Why do Similar Areas Adopt Different Developmental Strategies? A study of two puzzling Chinese provinces

Abstract

Focusing on Guizhou and Yunnan, two provinces with similar geographies, institutions and natural resource endowments, this paper asks why provincial leaders adopted markedly disparate economic strategies. Using data from the early 1980s to 2003 gathered from fieldwork and secondary sources, it focuses on three political factors purported to explain differences in provincial policy: (a) constraints and opportunities from central authorities; (b) characteristics of the provinces; and (c) attributes of individual provincial leaders. I argue that while the center constrains and encourages certain actions and approaches in the provinces, the experiences and background of individual provincial leaders further affects the choice of strategies implemented there. Moreover, once a particular course is set and receives central support, a form of path dependency can encourage the strategy to continue even after the original leaders have departed. While emphasizing the importance of characteristics of local leaders and their relationship with the center, the paper questions the assumptions on which research focusing on elite characteristics has so far been based, and suggests alternative approaches. The results have implications for our understanding not only of these two provinces, but also central–provincial relations and the origins of the economic policies of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Notes

^*John A. Donaldson, assistant professor of political science at Singapore Management University, studies rural poverty reduction policies in China, as well as central–provincial relations. His research has appeared in such journals as China Quarterly and International Studies Quarterly. The author thanks his research assistants, Guo Xin, Zhong Ke, Sa'adia Baig, Stephanie Tan, Tang Xin, Zhang Xuefeng, Chan Ying Xian, Sarah Wong, Madhu Chaubey and others, whose dedication, perseverance and patience made completing this paper possible. Zhou Chuanyi's contributions were extraordinarily helpful—this Guizhou native provided numerous insights and tireless labor. Kremlinologist Robert H. Donaldson and Sinologist T.C. Lam also made substantial suggestions. This paper is part of the fruits of the Asian Network for the Study of Local China (ANSLoC), organized by Chung Jae Ho. Any remaining errors are solely the author's. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Office of Research, Singapore Management University

^1. This translation is modified from the one found in Daniel B. Wright, The Promise of the Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), p. 1. One li is half a kilometer.

^2. World Bank, China: Overcoming Rural Poverty (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001).

^3. For a more complete account of the character and causes of the disconnect between economic growth and poverty reduction in the two provinces, see John Donaldson, The Political Economy of Local Poverty Reduction: Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction and the State in Two Chinese Provinces, Department of Political Science (Washington, DC: The George Washington University, 2005).

^4. Dorothy J. Solinger, Regional Government and Political Implementation in Southwest China, 1949–1954: A Case Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); David S. G. Goodman, Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China: Sichuan and Guizhou, 1955–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Victor Falkenheim, ‘The cultural revolution in Kwangsi, Yunnan and Fukien’, Asian Survey 9(8), (1969), pp. 580–597.

^5. Soft centralization is a term used in Andrew C. Mertha, ‘China's “soft” centralization: shifting tiao/kuai authority relations’, China Quarterly 184, (2005), pp. 791–810. On post-1978 decentralization in China more generally, see for example Barry Naughton, ‘Deng Xiaoping: the economist’, China Quarterly 135, (1993), pp. 491–514; Linda Chelan Li, Centre and Provinces: China 1978–1993: Power as Non-Zero-Sum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

^6. See, for example John Burns, ‘Strengthening Central CCP control of leadership selection: the 1990 nomenklatura’, China Quarterly 138, (1994), pp. 458–491; Hon S. Chan, ‘Cadre personnel management in China: the nomenklatura system, 1990–1998’, China Quarterly 179, (2004), pp. 703–734. During the reform era especially, provincial officials were retained based primarily on the economic performance of their provinces. See Zhiyue Bo, ‘Economic performance and political mobility: Chinese provincial leaders’, Journal of Contemporary China 5(12), (1996), pp. 135–154.

