Characteristics and development mechanism of the economic and technological development areas in China
我国经济技术开发区的发展特征及动力机制

In recent years, growing attention has been devoted to the development areas in China. While most of the researches concern much to the development of research parks in China, the comprehensive researches about the Economic and Technological Development Areas (ETDAs) are very limited. Therefore, the main concern of this paper is first devoted to discussing the characteristics of ETDAs, and then based on the field investigations of main development areas in the coastal zone, the mechanism of development areas is explored. Since 1984, the Chinese central government has authorized 54 state-level ETDAs which are distributed within the whole country. Meanwhile the number of ETDAs planned by the provincial and local governments has increased so fast that the total number amounted to more than 500 by the end of 2000. From the spatial perspective, the developmental period of ETDAs can be divided into three stages: the first 14 ETDAs scattered in several cities along the coastal zone, and then they dispersed to the east and south regions of China; so far, the ETDAs have spread into the middle and western China. Most of the ETDAs has contributed a lot to the regional development, especially in terms of economic growth and use of foreign direct investment (FDI). Some of the ETDAs have become the most important growth poles in places where they are located. However, there are significant regional differences among the development areas. On the whole, the economic performance of development areas located in the coastal zone is better than that in the middle and western China. The main driving forces of the ETDAs' growth, as being argued in this paper, are the special policies for ETDAs, which can be regarded as the original force, the influence of the transnational corporations (TNCs), the market mechanism and the role of social and cultural factors. Moreover, in the long run, the regional learning and innovation ability is even more important for ETDAs' further development. Within China, however, the understanding of ETDAs still rests on the important role of special policies played in the development of the development areas. Accordingly, most regional governments, by increasing the number of ETDAs and providing preferential polices, have tended to accelerate regional economic growth, while ignoring the other driving forces that are in fact the endogenous powers for the development of the ETDAs.