Open policy and sub-regional cooperation: The impetus for regional integration from Yunnan Province, China (Chinese text)

This study investigated the successful regional integration of the underdeveloped countries in the Great Mekong Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (GMSEC). The study was conducted to discover the major factors contributing to such regional economic development. In the process, this study explored the role and functions of local government in sub-regional economic cooperation.; The findings of the study show that the GMSEC development pattern is distinct from that of Euro-American trading blocs and Asian growth triangles. GMSEC developed economically by engaging in mutually satisfying complementary relationships, both inside and outside of the sub-region, and with pluralistic investments drawn from “south-south” cooperation to facilitate the exploitation of natural resources.; This study explains the successful emergence and development of GMSEC from “an actor behavior perspective” and argues for the hypothesis that the change in government's “behavior orientation” toward foreign economy is the key independent variable in explaining the regional economic cooperation in GMSEC. With the end of the cold war, the globalization of the world economy with massive international capital flow created favorable conditions for regional integration of underdeveloped countries. However, the integration process could not be successful without internal impetus from the underdeveloped countries themselves.; This study used the Yunnan province as a case study to support the above hypothesis. The study shows that the Yunnan Local Government (YLG) changed its foreign economic behavior orientation from an inactive inward-orientation to an active outward-orientation in order to position itself to benefit directly greatly from open border trade with neighboring countries. This open border trade developmental strategy impelled the YLG to further develop its transportation infrastructure in order to carry out a more open border policy and to expand its economic relationships with neighboring countries.; This study also discovers with a country as large as China—with a huge population and large inter-regional differences—the successful development of sub-regional economic cooperation ultimately depends on whether the local governments is given sufficient autonomy to choose a development strategy best suiting its economic advantages and needs. Moreover, the opening of Yunnan border trade shows that if local economic advantages are fully exploited and allowed to bring into full play, it would provide a favorable economic environment to eliminate the large economic gap between east and west of China.