ABSTRACT
Economic reform and integration into the world economy are challenging the political and economic elites of Liaoning Province in new and different ways. On account of its strategic importance, this southernmost of the three northeastern provinces of China was long said to have been cherished by the central government in Beijing like a ‘king’s daughter’. 1 Since reform was extended to the urban industrial sector in the middle of the 1980s, however, the province’s large-scale heavy industry, once the glory of Liaoning, has been faced with great problems. The deterioration of the state sector’s economic performance in Liaoning has coincided with the export-driven economic success of the southern coastal provinces’ non-state-owned enterprises; not only Guangdong but also Shandong and Jiangsu are now ahead of Liaoning as far as the rate of economic development and performance is concerned.
