The Theory Of "Advantage Of Backwardness" And Its Application In Harmonizing The Economic Development Of Shandong

The economic development of different countries is always in an unbalanced process. The world economic history itself is one that is filled with unbalanced development and the efforts of backward countries or regions to keep up with, even to make a transcendence of developed ones. The academic gist of "keeping up with and surpassing" is the theory of "advantage of backwardness", whose main idea is that the absolute inferior economic position of backward countries or regions are associated with the advantage of backwardness in its keeping up with and surpassing the developed ones.The advantage, which can be got by backward countries through low-costly imitating and transferring the technology, institution and structure of the developed ones, can't be get by developed ones with whatever efforts. At the same time, it also points out that the backward countries or regions can make a successful transcendence of the developed ones if its advantage of backwardness can be used properly. The theory has been proved reasonable by lots of realities that some ever backward countries or regions have made success transcendences, and presently it's offering guidance to even more backward countries to accelerate their surpassing course.As a coastal province with a large gross of economy, Shandong is experiencing the same problem that the national economies are suffering, that is the unbalanced development of regional economy. In the past years, the western regions are developing in a much lower speed than the eastern cities, and how to accelerate the development of the western cities is a serious problem Shandong province are facing. As we have pointed out above, the only way for the western cities to get faster development is to take efficient use of the advantage of backwardness they are holding.On the basis of a brief introduction and a further study of the theory of "advantage of backwardness", this article will make a discussion on the topic that how to realize a harmonized regional economic development of Shandong, pointing out the advantage and disadvantage of backwardness the western cities are suffering in their economic development and putting forward some solutions.