ABSTRACT
China’s Special Economic Zones, in common with many other export-processing zones in South-East Asia, are identifiable entities, isolated to a considerable extent legally and physically from the rest of the country. Their objectives may appear to be ‘aspatial’, but they nevertheless do contribute de facto to the regional balance or imbalance: they have specific locations and are becoming quite significant economic forces in their own right. Most important, perhaps, from a regional perspective, is their concentration in the coastal provinces of Guangdong, Hainan and Fujian (see map on page xv).
