In the sciences, the word “model” is used to refer to “an idealized representation of reality [designed] in order to demonstrate certain of its properties” (Ackoff, Gupta & Minas, cited in Haggett 1965: 27). In this case, “model” refers to what is common to certain aspects of reality, rather than to what is different. In the 1990s the concept of the “social model” was used to refer instead to what made societies different and distinctive. One of the first cases was the identification of three different models of welfare capitalism. In the Western world after the Second World War capitalism was articulated with different varieties of welfare state. Esping-Andersen (1990) identified three different regimes of welfare capitalism: a social democratic model, committed to equality and high standards of provision; a corporatist conservative family-centred model, reflecting a distrust of markets in so far as social reproduction is concerned; and a liberal model of individual competition, which emphasizes the traditional work ethic. Other scholars then identified other welfare models. In 1997, drawing in part on theories of regulation (Aglietta 1976; Dunford 1990), Hollingsworth and Boyer (1997), published an edited collection concerned with the institutional mechanisms through which economic activity is coordinated and coined the concept of “social systems of production”, embracing industrial and financial organization, state structures and policies and societal values and norms. A central issue concerns the respective roles of markets and states/institutions at regional, national, transnational and global levels in identifying different societal models of economic governance. This interest in different social models was reinforced, yet also significantly narrowed, with the introduction of the concept of “varieties of capitalism” by Hall and Soskice (2001). In their study they distinguish between liberal market economies, closely corresponding with neoclassical representations of market economies, and coordinated market economies, with consensus-building institutions connecting employers and trades unions. This distinction overlaps with one drawn ten years earlier between neo-American and Rhine capitalism (Albert 1991). Subsequently many scholars drew on these concepts to examine different aspects of the performance of Western societies. More recently attention turned to China, and the Chinese social model or China model. In China itself, however, the term “social model” had been used at least as early as the early 1980s, by Deng Xiaoping (Deng 1994: 318).

A fundamental feature of the China model or how China is politically organized is perhaps the existence of a single ruling party, the CPC, and a strong state with a clear administrative hierarchy. The ruling philosophy of the CPC, the relationships between the party and the state and between the central and the local, the nature of China's consultative democracy and the Chinese official management system, as well as its cultural traditions, are all critical for understanding the country's governance practice, in particular its capacity to redistribute market-created wealth for sustainable socio-economic development. A particularly remarkable aspect relates to the reasons why the Chinese party-state can continuously undertake reforms to cope with governance challenges in pursuing economic growth, equity and social stability. As a result, the China model is not only socially but also institutionally embedded, indicating that the model may not be applicable in other economies without modifications.

This chapter first discusses the cultural basis of China's governance and then analyses its political regime and administrative structure to provide a background for examining the particularities of the Chinese social model.

CULTURAL BASIS OF CHINA's GOVERNANCE

As argued in Chapter 1, cultural traditions to a certain degree can influence the governance mode that the people of a particular country can accept, although it must be acknowledged that culture interacts with other factors in shaping a particular governance mode. The obvious differences between Western countries and eastern Asian countries in containing the Covid-19 pandemic might be an example. Culture matters, although differences should be largely attributed to policy choices and/or political struggles. In the East, few people would resist their government's regulatory requirement to wear masks to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, whereas many people in some Western countries, such as the United States, protested against such a requirement. From such differences one can easily see the cultural distinctions between countries as measured on Geert Hofstede's six dimensions of culture: individualism versus collectivism; power distance; uncertainty avoidance; masculinity versus femininity; long-term versus shortterm orientation; and indulgence versus restraint (Minkov & Hofstede 2011).

THE ROLES OF SESs IN CHINA's DEVELOPMENT MODEL

Special economic spaces (SESs) are geographically delineated areas with a special legal regime to govern investment and business activities, and they have been widely adopted since the 1960s as part of a place-based development strategy by most developing and many developed economies. Although SESs are known by many different names, they often provide a regulatory regime for businesses and investors that differs from other areas in the same country. SESs are not unique to China, but their appearance in China is extraordinary in terms both of their number and their diversity. According to the World Investment Report 2019 (UNCTAD 2019), there were 2,543 SESs in China that year, accounting for 47.2 per cent of the world total. China's SESs have made crucial contributions to its economic success and social development since the 1980s (Wang 2013). The promotion of economic development and institutional reform through the establishment of various SESs is an important component of China's development model (Dunford & Liu 2015; Lim 2019).

SESs have played two critical roles in promoting China's development. First, they are often the testing labs for new policy experiments (Lim 2017; Bräutigam & Tang 2014; Heilmann 2008; Heilmann & Perry 2011). Unlike the “shock therapy” imposed in the former Soviet “socialist” bloc, China adopted a gradualist approach to socio-economic reforms, with the political objective of maintaining fundamental Marxist– Leninist principles. Because no predetermined playbook guided this process, reforms were often tested first in a defined territory. Thus, place-specific experimentation has been considered a part of “feeling for stones while crossing the river”. The strategic objectives of new experimental programmes and their testing regions tend to be chosen by the central government, however. For example, the four small areas in Guangdong and Fujian Provinces with strong linkages with overseas Chinese were selected in the late 1970s to test market-oriented policies and practices. Later many of their successful policies were then applied to 14 coastal cities, and only later to other parts of China. Moreover, entering the new millennium when facing new challenges, China initiated large-scale experiments.

China’s policies and measures could also be thought of as a continuation of those in the Cold War period, and that an analysis of Sino-Swiss relations in the Cold War can help our understanding of China’s relations with Western nations today.