^7. David S. G. Goodman, ed., China's Provinces in Reform: Class, Community, and Political Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1997); Hans J. Hendrischke and Chongyi Feng, eds, The Political Economy of China's Provinces: Comparative and Competitive Advantage (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); John Fitzgerald, ed., Rethinking China's Provinces (New York: Routledge, 2002); Peter T. Y. Cheung, Jae Ho Chung and Zhimin Lin, eds, Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China: Leadership, Politics, and Implementation (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998).

^8. For an early review, see Jae Ho Chung, ‘Studies of central–provincial relations in the People's Republic of China: a mid-term appraisal’, China Quarterly 142, (1995), pp. 487–508. For the importance and benefit of comparing across China's provinces, see Li, Centre and Provinces, p. 5.

^9. Li, Centre and Provinces; Elizabeth J. Remick, Building Local States: China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Jae Ho Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China: Leadership and Implementation during Post-Mao Decollectivization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

^10. See for example Ben Hillman, ‘Paradise under construction: minorities, myths and modernity in northwest Yunnan’, Asian Ethnicity 4(2), (2003), pp. 175–188; Qiaolin Gan, Dajin Yao and Zexiang Yang, ‘Yunnan Fuping Gongjian Xiang Tezheng yu Yinsu Fengxi’ [‘Analysis of the factors and characteristics of Yunnan's poor counties’], Yunnan Caimao Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Yunnan Finance & Economics University] 17(5), (2001), pp. 78–82; Dorothy J. Solinger, ‘Minority nationalities in China's Yunnan province: assimilation, power and policy in a socialist state’, World Politics 30(1), (1977), pp. 1–23; Renlian Wang, ‘Yunnan Pinkun Diqu Luyou Kaifa Fupin de Tantao’ [‘A discussion of poverty alleviation through tourism in Yunnan's poor areas’], Journal of Chuxiong Teachers’ College 16(3), (2001), pp. 99–102.

^11. For examples, see Tim Oakes, ‘Building a southern dynamo: Guizhou and state power’, China Quarterly 178, (2004), pp. 467–487; Shijie Wang and Duanfa Zhang, Guizhou Fanpinkun Xitong Gongcheng [Guizhou's Anti-poverty System Project] (Guiyang: Guizhou Renmin Chubanshe [Guizhou People's Press], 2003); Wright, The Promise of the Revolution; Jianjun Lv, ‘Nongye Fazhan Yu Guizhou Xianxiang’ [‘Agricultural development and the Guizhou phenomenon’], Guizhou Caijing Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Guizhou College of Finance and Economics] no. 4, (1995), pp. 4–8.

^12. Yasheng Huang, Inflation and Investment Controls in China: The Political Economy of Central–Local Relations during the Reform Era (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

^13. See for example Li, Centre and Provinces; Dorothy J. Solinger, ‘Despite decentralization: disadvantages, dependence and ongoing central power in the inland: the case of Wuhan’, China Quarterly 145, (1996), pp. 1–34; Susan Shirk, ‘The Chinese political system and the political strategy of economic reform’, in D. M. Lampton and K. G. Lieberthal, eds, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1992); Kai-Yuen Tsui and Youqiang Wang, ‘Between separate stoves and a single menu: fiscal decentralization in China’, China Quarterly 177, (2004), pp. 71–90.

^14. Examples include Cheung et al., eds, Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China; Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Zhiyue Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders: Economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002); Avery Goldstein, ‘Trends in the study of political elites and institutions in the PRC’, China Quarterly 139, (1994), pp. 714–730; Goodman, Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China; Shaun Gerard Breslin, China in the 1980s: Centre–Province Relations in a Reforming Socialist State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996); Alan P. L. Liu, ‘Beijing and the provinces: different constructions of national development’, Issues and Studies 32(8), (1996); Pierre Landry, ‘Controlling decentralization: the party and local elites in post-Mao Jiangsu’, Political Science (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000).

^15. Tsui and Wang, ‘Between separate stoves and a single menu’.

^16. Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China, p. 11.

^17. These two categories (experiment and constraint), while identifiably distinct in the literature, are quite related and can overlap. Central experimentation will constrain local policy making, for instance. In this case, experiments in Yunnan could be tied to the province's role for national security, which is identified as a constraint.

