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  • Orginal Article
     
    2015, 34(11): 1330-1335.
     
  • Orientation and Strategy
  • Orientation and Strategy
    Jie FAN, Yafei WANG, Dong CHEN, Chenghu ZHOU
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    This article examines the spatial development structure of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) with respect to the role of the YREB in the overall spatial development of China's geographical space and the characteristics of the spatial development structure of the YREB. Based on the analysis of the population and economic activity aggregation function of the YREB and the radiation effect of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), as well as the impact of globalization and regional integration on the spatial development structure of China's geographical space, this study analyzed the strategic position of the YREB. It also summarizes the characteristics of the spatial development pattern of the YREB through the analysis of the volume structure, spatial structure, and causes of resources and environment carrying capacity, spatial development suitability, and Main Function Zoning (MFZ) and cross analysis among them, and a comparison with these at the national level. Finally, according to the innovative development requirements of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, this article preliminarily examines the effects that innovative factors will have on the future strategic position and spatial structure evolution of the YREB and proposes relevant suggestions.

  • Orientation and Strategy
    Yi LIU, Chenghu ZHOU, Chuansheng WANG, Guiyan SUN, Lei KANG, Ming FANG
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    At present, speeding up the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an important strategic measure for promoting the sustained and stable growth of the Chinese economy under the New Normal state. As the main axis of China's national territorial development, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has significant locational advantages, navigation and shipping advantages, and relatively complete industrial system, therefore the economy accounted for about 45% of the national total in 2014. At the same time, it also faces some major cross-regional issues, which will restrict its future development. By examining the main development characteristics of the Yangtze River Economic Belt since the reform and opening-up, this article analyzes the main issues that present in the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt with respect to economic growth, spatial development, shipping, industry, resources and environment, urbanization, and institutions. The main problems include slow economic growth, widening regional gaps, insufficient use of water transport, homogeneity of industrial structure, low urbanization level, lack of institutional arrangements for cross-regional issues and regional cooperation. The article also discusses the main short-term developmental strategies and measures of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in order to provide some references for the government and academic circles.

  • Orientation and Strategy
    Guishan YANG, Xibao XU, Pingxing LI
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    Eco-environment protection of the Yangtze River and its river basin is the important foundation and support for the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Crossing the western, central, and eastern regions of China, the Yangtze River has abundant water resources and significant ecosystem service functions. Moreover, the YREB has an important location ecologically, with diverse ecosystem types and rich biodiversity; strongly affected by human activities and natural factors, the main trend of ecological environment change, which are dominated by ecological degradation and declining environmental quality, shows significant regional differences. Based on the analysis of the basic characteristics of the environment of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, this study identified the major environmental problems and threats it faces. First, natural disasters are of diverse types and widely distributed in the YREB and have caused heavy losses. Second, water and air pollutions are still serious. Third, the ecosystems are fragile and sensitive and ecological degradation is rapidly progressing. This study proposes a series of ecological environment protection strategies, including the construction of the green ecological protection project of the Yangtze River Economic Belt; accelerating the formation of a land development pattern dominated by intensive, concentrated spatial development and natural and open ecological space; strengthening the development and protection of ecosystem integrity and connectivity; strengthening energy conservation and comprehensive watershed environmental management; as well as setting up and improving the system on ecological civilization construction.

  • Orientation and Strategy
    Xiaogan YU, Lei WANG, Qingke YANG, Shilin YE
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    The Guideline of Developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on the Golden Waterway issued by the State Council in 2014 is the first systematic socioeconomic development planning and recommendation by the central government on this territorially vast and internally hugely differentiated region. The Guideline is not only the development vision for the cities and provinces along the Yangtze River, but also the national development strategy for coping with the changing patterns of international political economy and adapting to the great transition of national socioeconomic development. This article first analyzes the historic and economic-geographic background of issuing the strategy of developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and then decodes the strategic positions and development priorities in the Guideline. The author argues that the strategy of developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt is a historical necessity along with China’s regional economic development and a significant initiative to reconstruct the pattern of political economy internationally, as well as a practical need for the country to stabilize economic growth during the period of New Normal, which is very timely and well reflects the global political economic conditions. Lastly, the article reviews the contributions of geography studies on the Yangtze River Economic Belt for developing and protecting the Yangtze River, and promoting urban and regional development along the river as well, followed by proposing some research questions for future study, including the resource potentials and environmental capacity, spatial restructuring, balancing economic development and environmental protection, and political, economic, and geographic environments of the neighboring countries.