This book forms part of a project conducted at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) in Beijing over the period from October 2016 to October 2020 on the China model, and it was funded by the China National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF: grant number 41530751). The principal researcher was Weidong Liu, and the project involved fieldwork, surveys, workshops and conferences in China and abroad.

As with any volume of this kind, there was a division of labour, in which Weidong Liu wrote the first two chapters, identifying the core economic, political and cultural characteristics of the China model, and the conclusion, with Michael Dunford. Informed by this perspective, Weidong Liu and Zhigao Liu conducted the research and wrote the chapter on China's special economic spaces, while, in collaboration with Weidong Liu, Zhenshan Yang was responsible for Chapter 3, on spatial governance instruments. Michael Dunford wrote the chapters on regional development and Chinese poverty alleviation.

The authors are grateful to many people for their support with this project. Weidong Liu wishes to extend special thanks to Qiuhui Yao, Wei Xiong, Jingluan Yang, Qidi Ji and Xinyu Yang for their assistance in data collection. Michael Dunford extends his gratitude not just to NNSF but also to the IGSNRR for three one-year visiting fellowships (grant number 2017VP01) during the research on this project. He also thanks Boyang Gao, who provided the results of a poverty survey that informs Chapter 6.

Finally, the authors wish to thank Alison Howson at Agenda for her support and advice throughout the preparation of this volume.

INTRODUCTION

In earlier chapters it was explained that the Chinese model involves certain distinctive governance instruments and targets. These instruments and targets have changed over the course of time as domestic and international economic, political, cultural and environmental developments at each stage generated contradictions that were addressed in new waves of reform. In the 1950s the aim was the restoration of national political and economic sovereignty and independence via land reform and national industrialization in a context of fair distribution and worker mobilization. After the rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s, China took out Western and Japanese loans to address shortages of capital that all developing countries confront, and in 1979 it embarked on reform and opening up, allowing some people and places to get rich first so as to develop the productive forces. In 1999, after years of economic growth that was unprecedented in scale and duration but that generated serious environmental problems and wide inequalities, a major strategic reorientation started: alongside a quest for continued economic growth, the aim of people-oriented development progressively unfolded. In 2012 China entered a new era, the goal of which is national rejuvenation and the establishment of a modern socialist country by 2035.

The evolving geography of China's development has itself shaped and been shaped by these changing strategies, targets and instruments, as this chapter will show. More specifically, in the third section some of the broad features of China's territorial development are outlined. These features are in part a reflection of China's geographical and natural resource context, which is therefore examined in the fourth section. Yet they also reflect the evolution of policies and the size, composition and direction of investments designed to industrialize and defend the country, accelerate economic and social modernization, improve living standards and address inequalities and contradictions arising from earlier phases of development, as is shown in the fifth section. The sixth section outlines the instruments that China deploys to meet its regional development objectives. To bring to life in a more vivid way China's regional development, the final section examines more concretely the role of urbanization and economic development in western China through the lens of the recent growth of the municipality of Chongqing.

INTRODUCTION

In 1949 new China emerged from the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937–45) and the subsequent Civil War (1945 to 1949) as almost the poorest country in the world. In 1950 the violation of Chinese territorial sovereignty and the need to deter a new invasion saw China respond to a North Korean request and enter the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, a struggle it also won but at considerable cost in terms of human life and the dedication of resources to strategic military and related industries. From 1949 through the 1960s China was subjected to a sustained economic embargo imposed by the United States, which was expanded to cover medicines, tractors and fertilizers (Zhang, cited in Losurdo 2008: 287– 92).

And yet, in these extraordinarily difficult circumstances, the new China saw life expectancy increase from 35 years in 1949 to 57 in 1957 and 68 in 1981 (Xinhuanet 2019), while its population increased from 554.4 million to 1,014 million. According to the World Bank (1981: 101), 1979's life expectancy of 64 years was higher than the average of 51 for low-income countries and 61 for middle-income countries; adult literacy stood at 66 per cent, compared with 39 per cent in low-income countries and 72 per cent in middle-income countries; while net primary school enrolment (93 per cent) was just short of that for industrialized countries (94 per cent).

In 1978 per capita rural income stood at ¥134 (81 PPP$) while the per capita income of urban residents was ¥343.4 (208 PPP$), yet the latter increased to ¥454.2 if the value of welfare, medical and other in-kind provision is included (Zhang 1994). In 1978, although there were many status and regional differences, China was egalitarian, with small income inequalities within communes and cities. In the words of the World Bank, “China's most remarkable achievement during the past three decades” was to have made “low-income groups far better off in terms of basic needs than their counterparts in most other poor countries”, thanks to the priority attached to food, education and health (World Bank 1983: 11).

From the 1950s on, Sino-Swiss relations were unique in Western Europe. Switzerland’s early recognition of China and its neutrality led to a great deal of goodwill in China and extraordinarily amicable relations in the 1950s. China also used its diplomatic missions in Switzerland as political, economic, and cultural hubs for Western Europe and in some cases even for the entire world. For Switzerland, Sino-Swiss relations were supposed to establish Switzerland as an internationally respected, neutral mediating power. However, China mistrusted Swiss neutrality, and it also used Switzerland as a European hub for embargo goods deals. It was only with the Geneva Conference and China’s use of ‘peaceful coexistence’ as the official basis for its foreign policy that Chinese official statements on Swiss neutrality improved.