^18. See for example Susan Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Lynn White, Unstately Power (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998). White notes that Guizhou was in the 1980s marked as a base for the development of energy resources, but little came of this effort.

^19. Interview A, May 2007. In addition, Hu also suggested that Guizhou officials focus on developing small-scale mines, of the type that employ poor rural residents. While Guizhou followed this strategy, Yunnan leaders focused on developing more automated medium-sized mines that require more experienced and educated workers, as well as more capital.

^20. Yunnan Nianjian Bianjibu, ed., Yunnan Yearbook [Yunnan Nianjian] (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1987).

^21. Guizhou Nianjian Bianjibu, ed., Guizhou Yearbook [Guizhou Nianjian] (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1988).

^22. Guizhou Yearbook, (1994), pp. 133–134. Concrete roads are much cheaper than paved roads, allowing them to be laid more extensively. Guizhou, which in the mid-1990s ranked third in terms of density of country roads linking village to market, has reduced rural poverty in part by focusing on this kind of road. See Donaldson, ‘The political economy of local poverty reduction’.

^23. Guizhou Yearbook, (1995).

^24. Yunnan Yearbook, (1986).

^25. Yunnan Yearbook, (1993).

^26. World Tourism Organization, Tourism and Poverty Alleviation (World Tourism Organization, 2002); Caroline Ashley, C. Boyd and H. Goodwin, ‘Pro-poor tourism: putting poverty at the heart of the tourism agenda’, Natural Resource Perspective (ODI) (London: 2000).

^27. Yunnan Yearbook, (1996).

^28. See Wright, The Promise of the Revolution, p. 139. For an analysis of the contrasting effects of the two provinces’ approach to tourism, see John A. Donaldson, ‘Tourism, development and poverty reduction in Guizhou and Yunnan’, China Quarterly 190, (2007), pp. 333–351.

^29. For more information regarding this program, see for example Ling Zhu and Zhongyi Jiang, ‘“Yigong-Daizhen” in China: a new experience with labour-intensive public works in poor areas’, Development Policy Review 13(4), (1995), pp. 349–370.

^30. Guizhou Yearbook, (various years).

^31. Zhongguo Luyou Nianjian Bianjibu, ed., China Tourism Yearbook [Zhongguo Luyou Nianjian] (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1996), p. 186.

^32. Linda Chelan Li, ‘Provincial discretion and national power: investment policy in Guangdong and Shanghai, 1978–1993’, China Quarterly 152, (1997), pp. 778–804.

^33. Solinger, ‘Despite decentralization’.

^34. Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg, Policy Making in China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Some of the variables these authors cite, such as physical distance and strength in local areas, do not vary much within Yunnan and Guizhou.

^35. Barry Naughton, ‘The third front: defence industrialization in the Chinese interior’, China Quarterly 115, (1988), pp. 351–386; C. Cindy Fan, ‘Uneven development and beyond: regional development theory in post-Mao China’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21(4), (1997), pp. 620–639.

^36. Higher levels of remittances from province to center also correlate with longer tenures, which is consistent with Yunnan's experience. See Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders.

^37. See also Shaoguang Wang, For National Unity: The Political Logic of Fiscal Transfer in China (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001), pp. 1–33.

^38. Eun Kyong Choi, ‘Building the tax state in China: center and region in the politics of revenue extraction, 1994–2003’, Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2006). Choi's data began during the mid-1990s.

^39. Tim Oakes, Tourism and Modernity in China (London and New York: Routledge, 1998). The historical significance of Yunnan for security was emphasized during China's military conflicts with Vietnam (Interview A).

^40. Interview A, May 2007.

^41. Stanley Rosen, ‘China in 1987: the year of the Thirteenth Party Congress’, Asian Survey 28(1), (1988), pp. 35–51; Tony Saich, ‘The Fourteenth Party Congress: a programme for authoritarian rule’, The China Quarterly 132, (1992), pp. 1136–1160.

