Regional economic integration on China’s Inland periphery: the Jilin-Northeast Asia Case

Abstract

Why has China’s economic integration with Asia lagged in the northeast despite high expectations since the 1990s? China-centered integration in Asia is best understood at the Chinese subnational level. The interaction of central, local, and international interests under given structural and historical conditions produces distinct provincial trajectories of foreign economic engagement. While central state interests dictate policy choice under authoritarian rule, policy outcomes are shaped through local feedback effects and institutional innovations to manage transnational exchange. The Jilin-Northeast Asia case over the past two decades shows a negative orientation of such dynamics, stemming from a poor alignment of interests, the region’s structural constraints, and a socialist historical legacy. By tracing change and continuity on China’s late-developing, inland periphery, this study points to the subnational dimensions of cross-border integration obscured by conventional international relations scholarship, and presents the other side of China’s coastal success story. China’s ongoing plans for Asian integration are linked to the long-term development of China’s own regions rather than just aspirations abroad.