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A great developing economy is rising on the Pacific west bank, which is
undoubtedly the most important global economic event of the 21st century. The
story of China’s rising economy has evolved a specific historical background. The
policy of economic opening-up, which originated in the late 1970s in Shenzhen, a
small fishing village on the coast of South China, triggered China’s economic
transformation and integration into the global economy as a major developing
country. After the international economic stagflation of the late 1970s and early
1980s, sources of competent, cheap labor were badly needed to restore global
manufacturing, while international trade was dominated by ocean shipping, which
contributed to the formation of industry clusters in the eastern coastal areas in
China, where international capital and the country’s cheap labor met together.
However, it is complicated to examine the urban, rural and regional develop-
ment, since China is such a large developing country with economic transformation.
“Transformation” indicates a lot of institutional change toward market economy,
while “developing” denotes the transition from a traditional urban-rural and
regional dual economy to a modern industrialized economy with fast speed of
urbanization, and “large” means that the transformation of China’s economy is
inevitably stared from such an initial status with huge economic and social heter-
ogeneity across the regions. Meanwhile, China’s reform and opening up also meet
the wave of globalization, that is to say, China’s urban-rural and regional economic
development must be discussed in the context of marketization, urbanization and
globalization. |
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