^42. The debates at that time among central officials over the use of planning versus the use of markets are largely irrelevant for these two provinces, both of which relied on the power of the state to alter their economies. Neither Yunnan's developmental approach nor Guizhou's micro-oriented state relied primarily on market forces. Central conservatives would have little problem with Yunnan's reliance on tobacco and state-owned cigarette companies to grow the economy. Tobacco today remains among the last agricultural products to be channeled through state monopolies. Other central concerns, such as an emphasis on political stability and population control, were carefully emphasized—though often unsuccessfully—by leaders of both provinces.

^43. Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Vol. 3.

^44. These variables provide an environmental or background condition, operating as the context out of which either provincial elites or central officials make policy choices. While policy decisions are influenced by historical or cultural peculiarities or by initial conditions in the province, why the policy is being shaped in a certain direction remains an open question.

^45. Oakes, Tourism and Modernity in China, p. 89.

^46. Interview A and Interview C, May 2007.

^47. Li, ‘Provincial discretion and national power’, p. 780.

^48. Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders; Xiaowei Zeng, ‘Provincial elite in post-Mao China’, Asian Survey 31(6), (1991), pp. 512–525; Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Huang, Inflation and Investment Controls in China.

^49. Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China, p. 5. Thus this factor is directly related to a previous factor, that of central constraints. In fact, many factors overlap across categories.

^50. Zeng, ‘Provincial elite in post-Mao China’.

^51. Huang, Inflation and Investment Controls in China; Yumin Sheng and Yasheng Huang, Political Federalism and Inflation: Subnational Evidence from China (Philadelphia, PA: American Political Science Association, 2006), pp. 36; Choi, ‘Building the tax state in China’.

^52. One issue with this system is that, for instance, outsiders potentially act differently depending on the likelihood of future promotion. Thus, this system might be more effective when ‘career prospect’ is also considered.

^53. Cheng Li, China's Leaders: The New Generation (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).

^54. Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Remick, Building Local States; Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China.

^55. Remick, Building Local States, p. 260.

^56. Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China, p. 10.

^57. Unless otherwise cited, the information here is taken primarily from provincial yearbooks, bibliographic books such as Who's Who: Current Leaders in China, and other similar sources of information about local elites.

^58. This was part of a wider sweep of leadership to occur that year. Intended to renew and rejuvenate the leadership, this sweep replaced 40% of all provincial leaders throughout China. See Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders.

^59. Zhu was reportedly the first local to serve as top leader in Guizhou since 1965.

^60. Bo notes that it is fairly common for leaders to serve in their own provinces as vice-secretaries or vice-governors, only to be transferred to other provinces if they are assigned to top provincial positions. See Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders, p. 66.

^61. Many sources list Hu as being a native of Anhui province. While Hu's ancestral home is in Anhui, he actually spent most of his pre-university days in Taizhou City. See for instance Ling Ma, Hu Jintao Xin Zhuan [A New Biography of Hu Jintao] (Taibei: Taidian Dianye Gongsi [Taidian Electronics Company], 2006).

^62. Siyong Wen and Zhichu Ren, Hu Jintao Zhuan [Biography of Hu Jintao] (Carle Place, NY: Mirror Books, 2002), pp. 98–99.

^63. See for example Siyong Wen and Zhichu Ren, Hu Jintao Zhuan [Biography of Hu Jintao] (Carle Place, NY: Mirror Books, 2002), p. 190. This conflicts with Li's tentative conclusion that during his tenure in Guizhou, Hu Jintao ‘did not seem to make many changes’: Li, China's Leaders, p. 116.

^64. Youlang Zhao, ed., Kaifa Fupin, Shengtai Jianshe: Bijie Shiyanqu Shiwu Nian Huigu yu Zhanwang [Poverty Reduction, Environmental Conservation: A Review and Outlook on the 15 Years of the Bijie Experimental Zone] (Guiyang: Guizhou Renmin Chubanshe [Guizhou People's Publishing House], 2003).

^65. Bo, Chinese Provincial Leaders, pp. 84–85.