  • Orientation and Strategy
    Xuejun DUAN, Hui ZOU, Lei WANG
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    With the recent government policy stipulating the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as a national development strategy, sound regional institutions and mechanisms are urgently needed to ensure the development of this territorially vast and internally highly differentiated region. This article analyzes the successful experiences of developing and managing great river basins around the world and reviews the evolving institutions and mechanisms of the Yangtze River Economic Belt development and governance, and then identifies problems and some countermeasures to sustain the strategy of developing the Yangtze Economic Belt. Innovation of institutions and mechanisms is analyzed with respect to comprehensive research and development planning, regional coordination mechanism, comprehensive river basin management, and the system of laws and regulations. Currently, some central ministries and local governments have explored various innovations on institutions and mechanisms to promote regional integrated development along the Yangtze River, such as cross-river industrial parks and enclave economy construction and development, port coordination, and integration of customs clearance, among others. However, based on the result of the comparative analysis between international experiences and the local development, this study found that there exist some current problems in developing sound institutions and mechanisms for the management of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. These include the lack of a comprehensive government institution and systematic policy to support integrated management, low degree of coordination between governmental departments and territory-based administrations in watershed management, less developed regional integrated market system due to administrative barriers, as well as the lack of comprehensive laws and regulations to guarantee the sustainable development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Accordingly, the article proposes five policy recommendations to support the future development of the YREB: (1) establish a cross-sectoral administrative committee and formulate a systematic regional policy for integrated watershed management; (2) establish multi-level coordination platforms and institutions for promoting regional consultation; (3) break administrative barriers for establishing a regional integrated market system; (4) explore diversified ecological compensation methods to promote the establishment of compensation mechanisms between the upstream and downstream regions; and (5) legislate a Yangtze River integrated management law and improve the relevant legal system for sustainable development.

  • Orientation and Strategy
    Wen CHEN, Wei SUN, Jiawei WU, Cheng CHEN, Dongsheng YAN
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    The Yangtze River Basin has integrated economic, social, and ecological systems, and is the most important east-west axis of national spatial development of China. It has an important strategic position in the overall pattern of regional development. In response to the new trends of global economy and trade, national and regional socioeconomic transformation, and greater environmental constraints for development at this time, a new economic supporting area relying on the golden waterway of the Yangtze River has been proposed by the Chinese government. This requires a balanced pattern in population, resources, and environment development and protection in this area. Therefore, based on the point-axis, zoning, and multi-center network spatial organization structures, this article discusses how to construct the spatial patterns. Using the results from regional difference analysis and spatial development suitability assessment, the "one axis and two wings, three zones and six corridors" development pattern, "six areas" spatial pattern for agriculture, and "five barriers" for ecological security strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are proposed; recommendations on development orientations, paths, and regulations of the various regions are made; and main scientific issues concerning the spatial pattern of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are raised in this article.

  • Urban Agglomeration and Urbanization
  • Urban Agglomeration and Urbanization
    Chuanglin FANG, Chenghu ZHOU, Zhenbo WANG
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    The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is a significant supporting area for transforming the spatial pattern of regional development in China from the T-shaped structure to a new H-shaped structure. The hierarchical structure of the urban system of the Yangtze River Economic Belt presents a pyramid pattern featured by unbalanced division in function of the upper-, middle-, and lower reaches, unbalanced spatial structure of development, and deep pressures on the resources and environment. At present, problems of urban agglomeration development along the Yangtze River Economic Belt include the mismatch of space delimitation with development standard and strong government intervention. The overall development level is weaker than the coastal urban agglomerations, urban agglomeration development decreases from the downstream areas to the upstream areas, ecological and resources security situation is grim, cities within the agglomerations compete rather than cooperate, and there is a lack of overall coordination mechanism. Thus, this study recommends to use the river basin and transport system integration as a main theme, to promote integration and market development of urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and build a new "1+2+3" staged or differented development pattern for urban agglomerations along the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Supported by different driving forces, the development should emphasize advantages and priorities of urban agglomerations at all levels according to the local conditions. The strategic development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in the future can take the following measures: set up a development committee for urban agglomeration integration of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and establish an overall coordination mechanism for river basin integration; follow principles of urban agglomeration development and avoid irrational enlargement of urban agglomerations that is separated from the local reality; build a urban system with linkages between urban agglomerations as the strategic base; establish public financing and public fiscal reserves mechanism for the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt; strengthen cooperation for ecological environment protection and build eco-friendly urban agglomerations; speed up the innovation-driven development and build an innovative urban agglomeration; and prioritize the construction of a series of major projects and national-level new districts to support the development of urban agglomerations along the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

