Spatial-temporal Patterns Of Manufacturing Scale And Structure Upgrade And Their Coordination In China

As an engine to promote economic growth in developing countries and regions,manufacturing industry has been widely concerned by regional economics,economic geography and other disciplines.Since 1970 s,the old international labor division has been superseded by the new international labor division,and driven by multinational corporations,developing countries and regions have begun to participate in the global industrial division.Since 1978,the institution and production factors released by China’s reform and opening up have satisfied the demand of transnational corporations.On the basis of the comparative advantages of labor force and land,a large amount of foreign industries has been transferred into China,which force China integrated into international industrial division,and promote the process of rapid industrialization and gradually become the largest manufacturing country in the world.However,in the process of rapid industrialization,China has been increasingly highlighting two deep-seated structural contradictions: Firstly,there is an extremely uneven pattern in the scale of China’s manufacturing industry,and a very stable coastal-oriented "core-edge" structure model which resulting in the widening gap between regions;Secondly,due to the reliance on the advantage of lower factor cost,the up-grade level of manufacturing structure is still low.Therefore,it is urgent to promote the optimization of industrial structure and realizing the coordination of spatial structure,two major contradictions which China’s manufacturing industry suffered.Those are not only related to whether the manufacturing industry can make sustained contributions to the national economic development,but also related to whether the regional development gap can be effectively narrowed.Given this,the spatial-temporal patterns of the manufacturing scale,the manufacturing structural up-grade level and their coordination in China are analyzed on the basis of the enterprise-level data and the spatial perspective of geography.At the same time,this paper looks at the fact that the western region has become the edge area of manufacturing industry in China,and expounds its main problems and then takes a typically successful case——the development path and mode of Chengdu,further puts forward some enlightenments for future development.The main conclusions are shown as follows:China’s manufacturing industry has experienced a remarkable expansion from 1998 to 2013,whose total output value increased by 10.67 times in 15 years,reflecting the fact that China was a "world factory" at that stage.The difference of manufacturing scale on both sides of Hu’s Line is very obvious,and the overall spatial pattern has changed greatly.The regional spatial structure has evolved from the primary equilibrium model in 1998 to the "core-edge" model between coastal and inland regions in 2003 and 2008,and the "core-subcore-edge" model between eastern,central and western regions in 2013.From 1998 to 2003,due to the rapid expansion of manufacturing scale in Zhejiang,Guangdong,Jiangsu,Fujian and other provinces,the center of gravity of manufacturing scale moved to the southeast.Subsequently,the center took a turn to Northwest,as the change of the industrial development environment in coastal areas and the shift of the national industrial transfer policy,to be specific,the north trend in 2003-2008 and the west trend in 2008-2013.In addition,there exists different growth paths between the spatial pattern of manufacturing industry with different technology levels and their corresponding spatial structure for their distinct properties and policy orientation.Among them,the low-tech manufacturing industry has experienced the evolution process of starting,agglomeration,and diffusion in coastal region and then transfer to inland region;and the middle-tech manufacturing industry starting in the coastal,decentralization into multipoint,multi core agglomeration and then transfer from east to central;Besides,the high-tech manufacturing industry has experienced the starting,agglomeration and expansion in coastal region.In 1998-2013,the structural up-grade index of China’s manufacturing industry rose from 5.987 to 6.225,even though declined slightly after the 2008 financial crisis,since the faster growth rate of the medium and high-tech manufacturing industry compared with the low-tech manufacturing industry.This embodied that China was in the path of transformation and upgrading from "primary factory" to "medium-high level factory".On the regional scale,the up-grade index has decreased successively in accordance with the eastern,the northeastern,the western,the central parts of the country.The up-grade index of northeastern region has decreased sharply since 2003,while this index in central and western regions has kept the bottom position during the study period and experienced a slight decline.On the provincial scale,the up-grade index in the municipalities and eastern coastal provinces are relatively high and growing faster while that in the central and western regions,especially in most frontier provinces,are relatively low and growing slowly,or even declining.On the prefecture scale,the hot-spot of up-grade index is in the transition from the traditional industrial city to the eastern coastal city,which has gradually formed a "core-edge" mode orientated by the center of the Yangtze River Delta.Then it further explores the influencing factors of up-grade index at the prefecture level by comparing the OLS regression and spatial regression model,it is found that factors such as the increase of labor wage is the main driving force of the promotion of the up-grade index in China.With the continuous uptrend of manufacturing scale and structure up-grade,the coordination degree between them in 1998-2013 showed a steady upward trend which increased from 0.255 to 0.483,and transformed from moderately unbalanced phase in 1998 to the verge of maladjustment phase in 2013.On the regional scale,the difference of coordination degree between the four regions is obvious,only the eastern above the average.The coordination degree has decreased successively in accordance with the eastern,the northeastern,the central,the western parts of the country.The eastern has the largest increase during the research period;The central and western benefit from the increase of industrial scale,has the greatest improvement in the latter period;Due to the decline of the up-grade index,the northeast has the smallest improvement in the latter period.On the provincial scale,municipalities and coastal provinces have the highest coordination degree,because of the low level of industrial scale and up-grade index,while most of the frontier provinces in Western China are in the stage of moderate disorders and below.On the prefecture scale,there is a significant difference in coordination degree between prefecture units,and the pattern of "east-central-west" step-down has been maintained.The eastern coastal extended from the Yangtze River Delta to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,forms a cluster region with high-level coordination degree;of which,Shanghai and Suzhou take the lead in high quality coordination stage.It is also relatively high in some urban agglomerations with relatively superior geographical location and development foundation in the central and western regions.The problem areas are divided into six basic types and identified.It is found that most of the prefectural units in China have different degrees of problems,and the number of problem areas caused by the small scale of manufacturing industry accounts for an absolute proportion,mainly distributed in the northwest side of Hu’s Line.Through the analysis of this paper,we conclude that the western region has actually become a backward region of China’s manufacturing industry because of the relatively low level in the scale of manufacturing industry,the up-grade index of structure and their coordination level.For a long time,many contradictions have accumulated in the manufacturing industry in the western region,including the weak foundation,significant internal differences,insufficient comparative advantages to undertake industrial transfer,and slow upgrading of the industrial structure,which are not only the result of China’s implementation of the unbalanced development strategy since the reform and opening up,but also is the product of the comprehensive effects of regional factors such as location and resource endowment.Of course,the western region covers vast territory,and there are many differences in the economic background,institutional environment,industrial base and other aspects,so the development track and mode of regional manufacturing industry are different.A few cities,represented by Chengdu and Chongqing,have made outstanding achievements in terms of the manufacturing scale and structure,as well as their coordination,and have successfully achieved a breakthrough in the path of unbalanced development strategy.By analyzing the development path and mode of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone,a typical successful case,since 1990,the discovery is that the achievements of its manufacturing industry are the result of the mutual penetration and cooperation between localization and globalization forces.In this process,the flagship multinational enterprises represented by Intel have played an important role in promoting the global transformation of regional manufacturing industry,and have formed a "localization","globalization" and "localization + globalization" phased development model.Combining the problems existing in manufacturing industry in the western region with the experience of successful cases in Chengdu,this paper considers four-step measure to further improve the manufacturing level in the western region.First,to enhance the state’s policy support for the western region from the top-level design.Second,to improve the level of opening up and accelerating integration into the global production network.Third,to strengthen the construction of regional soft environment and promote the upgrading of industrial structure.Finally,to combine regional resources and environment carrying capacity with rational industrial spatial layout.