① Implementing the strategy of developing the western region is based on Deng Xiaoping's thought of "two overall situations", that is, developing the eastern region with better conditions first and promoting the development of the western region; At a certain stage, that is, a well-off society, the eastern region is required to make more efforts to help the western region develop.

In the development process of more than 20 years of reform and opening up, China's comprehensive national strength has been significantly enhanced, and the contradiction of widening the gap between the east and the west is also very prominent. In order to achieve coordinated development among regions, the central government made a strategic decision to implement the large-scale development of the western region at the turn of the century.

(3) The significance of implementing the strategy of developing the western region is of great significance to economic development, national unity, social stability, coordinated regional development and ultimately prosperity.

(4) Several relationships should be handled well in the process of western development, such as the relationship between economic development and ecological environment protection, the relationship between the west and the central and eastern regions, the relationship between economic development and population, and the relationship between the government and the market.

At present, the western development is in full swing in China. While vigorously supporting and actively participating, it is even more necessary to keep a little calm thinking in order to make this major strategic action go smoothly and achieve final success. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of the background, objectives, institutional arrangements and policy choices of the decision-making on the development of the western region will make our actions more conscious.

The development of the western region, which arose at the turn of the century, is a top-down strategic action planned and initiated by the top level of the central government and echoed by the central ministries and western provinces. Its necessity and strategic significance are very obvious: focusing on the long-term development of China, narrowing the gap between the east and the west, strengthening national unity, realizing the three-step strategic concept and Deng Xiaoping's concept of "two overall situations" (first, let the eastern coastal areas accelerate the development of reform and opening up, and give more power to help the development of the central and western regions when the country reaches a well-off level by the end of this century, requiring the eastern and central and western regions to take good care of these two overall situations at different times). Its feasibility lies in the strengthening of national strength in the 20 years of reform and opening up, the staged surplus of total grain, and the opening up to the outside world has entered a new stage after China's entry into WTO.

The central government's decision on the large-scale development of the western region has received enthusiastic response from relevant ministries and commissions and leaders of western provinces and autonomous regions; The eastern region is not as active as the western region; On the other hand, the central region seems to be left out in the cold, because it is neither the east (province) nor the west (province). This is normal, which reflects the optimal strategy adopted by each participant to maximize their own interests under the given game payment. For a long time, scholars have analyzed that one of the root causes of localism is that the (central) western region has received more central financial subsidies, and most of these subsidies come from the developed eastern coastal areas (Huang, 1996). Therefore, in the face of the growing tendency of local egoism, the development of the western region can not only provide a sharp weapon to curb the tendency of localism, but also show a panoramic stage to strengthen centralization and unity. Another background is that the expansionary fiscal and monetary policy that lasted for two years failed to achieve the expected results, and the development of the western region can obviously further stimulate domestic demand and then get out of deflation that lasted for several years.

According to the intention of the central government, the Ministry of Finance plans to invest most of the national debt funds and foreign loans in the west; The central bank decided to change the loan structure of banks under its control-increase the proportion of medium and long-term loans; In agriculture and forestry, a series of policies and measures have been introduced to encourage comprehensive agricultural development and improve the ecological environment. Railways, transportation and other departments respectively declared that hundreds of billions of yuan of investment should be tilted to the western region. Not to be outdone, western provinces and regions have shown their cards: or build a strong green economy; Or build a bridgehead for the development of the western region; Or take the lead in entering the ranks of developed regions; It can be said that all the birds are singing and competing for beauty, and they don't want to cut another piece from the cake of the western development. No wonder, accustomed to the traditional pattern that governments at all levels compete for resources, who wants to harm their own interests? After some interest games and up-and-down search, the main directions of western development are finally determined: infrastructure, ecological protection and construction, structural adjustment, science and education and personnel training. It should be said that the determination of this direction is indeed correct and wise. Infrastructure covers everything, from airports, railways and water conservancy hubs to rural roads and power grid construction. Ecological protection and expansion refers to returning farmland to forests (grass), closing hillsides to facilitate afforestation, greening barren hills, preventing wind and fixing sand, etc. Structural adjustment mainly refers to vigorously developing local characteristic industries or advantageous industries; Science, education and personnel training include literacy and distance education. These will be included in the tenth five-year plan of governments at all levels. This year's "plate" has also been finalized, and infrastructure construction and returning farmland to forests (grasslands) with the theme of "Ten Major Projects" are the highlights of this year's western development. However, the implementation needs careful selection, careful decision-making and concrete implementation.

