The Low-end Locking Condition of Chinese Industrial System and Its Unlocking Paths: An Empirical Study Based on Correcting Distorted Urbanization Perspective

Abstract

The relationship between economic development and social structural evolution is a projection of the paradoxical movement of productive forces and productive relations in social-economic field. After the reform and opening-up policy, China has been experiencing two significant revolutions in its economic field and social field respectively: one is the industrialization which leads to Chinese Economic Miracle, and the other is urbanization which helps to achieve the feat that five hundred million people civilized in just thirty years. However, when we re-examine this thirty-year construction and development process with quality-oriented perspective, the compression of time dimension exposes many problems in industrial development and urban construction, which mainly present as the low-end locking industrial system and the distorted urbanization. In this paper, we take the main line that distorted urbanization is one of the deep-seated social structure factor of Chinese low-end locking industrial system, and expand Chinese distorted urbanization into three dimensions: motivation distortion—the land urbanization problem, body distortion—the peasant-worker urbanization problem, and function distortion—the urban disease. We also expand Chinese low-end locking industrial system into two sectors: the secondary industry’s low-quality and the tertiary industry’s lag behind, and then we build the three dimensions—two sectors” analytical framework. Based on this framework, we analyze the low-end locking condition of Chinese industrial system by applying stylized facts and evaluation index, and then we give a discussion on the path selection of correcting distorted urbanization to unlock its low-end locking industrial system by building a PLS-SEM model. The results indicate that: (i) Chinese secondary industry’s low-quality present as the hindrance of structure evolution and the tardiness of efficiency promotion, and its tertiary industry’s lag behind present as the producer service industries’ insufficient ability in assisting production and the consumer service industries’ insufficient ability in guaranteeing consumption. (ii) Optimizing local financial and taxation system will lower the level of land urbanization and then generate unlocking effects to Chinese urbanization’s motivation distortion; improving the skill education for peasant-workers and reforming Chinese household registration system to narrow the gaps between peasant-workers and local workers will lower the level of peasant-worker urbanization and then generate unlocking effects to Chinese urbanization’s body distortion; reinforcing urban infrastructure construction, improving urban public service’s supplying and distribution, and optimizing the administrative process will lower the level of urban disease and then generate unlocking effects to Chinese urbanization’s function distortion.