National Economic Commission And Northwest Development (1931-1938)

In the Republic of China era,Shaanxi,Gansu,Qinghai,Suiyuan provinces were in the northwest of China.In the past,this district was very hard to get to and the local warlords struggled constantly,so as to social and economic development was relatively backward.In the end of the 1920s,drought had a huge negative impact on this district,long dry period wasted the land,people in this district had suffered terrible hunger,someone said that ’the northwest was a place forgotten by the God’,so we could see the socio-economic situation was bleak.September 18th Incident erupted in 1931,Japanese army occupied the Northeast China and moved to the North China,devouring China’s areas.This action touched the core interests of Nanjing National Government.In this time,because of important of geographic position,abundant resources and so on,the Northwest was paid close attention to,it was saw as the base of the Anti-Japanese War.People from all walks of life in public,on the newspaper promoted development of the northwest,people also stressed the importance of development of northwest,so that the slogan of northwest development was singing into the clouds,official and unofficial community,reporters went to northwest to investigate and draw up development plan,they wanted to provide the references for the national government.After the establishment of Nanjing National Government,limited to economic capacity,domestic situation,it did not have ability to develop the Northwest.Until to 1933,the National Economic Council was founded,the situation just changed.The National Economic Council was a professional institution directly leaded by the National Government,it managed the design of the plans for national economic construction,development,assessment,supervision,certain economic construction or directly implemented development plans.The poverty and backwardness situation of the northwest district caused the attention of the National Economic Council.In 1934,in its annual plan,it wrote a section named "northwest development" and also made the northwest development plan,the plan was not comprehensive,but according to the financial situation,actual needs,it wanted to select existed plan,less investment,high yield,all of them were directly to promote the production in the project development.Through on-the-spot investigation,the National Economic Council determined that the northwest development was focused on road construction,building water facilities,improving cotton production,improving livestock,and so on.Road construction was mainly related to Xilan Road and Xihan Road,water facilities were releated to canal of Shaanxi Jinghuiqu ii project and Luohuiqu canal,Gansu Taohui canal,Ningxia YunTing canal,Suiyuan Minsheng canal and other projects about the people’s livelihood;Cotton production improvement mainly involved in Shaanxi cotton production;Animal husbandry improved mainly involved in the three provinces of Gansu,Ningxia,Qinghai breeds improvement,the pasture improvement,animal disease prevention and control.Activities,the National Economic Council did in northwest development,had made some achievements,some were failed to achieve the goal of previous plans due to technical problems,designing problems or lacking funds and other reasons,but what the National Economic Council did in the northwest had injected new vitality in the region’s economic development,it should also be positive.The National Economic Council’s business overlapped with other departments,after the July 7th incident,in order to improve efficiency,the government integrated the functions of the central organs,the National Economic Council was abolished in 1938.But its business had not been abandoned and been taken over by other departments.