Second, why does the West lag behind?

The western region is indeed backward, at least since the reform and opening up. According to estimates, from1978--1997, the proportion of the eastern region in the national GDP increased from 52% to 6 1.4%, and the western region decreased from 17% to 14.8%. The per capita GDP gap is also gradually widening. In the early days of reform and opening up, the per capita GDP of northwest provinces was higher than that of Fujian, and Qinghai was even higher than that of Guangdong. But by 1997, the national per capita GDP was 6392 yuan, while the western region was only 4009 yuan, equivalent to 62.7% of the national average. 1998, the per capita GDP of Guangdong and Fujian has exceeded 10000 yuan, reaching 6,435 yuan in the five northwestern provinces and less than 4,500 yuan in other provinces, a difference of more than double. Then, why did the western region achieve a level of economic development similar to that of the eastern region under the conditions of traditional planned economy? In addition, why is this balance of power broken in the context of reform?

It will be an illusion that any socio-economic form requires the total output to be absolutely uniform in spatial distribution. So far, there is no such case even in countries or regions with highly developed economies. However, the equalization of per capita output between different regions or the trend of this equalization may exist. Especially in countries with relatively perfect market economy, once there is a big difference in per capita output or income between regions, residents in backward areas will vote with their feet to move to more developed areas; But capital (assuming other things remain unchanged) flows to areas with low labor costs, thus narrowing the differences between regions. However, under the condition of planned economy, the difference of per capita output among regions can be narrowed or even eliminated in another way, that is, through government resource allocation, direct pricing of resources and products and forced immigration measures. Although the two can eventually achieve the result of equalization of per capita output, the difference in internal efficiency is extremely significant, which has been proved by a large number of empirical facts.

Before the reform and opening up, the development level of the west was similar to that of the east, which was realized under the government's plan. According to the analysis of historians, the western development at the turn of the century is by no means unprecedented in the history of new China. Prior to this, there were at least two large-scale western development in China: one centered on the key project 156 during the First Five-Year Plan period, and the other centered on the "third line" construction since the Third Five-Year Plan period. Among the 150 projects finally put into construction, except the northeast, 85 * * * projects (50 civilian projects and 35 military projects) were arranged in the central and western regions. Of the actually completed investment 196 1 100 million yuan, the northeast accounted for 44.3% and the central and western regions accounted for 52.9%. The latter's key projects include the key railway trunk line connecting Sichuan, Guizhou, Cheng Kun, Guikun, Xiangpu and Xiang Qian in the southwest, five steel bases such as Panzhihua Iron and Steel, Jiuquan, WISCO, Baotou Steel and Taigang, the 10 relocation and extension project for national defense, and a large number of coal, electric power, machinery and chemical projects. 1966- 1975 During the "Third Five-Year Plan" and "Fourth Five-Year Plan" periods, the total investment of1173438+billion yuan, accounting for 52.7% and 465438+ of the national capital construction investment in the same period respectively. This large-scale development of the western region, coupled with the sporadic relocation of the whole factory to the west and the construction of antique copy factories, has made the economic development of the western region reach the same level as that of the eastern region; At the same time, the whole national economy has basically formed a productivity pattern in which the northeast and central and western regions are dominated by heavy industry and the eastern coast is dominated by light industry.

