China’s ‘Pan-Continental Infrastructure Agenda’ Will Open a ‘Second Gateway to the World’
NEW YORK – Asia Society
04 May 15
KEVIN RUDD: Can income equality and regional income equality in China be effectively managed by the government? For example, Minister (INAUDIBLE) comes from Tibet and I know, as a minister, she would be acutely conscious of the pattern of income growth across China, which has occurred over the last 35 years, which has seen, first, the benefit to coastal provinces, secondly, to the hinterland provinces and, finally, to the western provinces. This has occurred for obvious reasons. In other words, China’s opening to the international economy and its process of domestic economic reform had to begin somewhere. If you look at the history, it began with the four special economic zones, which Xi Jinping’s father had a responsibility for when Deng launched the opening policy in the early 1980s. But after that you saw an expansion beyond the four special economic zones to other areas of China as well. Many other ports were opened up across the coastline and, in turn, the hinterland provinces as well (including up the Yangtze). People should take a lot of note, for example, in this context of one of the dimension of what will occur with the new Chinese proposal for一带一路. The Chinese translate that as ‘One-Belt, One-Road’. I offer a different translation, which is along the lines of a ‘pan-continental infrastructure agenda’. If the continent is Eurasia, think of what the Americans did with the Pan-Continental railway way back in the late 19th century. This is what China now contemplates, both in terms of linking China across Asia to Eurasia. Pan-continental infrastructure agenda. A Pan-continental investment agenda. But in a way, what it’s doing is not just relying historically on China’s maritime gateway to the world, it is now opening a second gateway to the world across all of Eurasia. Of course, the front door to all that are China’s western provinces and its south-western provinces, where its economic developments have been slowest. One of the factors, therefore, that will be relevant to the implementation of 一带一路, this pan-continental investment initiative, will I believe be to open the economies of western China to more growth over time.