Considering the Extent of Yangtze River Delta Region, China: Past, Present and Future

Be marked with the opening up and development of Shanghai in 1990, Shanghai and its surrounding cities – the Yangtze River Delta Region (YRD) – have been more and more embedded in the global market. On one hand, the global enterprises have considered this area as the important sources of raw materials, places of manufacturing, regional control and management centers and remarkable markets – more than 400 of the Fortune 500 have located their branches there (Wu, 2010); one the other hand, those cities have more and more depended on the export-oriented economy - for instance, the annual increase rate of export amount of Shanghai from 1995 to 2005 has been 23.8%, of Suzhou has been 42.3%, and of Ningbo has been 25.9% (Tang & Zhao, 2009). But the extent of this region remains fuzzy in different levels: be marked with the “YRD 14-city cooperation meeting” 1992, this region was perceived as 14 cities; in 1996, due to the administration adjustment, county-level city of Taizhou (Jiangsu Provicen) was separated from city of Yangzhou, and this region was composited by 15 cities; in 2003, city of Taizhou (Zhejiang Province) was admitted as new member on “YRD economic coordination meeting”, then 16 cities; in 2004, the “YRD economic coordination meeting” proposed the criteria to become a member, which would include 25 cities, and for the first time includes cities of Anhui Province, now there are 3 provinces involved; but this criteria did not have lots of follow-up news, and in 2008, the Chinese Sate Council announced in its document that YRD region was considered as 2 provinces (24 prefecture-level cities) + Shanghai, not including any cities of Anhui Province; But in March 2010, 6 new cities, including 2 are of Anhui Province, was admitted by “YRD economic coordination meeting”; again in May 2010, in the <YRD regional plan> which was proposed by the National Development and Reform Commission, YRD was confirmed as 2 provinces (24 prefecture-level cities) + Shanghai and with the core area of 16 cities which was the definition of “YRD economic coordination meeting” 2003. The old question mentioned by Scott (2001) emerged: the national level and the local level (the “YRD economic coordination meeting” is the annual major seminar) seem to have different perspectives. The national level which has the decision-making power for infrastructures preferred a concept coincided with the administration boundary, while the local level which has the local administration power perceived a concept following the economic rules (the added cities of Anhui province are their perspective of new hinterland). Therefore it also has no consensus in the academic spheres, most mentioned YRD region are with 16 cities, some are with 2 provinces (24 prefecture-level cities) + Shanghai, almost no research refers to 22 cities. And that becomes the origin of this paper: what is the extent of this global city region? In which base, it would enlarge or it would shrink? What makes the cities work as one global city region are the economic interactions among them, and what greatly influences the economic flows are the infrastructures and political agreements. Thus the paper intend to examine the economic linkages among all mentioned cities - 2 provinces (24 prefecture-level cities) + Shanghai + 2 cities of Anhui province and figure out the economic aspect of YRD region, then examine the infrastructure plan and political agreements – the political aspect. In order to examine the economic linkages, the paper would firstly look into the change of population and the amount of employments from 2006-2010, to draw the rough sketch of these cities; secondly, the paper would examine their functional relations through the employments of all sectors of each city; thirdly, the vertical firm links (headquarter – branches, method of Rozenblat, Pumain, 2007) of Fortune 300 (if they have the regional headquarter and branches in YRD region) would be examined to figure out the global economic linkage among these cities: they embedded in global market separately or through the regional network? What kind of network it would be: where is the extent? To sum up, the paper would reveal the current economic linkages (extent) of YRD region through 3 steps: medium level – the population and employment changes; medium level – functional relations; and micro level – city-linkages through firms aspects. Then the infrastructures plan and political agreements would be scanned and their influences to the economic linkages would be discussed. Lastly, the future extent of YRD could be forecasted a bit.