A Study On The Sustainable Development Of Areas Under The Strategy Of Opening Up The Border Areas

Nowadays, the strategic conception of One Belt One Road(OBOR) proposed by President Xi Jinping is fundamental to China’s opening-up and participation in the world development. Opening and developing border areas, which have a special and significant status in the Silk-Road Economic Belt and the Westward Opening, is a key step to strategically implement the One Belt One Road and urgent need for consolidating frontier security, narrowing regional disparity, promoting development of neighboring countries, and improving China’s international status under the Economic New Normal situation.Based on the theories of reform and opening-up and sustainable development, the present study took Ruili, a nationally experimental zone for development and opening up, for example to answer two questions, i.e., how should the border areas for minorities participate in the opening-up trends and how should they achieve the sustainable development.Summing up the history and main ideas of China’s reform and opening-up, the present study put forward that the theory origins from Marxism-Leninism idea of opening to the outside world, takes Deng Xiaoping’s idea of openness as basic principles, and innovatively develops the idea of opening-up by practice of the three-generation leading group represented by Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. The present study also divided the development and opening-up of border areas into three stages, namely, preparing and starting up(1984-1991), developing and getting mature(1992-2011), and making breakthroughs and upgrading(Since 2012). It elaborated that the conception of One Belt One Road is strategically significant in promoting the border areas’ economic and cultural development and closely connected the Frontier Dream with the Chinese Dream and the World Dream. Drawing on philosophical connotation and features of the sustainable development, the present study proposed that the sustainable development of border areas follows intentionality, regularity, and dialectical unity of human, nature, and society.Combining the universal principles of Marxism and the opening practice of bordering areas represented by the Ruili experimental zone, the present study discussed boarder areas’ problems from four aspects, i.e., intrinsic basis, political system, industrial structure, and external environment, and suggested sustainable development in areas of mechanism innovation, industrial development, public services, internationalcooperation, and ecological protection, aiming to shed light on development of other border areas.