In an ‘Occasional Paper’ from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center Jason Jia Xi Wu (a Shenzhen native) dissects the Greater Bay Area (GBA) Initiative for what it reveals about central planning in the Xi-Era. His conclusions are not encouraging.
It’s a long and dense piece but the short summary, I think, is this:
- Central planning, a tool the Communist Party of China has always used for developmental fixes, is operating in a stronger form under Xi than under the previous Hu-Wen administration.
- The GBA plans look good on paper; but a closer analysis reveals irreconcilable objectives and fails to consider what a more ‘natural’ development of the region might achieve.
- The first big negative manifest in the plans is the implicit decline of locally adaptive economic policy experimentation which is, after all, what the development of the region has largely been built on.
- The second (Mr. Wu’s hometown is specifically referenced here) is that the policy is encouraging the premature de-industrialization of the Pearl River Delta’s core cities.
There’s no doubt, central planning has played a key role in propelling China successfully for many decades. Perhaps the key takeaway is that moderation, as in so much else, should be the leitmotiv?
The paper in full is here The GBA Initiative. If you find the heft a little tiresome I’d recommend a jump straight to the conclusions on P.34.
Happy Sunday.