Therefore, the economic position of the western region that is not backward is obtained by the government's planned allocation of resources. Once the overall way of resource allocation has changed, the original situation will be unsustainable. From a dialectical point of view, the backwardness of the west is relative, probably because the east is developing too fast, which makes the west relatively backward. The fundamental driving force for the rapid development of eastern China is reform and opening up, the essence of which is economic liberalization. The relaxation of government control initially occurred in the field of basic commodity production closest to consumers, so the eastern coastal areas dominated by textiles gained some advantages in the early stage of reform. In the process of exercising consumer sovereignty, consumers' monetary votes not only invest in high-quality and cheap goods and services, but also choose corresponding more efficient enterprise organization forms and property rights arrangements. At the same time, the involvement of foreign capital has effectively promoted the accumulation of funds and the transformation of technology and management. The capital flow with strong vitality and expansion tendency outside the system, while separating out all kinds of people with innovative and adventurous consciousness, is impacting the fortress of traditional planned economy from low to high along the track of the best effective scale. The formation of "internal" rules (rules of people in economic communication) forces the government's laws and regulations (external rules) to adjust and evolve (Zhou Ye 'an, 2000). It can be said that the central government's strategy of building special zones and accelerating coastal opening-up is a timely adaptation to the changes in the primary system in this region. In this way, the material foundation based on the textile industry, the traditional concept of commodity economy, the gradual reform strategy and the specific location advantages have formed a favorable situation in the process of marketization in the eastern coastal areas.

Due to the above favorable conditions, the eastern coastal areas have obtained quite stable "reform rent" in the expanding competition field. However, at least in the early stage of the reform, the western region was not hit hard, because the heavy industry that the region relied on was still operating safely within the system. However, as the eastern coastal areas continue to collect funds from the "international circulation" at both ends, import equipment with higher technology content and use new raw materials (even mineral resources with lower prices), the export chain of the west originally arranged by the government has been split. As a result, the "production of means of production", which occupies an absolutely important position in the western region under the traditional planned economy, is in an extremely embarrassing cold reception situation, although the production of energy and some resources is still operating under monopoly or government pricing and subsidies. Therefore, due to the specific layout of productive forces and the backward disadvantage in the alternate evolution of the two systems, the western region is not only facing difficulties in the competition of economic development, but also secretly glad under the umbrella of the system. Objectively speaking, heavy industry has the characteristics of large capital investment and high proportion of precipitation cost, which really brings considerable difficulty to the adjustment and withdrawal of enterprises. When a large amount of capital investment is precipitated, the conditions for enterprise scale adjustment and withdrawal will also change accordingly. Specifically, only when the expected net present value is lower than the residual value of capital, the withdrawal of enterprises is beneficial; In order to minimize losses, enterprises have to stay in the industry in the case of long-term losses. Considering the tens of thousands of employees of large enterprises and the extremely sensitive safety values in ethnic minority areas, the state has more reason to let inefficient state-owned enterprises in the western region survive. According to the data, by the end of September, 1999, state-owned and state-holding enterprises accounted for more than 5 million yuan in the sales revenue of all industrial enterprises, with 28% in the eastern region and 6 1% in the western region. State-owned enterprises lost 45% in the eastern region and 58% in the western region.

From the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that in addition to natural conditions, the initial conditions of reform and opening up and the specific distribution of productive forces constitute the objective reasons for the relative backwardness of the western region. However, inevitably, subjective factors such as natural economy and planned economy thought and equally important dependence have also seriously hindered the development of the western region. Some scholars have pointed out that in the process of reform and opening up in the past 20 years, the western region is also facing many favorable development opportunities. For example, Sichuan and other places were at the forefront of rural reform in the early 1980 s; After the establishment of "taking energy transportation as the strategic focus", the super-large Three Gorges Project was launched, the comprehensive development of water conservancy in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, the accelerated development of oil and coal in the west, and the construction of the Eurasian continental bridge made large-scale incremental funds invest in the west; The improvement of relations between China and neighboring countries in Russia, West Asia and Southeast Asia has also created favorable conditions for the opening up of the western region. In the middle and late 1990s, the "well-off society" strategy and the "tough battle against poverty" also focused on the central and western regions. However, why can't the western region seize these favorable fighters to accelerate its own economic development? One of the important reasons is that local governments at all levels overemphasize the role of narrow resources such as minerals, are too superstitious about the government's power to directly allocate resources, and rely too much on the capital investment of the central government; It puts a lot of energy into the competition for engineering projects, poverty alleviation funds and the income of monopoly departments; At the same time, it is generally neglected to tap the real power source from the economic development of the eastern coastal areas, and it is generally lacking in the ability to grasp and enhance the general laws from specific examples and means, thus failing to consciously accelerate the local marketization process. As a result, a large number of government officials and public utilities employees are enjoying a relatively well-off life leisurely, contemplating how to surpass others in their rank promotion; Employees of large enterprises eulogize the superiority of public ownership under the protection of loss subsidies; Most poor farmers in mountainous areas depend on the weather for food year after year in the expectation of poverty alleviation funds, and even don't want to move to areas with more favorable natural conditions because they are used to waiting and accepting; Even if there are some private owners, they will build their own development on the weaving of the relationship network between government and business; A considerable number of "peacocks" who are unwilling to be mediocre fly to the southeast; On the contrary, it is small traders in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces who are engaged in a humble business in order to bring a year's hard-earned money back to their hometown at the end of the year. It can be seen that if we can't cultivate and start the internal innovation mechanism, even the best development opportunities can't be utilized, and external support and help will become a hypnotic drug to dispel internal innovation.

