Western Development Program Research Articles

Yunnan.s Water Resource Development

The Western Development Programme is a strategic project for China's sustainable development in the twenty-first century. It focuses on exploration of natural resources, on protecting and restoring the environment, and expanding the social economy in order to eliminate poverty and remove the disparity between the East and the West. Known as the ‘Water Tower’ of Asia, Yunnan province enjoys geographical advantages over eleven other western provinces due to its bountiful natural resources. Given that China has entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is of tremendous importance for Yunnan to seize the opportunity, and properly explore and protect its water resources so as to promote its social and economic development.

Prospects for Sino-Indian Trans-border Economic Linkages

The political thrust given to integrating southwestern China with the extended regional eco-nomy marks the latest shift in the country's regional development policy. China's develop-mental priorities have swung from a focus on inland development during the Mao years to Deng's coast-led strategy and most recently back again to the inland provinces under the Western development programme. Noteworthy in this context are the imperatives driving China's sub-regional initiatives in the region, particularly the Kunming Initiative, which seeks to strengthen regional economic cooperation between the contiguous regions of India's Northeast, China's Southwest, Myanmar and Bangladesh. There is clearly a strong case for fully exploring potential for trans-border linkages in trade, tourism and transport within this quadrant. Further, China's southern thrust coincides with India's own domestic impera-tive of strengthening the external orientation of the Northeast. These developments present opportunities as also challenges to India while it is willing to engage China bilaterally but not sub-regionally.

China's Western Development Program: a Chinese version of Germany's ‘Rebuilding the East’?

The ambitious goals of China's Western Development Program of creating an ‘advanced new West where life is stable, ethnic groups are united and the landscape is beautiful …’1 are reminiscent of the...

National security and unity, and China's western development program

Why did China's leaders launch a Western Region Development Program? Ostensibly, they did so for a host of economic reasons, which included correcting regional inequality by generating domestic dem...

Equitable utilisation and effective protection of sharing transboundary water resources: international rivers of western China

Western China includes 12 provincial divisions (the 7 provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and; 5 autonomous regions of Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi; and one city of Chongqing), which comprise 71.4% of the national land area, 28.5% of the national population and produce 17.5% of the national GDP in China. There are 17 countries that have riparian relationships with western China, most of which are water-short countries. All are listed by UN ESCAP as countries with potential water crisis. The co-operative development and coordinated management of international rivers in western China is an important step toward the implementation of the national Great Western Development program. Taking into account of the national strategy and object hierarchy, as well as the development demand of the western region, it is necessary to pursue the multi-disciplinary study of the equitable allocation, utilisation, and eco-environment protection of transboundary water resources in the region. Such efforts will undoubtedly provide scientific evidence and support for the decision-making of the environmental protection and ecological construction and management in the western regions, the enforcement of the sub-regional economic co-operation, mitigation of trans-boundary conflicts, and enhancing bio-diversity conservation.