■Wang Jianing
On 23 April, a symposium on promoting the large-scale development of the western region in the new era was held in Chongqing. The large-scale development of the western region, which began during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (specifically 1999), was once again mobilized in the crucial year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and its significance is far-reaching.
Looking at it from the present, the vast western region has entered a new period of development and economic cycle during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Judging from the period, under the guidance of adjusting the structure, maintaining growth, and benefiting the people's livelihood, the western region has overcome difficulties on several occasions; from the perspective of the cycle, the western region will look forward to another 10 years from the year when the 15th Five-Year Plan was formulated, and whoever can properly handle the issue of regional rise and improve the people's livelihood will be able to take the first place. The "who" here refers to the 12 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) in the western region and their subordinate governments at all levels. However, if it is a hierarchical government, then how to take the next step directly considers its strategic thinking and governance wisdom, and its willingness lies in who can take the first step in the inter-provincial linkage.
The so-called inter-provincial linkage, that is, any province (autonomous region, municipality) in the west should not only look at the development gains and losses of one time and one place, "the scenery should be long-term and look at the quantity", should focus on the entire great west, and regard the neighboring provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) as "brothers", first set their own development positions, find their own development coordinates, and then diverge on the established development coordinates, and incorporate the "brothers" of friendly neighbors into the coordinate system, such as the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle Plan and the various urban agglomeration plans in the western region, the gist of which is to be inclusive.
Back in June 1999, a "mobilization order" for the large-scale development of the western region was issued in Xi'an. The large-scale development of the western region is a major strategic plan for implementing the strategic thinking of "two overall situations" in the mainland's modernization drive, making a major strategic decision in the face of the new century, and comprehensively promoting socialist modernization. The scope of the large-scale development of the western region includes 12 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) including Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang, covering an area of 6.85 million square kilometers, accounting for about 71.4 percent of the country.
In the years that followed, the interpretation of the development of the western region was mostly to review past performance, sort out problems, and look forward to the future, while the rest had few new ideas. In the past course of the large-scale development of the western region, academic circles have debated how the western region should allocate resources through the market, and the degree of allocation or the degree of marketization in the western region. At the policy level, it focuses on industrial transformation, ecological protection and improvement of people's livelihood. Under the current situation, the author believes that it is more urgent to pay attention to inter-provincial linkage.
The inter-provincial linkage is embodied in three aspects: First, the linkage of consultation and dialogue. Whether it involves the specific details of the large-scale development of the western region or the planning of a specific project, it is very necessary to let friendly neighboring "fraternal" provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) know about it through consultation and dialogue. In this way, we can not only solve the industrial docking of adjacent boundaries, but also understand the actual situation and cohesion of friendly neighboring "brother" provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces. The second is the linkage of development strategies. The new round of large-scale development of the western region involves the implementation, implementation, linkage, and formulation of the two plans of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the 15th Five-Year Plan, and is related to the implementation of major issues such as industry, ecology, opening-up, people's livelihood, and stability. Therefore, when resource sharing and investment linkage are put on the table, the situation of achievement sharing is about to appear. The third is the linkage of think tank research. It is mainly manifested in how think tanks in the western region promote the development of the western region in the new era, how to structure new thinking, explore new samples and study and put forward new suggestions, so as to reduce unnecessary researchers, energy and financial consumption as much as possible, which is manifested in the coordination of think tanks, from topic selection linkage and information sharing, from the release of results to the transformation of achievements, in addition to the single research itself, we should also pay attention to the tension and dimension, conditions and effects of the research orientation.
"Humans and apes are separated from each other, and the west is full of ups and downs, full of changes and ups and downs. "The western region, which occupies two-thirds of the country's land area, is home to 300 million people, and their well-being should be foreseeable in the new picture of the large-scale development of the western region!
(The author is the chairman and chief researcher of Chongqing Think Tank and Grand Canal Think Tank, and the chief expert of major research and evaluation projects of the 13th Five-Year Plan, 14th Five-Year Plan and 15th Five-Year Plan)
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