Third, objectives and results.

In the case that the income gap between the east and the west is obviously widening, an important goal of promoting the development of the west is to narrow the gap and promote fairness. Although fundamentally speaking, fairness and efficiency are unified, they are contradictory under certain conditions. Therefore, the first problem encountered in western development is how to correctly handle the relationship between fairness and efficiency.

At first, some people questioned the efficiency meaning of the strategy of developing the western region. Will it reduce the efficiency of the whole national economy by artificially changing the existing pattern of national capital allocation through government allocation of resources? It should be said that this kind of worry is not groundless. The data shows that there are obvious regional differences in the allocation of funds in China, specifically, there is a distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west. 1997, the loan shares of the east and the west are 57. 1% and15.6% respectively; Among the 473 listed companies, the east accounts for 63.5%, and the whole central and western regions only account for 36.5%; The investment in fixed assets in the eastern region exceeds 1 trillion yuan, which is twice that of the whole central and western regions. However, this tilted capital allocation model is based on the corresponding differences in investment efficiency. It is estimated that the average net return on investment in the eastern and western regions is 4-5 times. If you invest 1 yuan in the eastern region, you can earn 1 yuan, and you can only earn more than 20 cents in the western region. This is the main reason why "mercenary" foreign-funded enterprises invest less than 2% in the western region. Obviously, if this difference in net return on investment has not changed fundamentally, and we try to narrow the gap in economic development level between the east and the west through large-scale reverse investment, so as to achieve the fascinating goal of social equity, we will pay a very heavy price of efficiency loss.

In a narrow sense, development refers to "working on natural resources such as wasteland, mines, forests and hydropower to achieve the purpose of utilization". Development itself is not inevitable and should not deviate from the efficiency goal. In fact, the development of the western region in the United States, which lasted for a hundred years, was aimed at making full use of the vast uncultivated land resources in the western region and the rich mineral resources in the Rocky Mountains, and achieved great success. Then, can we also emphasize the role of natural resources in the western development? Obviously not. However, many people are still intoxicated by the following data: the western region, which accounts for about 57% of the country's land area, accounts for only 23% of the country's population, and there are still 800 million mu of land to be developed and utilized; There are 0/60 kinds of mineral resources in western China, among which the reserves of titanium, copper, mercury, lead, zinc and potassium rank first in China, and there are also abundant coal, oil and natural gas resources. It seems that as long as railways and highways are built and the population in the east is moved there, it will bring endless wealth. As we all know, in this vast western land, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau stands tall and the living conditions are extremely bad, and inaccessible deserts such as Taklimakan and Tengger stand between the Gobi Desert. It is no exaggeration to say that this population, which accounts for only 23% of the country, has flooded almost all places where human beings can survive. On the contrary, overpopulation (relative to the given natural resources) and excessive land reclamation have led to the drying up of the lower reaches of Tarim River, the large-scale death of Populus euphratica, the intensification of soil erosion in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River and the increasingly serious degree of land desertification. Therefore, it is more appropriate to protect and restore the available land resources and extremely fragile ecological environment in the west than to develop it.

