China's Economic Power House: Economic Reform in Guangdong Province (review)

Ever since Ezra Vogel's One Step ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform was published in 1989, academic researchers and policy analysts have continued to be fascinated by the outstanding success of economic reform in Guangdong. These days, of course, such fascination is less about how Guangdong pioneered many early innovations in China's opening and reform and more about how Guangdong keeps outperforming other provincial economies in China and the increasingly symbiotic relationship between the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong in their economic growth. And equally important, it seems to me, it is how Guangdong is one step ahead again in thinking beyond simple economic performance and growth to search for a holistic approach to sustainable socioeconomic development and strategies to manage the profound economic and social transformation taking place in Guangdong. The book under review provides English-language readers with valuable insights into the way in which the province has been conscientiously engaged in such a search.

This edited collection is the result of close cooperation between a group of academic researchers based at the University of Hawai'i and a number of business executives and provincial government officials from Guangdong. The Guangdong Leadership Training Program at the College of Business Administration at the University of Hawai'i seems to have provided an anchoring point for this cooperation. All chapters except the last one are contributions from "insiders," that is, officials and business executives from Guangdong. As the editors clearly acknowledge, the collection is organized in such a way that contributors "can offer a unique view as insiders, and can communicate effectively with Western readers" and provide "food for thought" (p. x). To the extent that this is one of the main purposes of the book, the editors have certainly got what they bargained for.

Given the nature of the contributions, it is perhaps only natural that individual chapters deal with different sectors of the Guangdong economy. They range from the sustainable development of urban forestry to the restructuring of Guangdong's power industry to Guangdong's human resources development. These are subjects the understanding of which is severely limited if one is only looking in from the outside. The added strength of these chapters is, of course, that they are written by practitioners who are currently involved in policy making and the implementation of strategies.

For those who wish to understand what future challenges the insiders believe are confronting the Guangdong economy, Wenbiao Zhang's opening chapter provides a diagnostic, though sometimes simplistic, analysis. The last chapter, by Joanna Li and David Yang, also has something to say in this regard, but more from an outsiders perspective. Readers who are interested in China's continued market reform in various sectors should read two chapters on restructuring. Zhou Liang's chapter on the restructuring of Guangdong's power industry argues for the creation of market competition, but also for the benefits of an oligopoly in the electricity market in Guangdong. Yefei Yang's chapter on agricultural restructuring simply offers "a view based on the American cultural experience."

What I find most interesting are the chapters on sustainable development and human-resources development. It is here that Guangdong clearly thinks ahead. Junqin Chen's chapter on urban forestry development breaks new ground in discussing strategic planning for a subject that is "still in infancy" in China (p. 31). It organically connects economic development with environmental protection and the improvement of quality of life within the context of the inexorable urbanization taking place in China. This theme is also taken up by Jingquan Yu in the chapter on sustainable land-resource development, which discusses laws, policies, and strategies that are in place to deal with identified problems. It provides insights as to how seriously the Chinese government, at both the central and provincial levels, has taken this issue as pivotal to China...