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Transport and Territorial Development in China 1949–1985

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Claude Comtois
Claude Comtois
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
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Extract

In recent years, China has adopted new strategies for economic development. These strategies seek increased productivity and effectiveness in the use of resources. Spatially regions specialize in the lines of production for which they have comparative advantages. And the coastal areas are experiencing an accelerated economic growth. The policy, however, operates under various constraints. First, the material base for development is a finite one and resources are very unevenly distributed across the landscape. Second, this development strategy depends to a certain extent on a substantial increase in China's foreign trade. As a result important investments are conceded to the transport sector. In the present context, is this strategy optimizing the use of available resources? The answer which is tentatively accepted here as a working hypothesis rests on the contradictory aspect of the concept of accessibility. Essentially all systems of transport and their networks generate territorial contradictions; and the resolution of these contradictions points to the direction of territorial development. The present analysis will focus on the geographic environment of China as a determining factor in the establishment of transport networks, followed by the history and performance of China's transport system within the confines of this paradigm. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, toexplore the role of transportation in territorial development, and second, to understand that transport systems do not solely reflect the physical conditions of a territory as an objective reality but also political ideologies which are forged to a certain extent by this reality.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 777 - 818
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

The author is indebted to Suzanne Pivik and Paul Frey for the high quality of their cartographic work, to Aileen Desbarats for valuable assistance in Ottawa University Map Library, and to Anne Pollock-McKenna for typing the original manuscript. Thanks are also due to Ottawa University research services for financial support.

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