ABSTRACT
This chapter conceptualizes political differences of China's provinces by constructing a political power index for each province and comparing these differences. The chapter analyzes the extent to which Chinese provincial political power is determined by economic resources. It explores an indicator of provincial power based on provincial representation in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committees. In a unitary state such as China, a province has to find avenues to influence national policies in its favor. It is critical for any province to gain at least one seat in the Central Committee, but no province stands out politically unless it has a seat in the Politburo. One of the most consistent measures of provincial economic resources in China is that of provincial income, which is the sum of net output value of five material production sectors of the provincial economy, that is, agriculture, industry, transportation, construction, and commerce.