^66. Bo, ‘Economic performance and political mobility’. According to Bo, officials who successfully grow their provinces’ economies are most likely to be retained (although not promoted). Bo also notes that central authorities tend to retain minority provincial leaders longer than others in part because they are ‘scarce resources’. This explains the lengthy tenures of Yunnan governor He Zhiqiang and Guizhou governor Wang Chaowen, but not the nearly decade long tenure of Yunnan's secretary Pu Chaozhu, who is Han.

^67. The ranking data are compliments of Philip Hsu of National Taiwan University.

^68. The other two members of this group were Li Jiating, the disgraced former party secretary, also born in a tobacco growing region, and Yin Jun, the head of the Yunnan People's Congress and a native of the non-poor tourist area of Dali.

^69. Gao was under suspicion for corruption related to the Three Gorges Dam project. Oakes also notes that Gao was being investigated for suspect activities that occurred during his tenure in Yunnan. See Oakes, ‘Building a southern dynamo’, p. 481; Erik Eckholm, ‘Chinese power company chief flees the country and scrutiny’, New York Times, (2002).

^70. In fact, Guizhou's propensity to deviate from central policy started early, with the province becoming a pioneer in the policy to return agriculture to household responsibility. While Anhui province is often (and correctly) cited as a pioneer for agricultural reform of the early 1980s, Guizhou-based scholars argue that their province was equally if not more so. In any case, according to Lynn White, Guizhou had returned a higher proportion of its land to farmers than did Anhui. See White, Unstately Power.

^71. Interview C, May 2007.

^72. Indeed, encouraging migration was a central element of Guizhou's anti-poverty efforts, but is, to my knowledge, completely missing from Yunnan's policies. This fact is reflected in the migration statistics, especially from the 1990s, which show Guizhou's migration rates dwarfing Yunnan's.

^73. See for example Liqun Wei, Kexue Fazhan Guan he Xiandaihua Jianshe [The Scientific Development Concept and Modern Construction] (Beijing: Renmin Chuban She [People's Publishing House], 2005). The other two major changes not discussed above are to change the economic structure and to change the functions of government. The work on this concept of development was based in the Department of Philosophy in the Central Party School, where Hu Jintao served as president in the early 1990s.

^74. Mingfang Zhao, ‘Luoshi Kexue Fazhan Guan Xuyao Guannian “Liu Biange”’ [‘To achieve scientific viewpoints of development requires a notion of “six transformations”’], Guangming Ribao, 2006, available at: http://xmxh.smexm.gov.cn/2006-8/2006829154613.htm. During my fieldwork, I saw numerous such projects in Yunnan, in which the government of a poor county would often use poverty alleviation funds to build a county square or a football stadium, or even refurbish official buildings. While I did not visit a representative sample of counties in the two provinces, in the counties that I did visit over my months of fieldwork, I rarely saw Guizhou counties that did this, whereas in Yunnan, this type of flagrant and wasteful spending was common. One of the most extreme cases is the prefecture of Honghe. Despite the tobacco wealth, half of the counties of the prefecture are considered to be poor. Nevertheless, Honghe reportedly spent RMB 800 million alone on building a new prefecture capital building, even as peasants within a few hours’ drive of the capital live in grass huts, eking out a living on subsistence agriculture.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John A. Donaldson

75 *John A. Donaldson, assistant professor of political science at Singapore Management University, studies rural poverty reduction policies in China, as well as central–provincial relations. His research has appeared in such journals as China Quarterly and International Studies Quarterly. The author thanks his research assistants, Guo Xin, Zhong Ke, Sa'adia Baig, Stephanie Tan, Tang Xin, Zhang Xuefeng, Chan Ying Xian, Sarah Wong, Madhu Chaubey and others, whose dedication, perseverance and patience made completing this paper possible. Zhou Chuanyi's contributions were extraordinarily helpful—this Guizhou native provided numerous insights and tireless labor. Kremlinologist Robert H. Donaldson and Sinologist T.C. Lam also made substantial suggestions. This paper is part of the fruits of the Asian Network for the Study of Local China (ANSLoC), organized by Chung Jae Ho. Any remaining errors are solely the author's. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Office of Research, Singapore Management University