As for the development of mineral resources, it is necessary to clarify the following two main issues: whether it is worth mining and how much. We must distinguish between the potential value and the actual utilization value of resources. In fact, owning mineral resources is one thing, but whether it is technically feasible and economically worth mining is another matter. Is it really necessary to consume such economic resources when the cost of oil exploitation in the hinterland of Taklimakan Desert is relatively high, when the international oil price is relatively low, and when China's foreign exchange reserves are relatively large? The large-scale oil smuggling in previous years reflected the uneconomical choice to some extent. Although smuggling itself is an illegal act and must be resolutely cracked down, the zero-tariff feature of smuggling can fully reflect the cost difference of oil products between different countries. The theoretical solution to the problem of how much to mine is simple and clear. The most efficient way is that the cost of producing unit value output is the same as that of other marginal commodities. If land, minerals and other natural resources are particularly important in the19th century, such as the early development of the western part of the United States, then the proliferation of human capital and technological progress will become the key variables of a country's economic development as the 2 1 century approaches. Whether the incremental funds are used for the development of network technology and nanotubes or for the exploitation of mineral resources will have a far-reaching impact on the future economic status of the whole country. Some people in the west, including some important officials, still regard the development and utilization of narrow resources as the primary magic weapon to get rid of backwardness, which really needs reflection.

It is harmful and unsustainable to try to deviate from the efficiency standard to achieve the goal of social equity. The disadvantages of "welfare state" have been confirmed internationally, not to mention that China's national strength is far from reaching the level of welfare state, and the beneficiaries of welfare should be identified not by region, but by income stratification. Although the positive effect of narrowing regional differences on the overall interests and long-term interests of the country has been highlighted in the interpretation of the goal of social equity, the central government is still cautious about the negative impact of the strategy of developing the western region on efficiency, trying to achieve the goal of social equity while improving efficiency. This is fully reflected in the choice of the "main direction" of western development. Due to the existence of reform rent, the eastern coastal areas can gather more funds to invest in infrastructure, thus further reducing production and transaction costs. Similarly, on the one hand, accelerating the infrastructure construction in the western region is a compensation measure for the local government in a fair sense. On the other hand, this measure is still efficient. For example, the improvement of traffic conditions can make mineral resources with no actual development value economically feasible and products with poor cost conditions gain strong competitiveness. In short, the scale effect of infrastructure can usually improve the production and operation efficiency of the whole region. Therefore, we are not in favor of resource development that violates the efficiency criterion, but we do not deny the possibility of improving resource utilization conditions through infrastructure construction. The protection and construction of ecological environment is not only related to the survival and development of the people in the western region, but also to the future and destiny of the whole country. It is wise for the central government to attach great importance to this issue, and it is a rational choice based on profound reflection on historical experience. Because the ecological environment has strong externalities, it is undoubtedly necessary to take some subsidy and incentive measures. In the direction, it is also impeccable to strengthen scientific education and personnel training in the western region. This reflects the deep feeling of the importance of vast resources.

However, good wishes do not mean that good results can be achieved. In fact, the differences between the East and the West have already attracted the attention of all walks of life to varying degrees. The first Western Development Forum held in Lanzhou from 65438 to 0985 put forward the concept and development of the western region. Since the Eighth Five-Year Plan, the central government has also placed social and economic development in the central and western regions in an important position and given considerable support in infrastructure construction, mineral resources development and utilization, comprehensive agricultural development, subsidies and financial transfer payments. These efforts seem to have no obvious effect on narrowing the gap between the east and the west. We do not deny the rationality of choosing the main direction in the strategy of developing the western region, nor do we doubt the mobilization ability of governments at all levels in terms of capital, manpower and other economic resources. However, historical experience and some practices in reality still give us reason to ask: in the tide of domestic market-oriented reform and the increasingly emerging trend of economic globalization, can we achieve sustainable economic development beyond the eastern region mainly by government actions? This may be the key problem that must be answered and solved in the western development.

