ABSTRACT
Although approaches differ, there is no doubt that the changing macro-, meso-and local-scale geographies of manufacturing in China are the joint outcome of the social, political and economic interactions at global, national and regional scales, including China’s economic transformation from a planned to a market economy, its administrative decentralization since the mid-1980s, and its gradual integration into the global economic system (opening-up). The aim of this chapter is to analyze these changes and their driving forces. Section 5.2 examines macro-scale manufacturing development at home and abroad. Section 5.3 describes the changing geographic distribution of China’s manufacturing at macro-(concentration near the coast in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei areas), meso-(specialization and industrial clustering) and micro-scales (industrial parks and ‘suburbanization’). Section 5.4 analyzes the driving forces demonstrating the importance of capital fl ows and trade liberalization at a macro-scale, fi scal decentralization and uneven ownership reform progress at a meso-scale and land-use issues at a local scale. Section 5.5 analyzes the changing geography of China’s information technology industry. Section 5.6 fi nally examines the adjustment challenges posed by a new round of international re-division of labour and industrial shift including the weakening of China’s labour and land-cost advantages, growing pressure
112 Boyang Gao and Zhigao Liu
on resources and environment, and increased competition from neighbouring countries and other emerging economies. Faced with these challenges, the Chinese government has to handle properly domestic industrial transfer and upgrading, and outward investment.