  • Urban Agglomeration and Urbanization
    Zhenbo WANG, Kui LUO, Jie SONG, Jianbin XU
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    Based on the data from China's Fifth and Sixth Census, this article analyzes the urban functional divisions and its change in the cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2000 to 2010 with respect to the specialized sectors, scale, and degree of intensification. The results show that, (1) the basic urban functions of YREB include manufacturing, construction, commerce, real estate, scientific research and other services. (2) Yangtze River Delta Area prominently featured by city agglomeration and metropolitan industrialization, is the industrial center of YREB; And there are great achievements in industrial gradient transfer but lack of national level regulatory guidance mechanism by districts or levels, thus causing great pressure in eco-environmental protection. (3) Construction and real estate industrial functions are transferring from the cities in the lower-reach of the Yangtze River Basin to the cities in the middle- and upper-reaches, and propelling rapid and strong development of producer and consumer services including commerce, scientific research, finance, social and other services. However, there are problems such as serious urban industrial isomorphism and insufficient agglomeration of central cities. (4) It is difficult for the function declining of transportation and communication industries to support the smooth implementation of the National Strategy of YREB. Based on the above discussed problems, the innovative management mechanism is proposed to foster an integrated system of urban functional divisions for river basin development; the river industrial standards for access are recommended to ensure the coordinated development of green city functional system; the new national level districts and urban agglomerations are suggested to serve as the complementary approach to make the urban functional system more comprehensive, and the multi-modal transport corridor of YRBE could be used to enable the optimization of resource allocation along the Yangtze River.

  • Urban Agglomeration and Urbanization
    Xiaofan LI, Hongbing DENG, Jing MA
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    Over the past decade, many problems that surfaced in the process of urbanization can be attributed to uncoordinated development. Based on a human-environment relationship perspective, this article analyzes coordinated development of the new urbanization process using indicators concerning the coordination of urban and rural , urban and industrial, intra-regional, and resources/environment and urban developments. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as a case, this study examines the convergence and conditional convergence of the coordination using the spatial Durbin panel data model empirically. The result shows that factors affecting the coordinated development of the new urbanization process vary between the eastern, central, and western areas of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. To facilitate the coordinated development of the new urbanization process, the eastern areas should promote the coordination between urbanization and resources/environment, and promote the coordinated development among regions; the central areas should change the demolition-construction urban development model and focus on the development of services and increase cooperation between cities; the western areas should continue the market opening-up process, reduce government intervention in the market and competition with regard to urban development, and develop services and promote local economic growth. Policies limiting urban population growth has had no significant effect on the coordinated development of the new urbanization process, but relaxing the household registration restrictions will increase migration to urban areas, which will have positive effects on the coordinated development of the new urbanization process with regard to the development of tertiary industry, integration of industrial and urban development, and coordination of urban and rural development.

  • Transportation and Industry
  • Transportation and Industry
    Youhui CAO, Ziran JIANG, Huan CHEN, Wei WU, Shuangbo LIANG
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    The Yangtze River port system is an important support for the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). First, this article investigates the historical development of the Yangtze River port system. The results show that with the gradual overlapping of water transfer hinterlands and water-land transfer hinterlands, the port system has experienced five stages of development so far: the origin and emergence of the ports, the sprout of the port system, the preliminary formation of the port system, the final formation of the port system, and the upgrading of the port system. Based on empirical evidence, the article summarized the formation mechanism of the port system of the Yangtze River. It is believed that the main mechanism of the formation of the port system is the long-term competition for water transfer hinterlands and water-land transfer hinterlands, especially the competition for water transfer hinterlands. Competition of ports for transit hinterlands increasingly deepens and broadens over time. According to the basic pattern of the port system formation and development revealed by the theoretical and empirical research, policy discussions are put forward concerning the development of the Yangtze River port system and the comprehensive transportation system of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

  • Transportation and Industry
    Chengjin WANG, Jiajia CHENG, Li MA
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    The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) has been specified as a national development strategy. In order to promote the socioeconomic development of YREB, an integrated transportation system based on the golden waterway should be improved. This article constructed a spatial mode of inland river integrated transport corridor, described its features with respect to the spatial system, node structure, function differentiation, transportation organization, and international connections. Moreover, the article analyzed the current development of the Yangtze River transport corridor and identified important bottlenecks and demand. Based on the above study, this article emphasized the spatial organization mode of the Yangtze River integrated transport corridor, including water channel network, port layout and transport system of bulk cargoes, function differentiation and distribution network, and structure of the integrated transport hubs and an open transport organization.

