ABSTRACT

Traditionally, political scientists and economists have seen China as a single entity and business people have seen China as a single market. This book challenges the notion of a centralised and unified China, and outlines how provinces are taking on new economic and political roles, forced upon them by decentralisation.It is the most thorough data on contemporary Chinese provinces available and will be of great interest to researchers and graduate students of politics, economics and business as well as Asian studies.

chapter |25 pages

1 Provinces in competition

Region, identity and cultural construction

chapter |3 pages

Guizhou Province

General

chapter |41 pages

2 Selling Guizhou

Cultural development in an era of marketisation

chapter |32 pages

3 Shaanxi

The search for comparative advantage

chapter |40 pages

4 Uneven development:

prosperity and poverty in Jiangsu

chapter |24 pages

5 Hubei

Rising abruptly over central China?

chapter |3 pages

Tianjin City

General

chapter |27 pages

6 Tianjin—quiet achiever?

chapter |37 pages

7 King Coal and Secretary Hu

Shanxi's third modernisation