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(1) Region development | The Bribe Factory; Debate about how to revive China's north-eastern rust belt holds lessons for the country as a whole.
https://www.economist.com/news/c ... ns-chinas-rust-belt
"MAO ZEDONG called China’s three north-eastern provinces—Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning—the country's 'eldest son.' 共和国长子 In the Chinese tradition the family's future rests on that child’s shoulders. * * * Mao made the north-east the centre of heavy industry.
"In 1978, on the eve of Deng Xiaoping's economic opening, Liaoning, the most populous of the trio, had the third-largest economy among mainland China's 31 provinces. Its GDP was 20% bigger than that of Guangdong, the southern province with the biggest population. * * * By 2016 Liaoning had fallen to 14th among provinces by income and had only one third of Guangdong's GDP. In 1978-2016 its share of China's output [ie, GDP] fell by more than half.
"Three unusual features account for some of the region's problems. First, Maoist planning left it more dependent on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than other areas. In China as a whole 17% of industrial jobs are in SOEs. In Liaoning the share is 40%; in Heilongjiang 55%. These firms are inefficient and many are unprofitable. Houze Song 宋厚泽 of the Paulson Institute, a think-tank, calculates that the return on assets of Liaoning’s SOEs fell from 3% in the mid 2000s to minus 1% in 2015—ie, they were losing money. Second, the region, which has 109m people, is ageing fast, even by Chinese standards. At 39.2 years, Liaoning's median age * * * is the oldest in the country. The north-eastern provinces have a [total] fertility rate—a measure of how many children women are likely to have [in her lifetime] —below one. The only other provincial-level areas that have such ultra-low fertility are the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. * * * Third, the north-east has an unusually strong collectivist tradition. Song Changtie manages a textile firm in the coastal province of Jiangsu, having lived in the north-east for 30 years. He wrote last year that Chinese people from other regions 'cannot imagine how accustomed' north-easterners are to government control.
"Other provinces have failing SOEs. Half a dozen [provinces in China] have declining populations [does not say they move out or age out]. The region is not, on average, poor (see map). And although it is near the bottom of China's league table of growth, the north-east is growing fast by the standards of rust belts globally. According to official figures, its GDP expanded by almost 7% a year in 2011-16, though the Liaoning provincial government admitted to falsifying its accounts for 2011-14, so the official statistics are suspect. All of which makes the question of how to revive the region more than a parochial one. It is, says Andrew Batson of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, 'a proxy debate about the future of China: should there be more interventionist industrial policy or more free-market solutions?'
Dandong is "China's largest private port. In 2005 the municipal government sold most of its stake in the facility.
Note:
(a) "Controversy flared last August with the publication of a 500-page report on Jilin, commissioned by the province from a well-known Chinese economist, Justin Yifu Lin" 吉林经济结构转型升级研究报告（征求意见稿）
"Guo Qiang of the Central Party School in Beijing" 中央党校教授 郭强
"Sun Jianbo, the founder of China Vision Capital" 华新资本 孙建波
"A car company in Liaoning, called Brilliance Auto, shows what can happen. In 2002 the provincial government took over what was then a thriving concern. It pushed out the founder" and then has mismanaged it." 华晨汽车集团控股有限公司 (based in 辽宁省沈阳市)
(b) English dictionary:
(i) parochial (adj; Did You Know? --> Late Latin noun feminine parochia gave rise to English noun parish and adjective parochial): "confined or restricted as if within the borders of a parish : limited in range or scope (as to a narrow area or region) : PROVINCIAL, NARROW"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parochial
(ii) "Local governments in the north-east mollycoddle their industrial champions by giving them preference in procurement contracts. But their protectionism has not helped."
(A) mollycoddle (n and vt; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mollycoddle
(B) Coddled Eggs. recipetips.com, undated
www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1186/coddled-eggs.asp
(how to: in the shell and in coddling dish)
Coddling an egg is different from poaching an egg.
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发表于 2-27-2018 17:01:25
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