The Practice & Transition Of National Development Zones In China

As a strategic choice in the context of a specific environment, the policy of China's development zones started more than 20 years ago. They have obtained great economic achievements, accompanying with a series of problems. The thesis selects the national Economic and Technological Development Zones (ETDZs) and High-tech Industrial Development Zones (HIDZs) as the main topics, conducting a great deal positive research.China's ETDZs and HIDZs developed respectively from the oversea modes of the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) and the Science Park (SPs), absorbing their matural experience, and brought out some distinct China characteristics. The two modes have different theoretical foundations, including the theory of international division of labor for the EPZs and the theory of innovation for the SPs, which determine the difference between ETDZs and the HIDZs.The impetuses for the development zone's evolution can be divided into 3 types including external environment, its own endowment and local government motive. The different performances of the 3 impetuses lead to rich diversities and enormous regional differences of the development zones.In this thesis, the ETDZs and the HIDZs are classified with kinds of patterns from the study of detailed cases. It comes to the conclusion that the evolution of the ETDZs and the HIDZs tends to be similar. The characteristics of development zones' operation in industry development, space development, society development and administrative institution are also summarized.The thesis argues that the policy-driven operation is the key to the different performances of the development zones. From the perspective of the public policy, the development zones have achieved some of the prospective results, but also have resulted in policy failure to a certain extent. This practice is associated with the own logic of the policy, as well as the alienation in the implementation of policies. As a result, the thesis suggests some adjustments in the development zones policies, including: insisting on the principles of policy coherence and policy focusing, diluting the direction of space types and economic types, forming the development pattern of "specialized industrial parks + R&D incubator", focusing on the activities of R&D, innovation and entrepreneurial start ups while using the policy resources.