Recently, the programmatic document guiding the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic circle in the current and future period was officially released, marking a new stage in the development of the Chengdu-Chongqing region.
The construction of the twin-city economic circle is of great significance to the improvement of China's spatial strategic structure
Since the reform and opening up, the spatial layout of China's development has gradually evolved from a T-shaped layout of the open gold coast along the coast and the linkage of rivers and seas to a pattern of multi-polar support, the rise of the central region, and land and sea coordination.
Cultivating the Chengdu-Chongqing double-city economic circle, an important growth pole in the western region, has multiple values for promoting coordinated regional development under the new situation, forming a regional economic layout with complementary advantages and high-quality development, and promoting high-quality development in China.
Responding to major changes in the world unseen in a century, echoing the new pattern of land-sea linkage of the "One Belt, One Road" opening to the outside world.
The Chengdu-Chongqing Shuangcheng Economic Circle is located at the intersection of the "Belt and Road" and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. It is the starting point of a new land-sea channel in western China. Relying on the unique advantages of the south, west and east three-dimensional open channels, it will become a support for China's land and sea in the future. It is a strategic hub for a new pattern of linkage and mutual assistance between the east and the west.
Respond to the adjustment of the international division of labor system and echo the new development pattern of "dual cycle" mutual promotion.
The Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic circle involving 16 cities accounted for the country’s total economic output, which has grown from 3.5% in 2000 to 6.6% in 2019, showing a strong momentum of development.
The Shuangcheng Economic Circle already has a strong central city, relatively balanced small and medium-sized cities, an increasingly perfect industrial system, and the remarkable growth of technological innovation capabilities in the past 20 years, all of which have greatly expanded its domestic demand space.
With the rapid construction of railway hubs and airport clusters, it has also qualitatively improved its ability to communicate with foreign countries. In the future, it will surely become a new development highland under the dual-cycle pattern.
Comply with the objective laws of economic and social development, and based on the new pattern of development and protection of land space in the western region of "key development of advantageous regions and key protection of ecological function zones".
The development of the dual-city economic circle in the Chengdu-Chongqing area will enhance our country’s ability to build a more stable and peaceful international environment. The mountains surrounding Shu and the large rivers that run through Shu are also important ecological functional areas that are related to the ecological security of the country. The high-quality development of the Shuangcheng Economic Circle can effectively enhance the economic population carrying capacity of urbanized areas, and guide the population from ecological function areas to concentrated key development areas, which is of great significance to protecting the ecological environment of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the western region.
As the region with the largest population and density in western China, the Chengdu-Chongqing area can stabilize hundreds of millions of people and tens of millions of non-agricultural labor force nearby and achieve the goal of common prosperity. major.
The Shuangcheng Economic Circle is China's "vanguard" in exploring the reform of the appropriate separation of economic zones and administrative regions
The national level has always paid great attention to the development of the Chengdu-Chongqing region. As early as 2011, the State Council approved the "Chengyu Economic Zone Regional Plan", and in 2016, the State Council approved the "Chengyu Urban Agglomeration Development Plan".
The concept of the twin-city economic circle proposed this time is a further innovation of the administrative hierarchy and territorial governance under the administrative boundary.
Sichuan and Chongqing will focus on and resolve the institutional and institutional obstacles in cross-border coordination, promote and support each other for common development, and ultimately build a common and prosperous Sichuan-Chongqing family.
After 2000, abandoning the hierarchical structure in the traditional central place theory and seeking a networked and interconnected society in which the physical world and the virtual connected world have become a new dynamic of regional development.
In fact, the spatial layout of social and economic development has always been clear, that is, the expansion of population, land, and functional circles with central cities as the core, and the strengthening of connections with traffic corridors, infrastructure corridors, and various resource corridors as the axis, etc. The law has not changed.
The development of the metropolitan area is based on the growth of the central city, and the development of the urban agglomeration also depends on the support of the metropolitan area. This is a gradual process of continuous improvement and optimization of the development of the urban system.
The real relationship between the economic factors of the population determines the stage of regional development, and the choice to strengthen the central city, metropolitan area or urban agglomeration comes from this.
According to analysis, the Chengdu-Chongqing area is still in the stage of becoming a strong city, building a circle, and looking for groups.
For example, when strengthening the central city, continuously stacking houses in the central main city may "paint the ground as a prison"; if the strong city is combined with the construction circle, it can better realize near-field synergy.
Choosing the latter will form a differentiated allocation of resources at the scale of the metropolitan area, which not only cures the "big city disease", but also strengthens the regional "big city", and realizes the coordinated development of large, medium and small cities and small towns in the metropolitan area.
The improvement of the development level of the two metropolitan areas of Chongqing and Chengdu will generate greater radiation driving capacity, benefit the peripheral areas of the urban agglomeration, and achieve greater geographical and more balanced development.
The market mechanism based on the economic zone is more promising than the distribution mechanism based on the administrative region. It is hoped that the Chengdu-Chongqing Shuangcheng Economic Circle can seize the opportunity to take the lead in promoting the reform of the appropriate separation between the economic zone and the administrative region, and contribute to the high-quality development of the country. Play a demonstrative and leading role.
The Shuangcheng Economic Circle will become a model for China to explore regionally differentiated development strategies
To solve the problem, it is necessary to find the crux of the problem, otherwise it can only "treat the symptoms but not the root cause."
Just as the urban landscape design cannot really solve the problem of "one thousand cities", a set of assessment standards to deal with cities of different scales, locations, and background conditions will inevitably lead to all cities being "carved out in one mold."
The key to regional coordination or cooperation is to form a community of interests through the exchange of interests based on the differentiated development of different regions.
The "Outline" emphasizes that differentiated policy implementation has pinpointed the crux of the problem.
The urban system in Chengdu-Chongqing area is relatively complete, with rich terrain and topography ranging from plains, basins, river troughs to alpine valleys, with obvious differences in resource endowments, and various settlements relying on various transportation modes of "Tie Gong, water and air" are also different.
With short feet and long inches, the Chengdu-Chongqing double-city economic circle will become a model for seeking differentiated development, giving play to their respective comparative advantages, and establishing an interest trading market.
Drawing ground as a firm and closed development is based on the "short board theory" to determine success or failure, and breaking the administrative boundary constraints to establish an interconnected unified market is based on the "long board theory" on winning or losing.
Adhere to differentiated guidance, give full play to comparative advantages, strengthen the "long board", establish market-oriented trading rules, and use other strengths to make up for one's weaknesses. This is the focus of regional synergy, as well as seeking different scales, different locations, and different resource endowments. The only way for the coordination of large, medium and small cities and the integration of urban and rural areas.
The exploration of the two-city economic circle in the Chengdu-Chongqing region for differentiated development is of far-reaching significance to a country with large populations such as China with large differences in regional development conditions.
(The author is the Executive Deputy Dean and Professor of the China Institute of New Urbanization, Tsinghua University)
Yin Zhi