The SMG analysis has established that the WDP, like the BRI and CGG, was launched by the political leadership, who were facing economic recession and other challenges, and then mobilized subnational and commercial actors to improvise growth-reviving endeavors in their own purviews. This chapter focuses on three tasks: First, it presents the reform-era developmental history of western China and captures how the WDP and globalization have interacted in this region; second, it elaborates on the process and phases of WDP implementation and explains how state roles have adapted to different periods of developmental challenges in the country; and finally, it uses three large infrastructure projects in the WDP as examples to illustrate that, while expanding globalization, the WDP’s implementation has also intensified centralization and political penetration by the ruling party into inland China.