have limited the progress for alleviating regional
disparities. Despite efforts by the CCP to reduce regional disparities, challenges that
have their roots from long standing problems have hindered the process. Distrust
between ethnic groups has caused serious unrests in Xinjiang and Tibet. The 2009
Xinjiang unrest reflected the distrust between the Han and the Uyghurs, which will
deter FDIs from entering the region. The feat of losing their livelihoods to the Han
people adds on to the animosity between the Hans and the minorities. Such
uncertain factors do actually increase the rish of investing in the western regions.
The unfavourable geographical situation in the western regions has also deterred
investors. For e.g. the mountainous Guizhou remains impoverished till now due to
its rocky and infertile lands. Investors would rather enter the already establish
coastal regions knowing full well the risks involved are much lower. Corruption on
the local levels has not helped in raising the per capita income in the poorer
regions. Local governments have benefitted through pocketing profits from
urbanization and industrialization. Little is left for the peasants and workers, leaving
the disparity problem unchanged. Although CCP sought to reduce regional disparity
through regional development, long standing social and political challenges are
huge hindrances to the process.
One of the more important challenges to the legitimacy of the CCP is regional
disparity, and thus the leadership has been trying hard to reduce the impact of such
as problem. The CCP adopted a pragmatic approach in solving this problem through
regional developments, so that economic growth can be uniform in China, and
glimmer of hope can be seen as the poorer regions grow economically. However,
long-standing social and political problems remain, hindering the process of
development. If the problems are left unsolved, they will slow down regional
developmental process, thus weakening the CCPs legitimacy in the long-run.