The Status and Roles of Special Economic Zones in China’s Unbalanced Development

Abstract

Special economic zones are the important pivots for China to implement the unbalanced growth strategy. From a theoretical point of view, the establishment of special economic zones originates from the Western theory of unbalanced growth. The theory of unbalanced growth says that economic growth is unbalanced and a breakthrough for economic growth shall be found. While absorbing the essentials of this theory, Mr. Deng Xiaoping has formed his idea of unbalanced growth, which has become the solid foundation for the establishment and development of the special economic zones in China. The special economic zones have achieved the expansion from one type to various types based on the requirements for the economic growth of China in different historical periods. The special economic zones have opened the road to building a socialist kind of modernization with Chinese characteristics; this road is a road of unbalanced growth and a road of progressive reforms. The roles of the special economic zones in the unbalanced growth of China are demonstrated in: First, they drive the rapid growth of the economy of China by becoming the growth poles of China’s economy; second, they become the pilot for institutional reforms, realizing the fundamental transformation from the system of a planned economy to the system of a market economy and also driving the reforms in politics and culture fields; third, they have effectively exerted the effects of window, demonstration and driving functions, becoming the window of reform and opening-up, the demonstration area of modernization construction, and thus have driven the development and reform in the surrounding regions and other regions of China. The exertion of the roles of the special economic zones depends on forming good systems of interaction and innovation between the reform of decentralization and opening up.