In the week of 8-14 May
The central government has unveiled a new development grand plan for China’s landlocked western provinces.
“Pushing through the development of western regions in a new era” was jointly issued on 17 May by the Central Committee and the State Council.
In the document the top leadership sets a goal of bringing western development up to speed with coastal provinces in the east by 2035, achieving “roughly the same level of modernisation” between the two parts of the country.
Economic development in China has been uneven, with provinces on the Pacific east coast enjoying rapidly increasing living standards while many inland provinces struggle with poverty. To address the gap, China rolled out the first Western Development Programme (西部大开发) in 1999. Major infrastructure projects, including transportation and energy, have been carried out in China’s far west since the 10th Five Year Plan period (2001-2005). Twenty years have passed and observers admit the gap has not been bridged yet.
The new “go west” campaign reflects current strategic considerations. It calls for the “optimisation of energy supply-demand structure”. New oil and gas bases are to be built in western regions. The mining and production of coal should be “clean, smart and efficient”, the document says.
Meanwhile, wind and solar, abundant in China’s west, is to be further developed, supported by a major project to explore using cascade dams on the Yellow River for energy storage. Renewable energy should either be consumed locally in the west, or sent east via better cross-region transmission infrastructure, addressing the curtailment issue that has haunted renewable energy projects in this area.
Development of the western provinces is also going to be more integrated with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s major international development scheme announced in 2013. Xinjiang is to be built into a central node in the Silk Road Economic Belt, which runs from China through Central Asia all the way to Europe. Cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi’an are to become portal cities of international cooperation, deepening their connection particularly with neighbouring countries signed onto the BRI.
There is a section on ecological conservation in the programme too, showing how environmental concerns have moved up the leadership’s political agenda. It calls for the protection of the “ecological security” of upstream regions of both the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and the conservation of “ecological resources” such as glaciers and wetlands.
Experts believe that in a post-coronavirus era of “reverse globalisation” and great uncertainty, further developing China’s western regions will help unlock domestic demand and protect China’s economic security.
Đăng nhận xét