Western China had developed faster than coastal China under Mao Zedong, who gave priority to the development of the heavy and military industries. Afraid of a US or a Taiwanese military strike in the coastal areas, he located them away from the coast in Western China. The Sichuan province was a special beneficiary of this policy. The Chinese people in the coastal areas accepted this policy as they felt it was in the national interest.
Deng Xiaoping upgraded the priority for the consumer and other light industries. He opened up coastal China first at a time when Taiwan and Hong Kong were shifting from the manufacturing sector to the services sector and, even in the manufacturing sector, from low-tech to hi-tech industries. They started looking for new areas with cheap labour where they could shift their low-tech industries. The policy-makers under Deng provided them with such areas in Guangdong, Fujian and Shanghai.
The coastal areas overtook western China in economic development and prosperity, helped by the torrential flow of foreign direct investment, FDI, from the overseas Chinese diaspora, the Asian Tigers of the 1990s and Japanese, South Korean and Western investors and by the huge US market, which the Hong Kong and Taiwanese investors brought along with them. They understood the American market better than the mainland Chinese. They brought along with their manufacturing skills, the goodwill which they had earned over the years in the US market.
As coastal China raced ahead, Western China started stagnating. 'Let them (coastal China) get rich first, you can get rich later,' Deng, who was himself a son of the Sichuan soil, told the people of Western China. The people of Western China accepted his word as they felt it was in their national interest.
Now that the economy of coastal China has acquired a self-sustaining momentum and can cruise along on its own inherent strength without the need for any special governmental attention, the policy-makers under President Hu Jintao have turned their attention to Western China. I was able to see for myself the impressive results in the Sichuan province. Objective observers certify that the results are equally impressive in Tibet and Xinjiang, but I did not have an opportunity of visiting them.
Image: A train passes over a viaduct outside Golmud on the first part of the Qinghai-Tibet railway in China's northwest Qinghai province. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
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