Author: Qin Chuan
Recently, with the announcement of GDP in various places, the discussion about the strength of the south and the weakness of the north has heated up again. Some people lament that the gap between the north and the south is growing.
Among these heated discussions, there is an argument that the southern economy is overwhelming the north, and the north is getting worse and worse.
It should be said that in recent years, my country's regional economic development has seen a marked differentiation.
Regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have initially embarked on a track of high-quality development. Some northern provinces have slowed growth and the national economic center of gravity has moved further south. This is a fact.
However, we cannot belittle the North just because the proportion of the total economy in the northern region in the country has decreased, and we should not think that the North is not good because the GDP growth rate of some northern provinces is not so significant.
If only the GDP is the leader, and GDP is regarded as the only evaluation criterion, then it will fall into another kind of GDP worship.
GDP worship is narrow and full of prejudice. It will conceal many basic facts and is obviously unfair to cities whose GDP growth is not fast enough.
Once caught in the quagmire of GDP worship, it will also lead to one-sided pursuit of economic growth and abandon the requirements of high-quality development.
Does the southern economy completely crush the north?
Stop advocating such arguments
Comic Zhang Jianhui
my country has a vast territory and a large population, and the large differences in natural resource endowments in various regions are rare in the world. This is a basic fact.
It is precisely because regions play different roles in national development. The country adapts measures to local conditions, combines regional characteristics in economic layout, and gives different regions different missions.
For example, during the "First Five-Year Plan" period, more than 70% of the 156 key projects aided by the Soviet Union were located in the north, of which 54 were in the northeast.
For another example, after the reform and opening up, we implemented a series of major measures such as establishing special economic zones and opening up coastal cities.
The ancients said: "Things are prepared for things because of the world." The country's policy adjustments are also consistent with the times and trends, not static.
Since the mid to late 1990s, while continuing to encourage the eastern region to take the lead in development, the Party Central Committee has successively made major strategic decisions such as the implementation of the western development, the revitalization of old industrial bases such as the northeast, and the rise of the central region.
In this context, is it not normal for the GDP growth rate of different regions to be different?
The same logic is that the decline in the total economic share of the northern region in the country is not worth fussing about.
Lu Ming, a well-known scholar, believes that China's various regions, including northern and central and western China, are developing rapidly. However, when some places give full play to their economic growth advantages, other places appear to have slower economic growth. A little bit.
It seems that the gap between the north and the south has increased.
This view is pertinent and permissive.
In other words, we should have a long-term vision for development, and we should not rashly think that the southern economy is overwhelming the north.
It is true that if you look at GDP alone, draw conclusions from the data, or even ignore changes in the GDP of a small number of cities, it is impossible to draw objective conclusions.
As Lu Ming said, looking at the data of a single city, there will be differences in growth rate, but when explaining the economic gap between North and South China, you may not be too entangled in the changes in the economic growth figures of a specific city. Instead, we should make an overall analysis of the entire North and South of China in the context of globalization and China’s economic development.
The total GDP does not represent the entire development status, and it is not appropriate to use GDP as the only evaluation angle.
The most important thing is that any region has its own advantages and comparative advantages, and it plays an indispensable role in national development.
It would be biased to "examine" them solely in terms of total GDP.
Generally speaking, the spatial structure of my country's economic development is undergoing profound changes, and central cities and urban agglomerations are becoming the main spatial forms that carry development factors.
At the same time, my country's economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, putting forward new requirements for coordinated regional development.
All of these put forward a major proposition that must be faced squarely: we must not simply require all regions to achieve the same level of economic development, but should follow the path of rational division of labor and optimized development based on the conditions of each region.
We must also be soberly aware that imbalances are common, and we must promote relative balance in development.
Looking at the changes in North-South GDP in this era, there will be more calmness and more rational understanding, that is, promoting coordinated regional development is the requirement of the times. What we want to create is not a uniform pattern, nor equal development. It is a regional economic layout with complementary advantages and high-quality development.
Does the southern economy completely crush the north?
Stop advocating such arguments!
"Respect objective laws, give full play to comparative advantages, improve space governance, and protect the bottom line of people's livelihood", improve the new mechanism for coordinated regional development from many aspects, and implement relevant policies and measures. This is what we need to think carefully and make solid progress.
(Qinchuan)