Rejuvenating Northeast China: changing a rustbelt into an economic powerhouse

Abstract

Northeast China used to be the oldest industrial base and one of the most developed regions in the country, but in the last two decades the region had been overshadowed by the fast-developing eastern region. This struggling northeastern rustbelt, with a debilitating heavy industry, the most bankrupt State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), mass unemployment and ensuing social problems, has prompted the Chinese leadership to put forward a crucial strategy to rejuvenate the region to transform it into China's fourth economic powerhouse after the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin area. A strategic consideration was that the Chinese government planned to gradually realise an economic pattern with the eastern, central and western regions dynamically linked, mutually beneficial and developing in a coordinated way.