  • Transportation and Industry
    Jianchao XI, Quansheng GE
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    Construction of the Yangtze River international tourism belt is an important strategic goal of tourism development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). The proposal of the Yangtze River international tourism belt concept means that "tourism in the Yangtze River" has become an important part of the Yangtze River Economic Belt development. The importance of the Yangtze River international tourism belt for regional tourism development in China is indicated by the following: (1) Spatially, the Yangtze River international tourism belt realizes, for the first time, the expansion from "regional tourism" to "basin-wide tourism." Combined with the advancement of urban agglomeration and with its unique cross-region complete natural landscape and cultural heritage units, the Yangtze River international tourism belt forms the backbone of Chinese regional tourism development space. (2) Temporally, the Yangtze River international tourism belt realizes the transition of Chinese regional tourism development from a "key industry" to "overall strategic industry." Tourism begins to show its overall strategic role for regional social and economic development. (3) At last, with regard to international development and cooperation, the planning and development of the Yangtze River international tourism belt also bridges regional tourism development in China and international development and opening-up. A new development paradigm that promotes international cooperation by domestic development, and promotes coupled domestic and international development by international cooperation comes into being. Regional tourism development pattern in the Yangtze River international tourism belt also gives rise to a series of systematic and comprehensive research propositions, Combined with the national principal function region strategy and regional key development strategy, these research propositions include "integrated development of tourism development strategy and regional development strategy of China," "Coordination and joint development of urban agglomeration and ecological function region tourism," "opening-up and joint development of coastal and border area tourism," and "comprehensive control system of basin-wide tourism."

  • Transportation and Industry
    Yurui LI, Qianlong YANG, Zhi CAO
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    This article examines the current status of agricultural development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) and discusses strategies for the transformation of agricultural development of this region in the future. The comprehensive capacity of agricultural production of the YREB increased continuously since 1996. The percentage of gross agricultural output in the national total experienced a slight reduction, but there is no doubt that this region is still one of the most important agricultural production areas of China. International trade of agricultural products in the YREB rapidly increased and showed strong competitiveness. The competitiveness of the agricultural products processing industry is still weak—the location entropy of agricultural products processing industry of most provinces in this region is lower than 1. The total amount of chemicals used in agriculture increased continuously and greater attention should be paid to the environmental problems caused by the overuse of these chemicals. Wage income became the largest source of household income. In the future, agricultural development of the YREB should take advantage of the multifunctional agricultural development and rural network paradigm and stimulate endogenous growth forces and integrate external forces, aiming for developing a core area of food production, pilot area of modern agriculture, advanced area of agricultural products processing, and distinctive agricultural undertakings. More effort should be devoted to seven major transitions, namely, from decentralized management to large-scale operation, from extensive and excessively intensive management to moderately intensive management, from part-time farming to specialized operation, from simple processing of agricultural products to comprehensive processing, from emphasizing on physical products to the pursuit of multifunctional value of agriculture, from traditional marketing to modern marketing, and from top-down to integrative bottom-up and top-down approaches. Deepening relevant reforms, increasing financial investment, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, optimizing regional distribution, strengthening regional cooperation, and strengthening the development of villages and towns are important guarantees for the realization of the transformation.

  • Transportation and Industry
    Wei SUN, Wenhui LI, Xiaona LIN, Zhiqiang WANG
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    : Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) development has risen to the status of a national development strategy when the State Council promulgated the Guideline of Developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on the Golden Waterway. Among them, promoting the undertaking of industrial transfer is the main challenge faced by the Yangtze River Economic Belt construction and integrated development and has become a hot topic of academic research. This article uses the data of 125 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures and two municipalities of YREB directly under the central government to analyze the capacity of undertaking industrial transfer of the Yangtze River Economic Belt by means of principal component analysis, and reveal the spatial differentiation characteristics and formation mechanism of industrial undertaking capacity. The study shows that: (1) Overall, the industrial attraction capacity in the upper- and middle-reaches of the Yangtze River Basin is not particularly strong. The industrial attraction capacity in the upper-reach area is mainly impacted by the terrain. In this area the volume of freight transport is the main limiting factor of the industrial attraction capacity. The middle-reach area is mainly impacted by the main function zone-designation, total retail sales of consumer goods, and actual use of foreign capital. (2) The industrial supporting capacity is strong along the Yangtze River and around the provincial capital but relatively weak in other areas. This is due to the impact of factors including "information and finance" and "structure and investment". (3) The cities with overall unfavorable industrial development capacity are widely distributed, and this phenomenon are mainly impacted by the "innovation ability" factor. (4) Capacity to undertake industrial transfer decreases from the lower-reach to the upper-reach, cities with strong capacity to undertake industrial transfer distribute along the Yangtze River and its main tributaries, and the capacity of the provincial capitals and their surrounding regions is relatively strong.