If the annual investment of 800 billion is calculated by the expenditure method, it can be shown in the GDP of that year. The influx of large-scale government funds may be accompanied by the intervention of foreign capital and eastern enterprises. The reason is that this covetousness of funds will also induce other profit-seekers to follow suit, and all parts of the western region will try their best to make various attractive arrangements for introducing external funds. But it must be clear that the actions of governments at all levels can certainly have initial effects, but it is not so easy to leave all the money in the pockets of western profit-seekers. As a consumer, he (she) will spend a considerable part of his/her income on buying goods that are not produced locally; As an investor, capital may flow back to the east again, because after all, there are more high-return emerging industries in the east and there is a more desirable investment environment. Unless the government invests a lot of money at a higher growth rate every year, the sustained prosperity of the western region can be guaranteed. Once China's macro-economy is driven by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, there will be a new round of economic overheating and inflation, and the government will turn off the "tap" of capital injection, so that the western region will bear the brunt of the "one acre and three points" in the whole national economy and become an "arid area" under economic contraction. In this way, the catch-up efforts of the western region with capital injection will be "in vain".

Drawing lessons from international experience is an important issue that must be paid attention to in the development of western China. At present, many people are talking about the western development of the United States, which is meaningful. The direct participation and operation of the government constitutes one of the characteristics of China's western development which is different from that of the United States. In the United States, except for the Homestead Law, Afforestation Law, Wasteland Law and other laws aimed at "selling public land" and encouraging private trees to build ditches, land reclamation and mineral development are carried out by private individuals or people, and even the construction of railways is completed by companies. We are just the opposite. As a legacy of the planned economy era, the huge government plays an important role in the period of economic transformation, but it turns out that the bridge built by the government is not necessarily strong. Judging from past experience, almost all economic "movements" directly initiated and operated by the government have paid a heavy price. It goes without saying that during the planned economy period, take the "development zone fever" in the early 1990s as an example. Tens of millions of development zones of different sizes in China have not only occupied a lot of fertile land, but also become places for many state-owned enterprises and financial institutions to speculate, and finally have to end quietly in the end of overheating and inflation. Up to now, there are still many people basking in the sun there, and few of them are really effective. But it would be a big mistake to regard the above-mentioned "pain" as the ignorance of local governments. How to get through the joints and win the first place in the competition of large projects, how to use the media to "create momentum" to upgrade provincial development zones to national development zones, how to openly enlarge their respective institutions and have more funds, and so on. , can be said to have their own brilliant ideas. As for how government officials take the opportunity to get some benefits, they certainly don't have to worry about others. This is by no means to say that our officials are of low quality and poor character. Comparatively speaking, the overall level of existing officials exceeds the average level, and the key lies in the incentive and restraint of institutional arrangements. As a result, a company whimsically wants to invest tens of billions of yuan to build a biological project group and "China Biological Valley" in the upsurge of western development, which reminds people of the emptiness in that turbulent era and exudes the decadent atmosphere of traditional planned economy. The second company "operated in partnership", exceeding the task of returning farmland to forests by several hundred thousand mu; I don't know that returning farmland to forests can get 150 kg of grain per mu, and each kg of grain can be converted into 1.4 yuan money. As long as you can take money out of the pocket of the central government, no amount of "empty money" will be enough for local newly-built institutions to buy cars and houses.

The above examples are not intended to belittle the intelligence and virtue of local governments and their officials, but to show that under a specific system, local governments and their officials, driven by local interests and personal interests, will always affect the realization of social goals in one way or another, which has been clarified by the theory of "plan failure". In short, the final outcome of the development of the western region depends on whether the goal of social equity can be achieved by improving efficiency, whether planning means or market mechanism is mainly adopted, whether the western region can continuously promote market-oriented reforms, and whether simple government actions can be transformed into folk behaviors under the support and protection of the government. Judging from the initial implementation and execution of the western development strategy, although some gratifying progress has been made, there is also the possibility of solidifying the planned economy that has gradually weakened during the transition period. This will become a hidden danger for China's social and economic development in the new century, and we should attach great importance to it.