Central China: Heartland for China's Modernization

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held its regular meeting on May 27 and deliberated on policies and measures to accelerate the development of central China in the new era. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping presided over the meeting and urged the region and related parties to take efforts to make further major breakthroughs in speeding up the development of the central region.

In fact, the Politburo meeting, and the upcoming policies and measures that it deliberated, is a significant follow-up procedure to realize the spirits of promoting and escalating the rise of central China that have been mentioned in two previous major conferences and one programmatic document aimed at dealing with shortcomings in the regions, including, but not limited to, imbalanced and insufficient development, relatively low levels of inland opening-up, relatively weak innovation ability of the manufacturing industries, the weakening ecological and green development pattern, and the lack of a sufficient capability to guarantee public services, particularly when facing the emergency of a public health crisis.

The importance of central China

The central region plays an irreplaceable role in connecting different parts of China geographically and socioeconomically. As the birthplace of Chinese civilization more than 5,000 years ago, almost every dynasty in ancient China chose the central region in to build its capital. One could argue that no dynasty could claim that they enjoyed the legitimacy to govern China without setting foot in the central region, and no power could claim that they represented China without exercising effective governance upon the region.

Central China, which consists of the provinces of Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan, accounts for a tenth of the country's territory, roughly a fourth of the population, and about a fifth of its GDP output. What is more, the region is full of significant natural resources, ranging from coal, oil, iron, copper and hydro power.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the central government has launched a series of new strategies, covering areas of regional coordinated development, main functional region restructuring, and new urbanization projects, among others, to optimize the layout of major productive forces and to build a regional economic layout and territorial space system with complementary advantages and high-quality development. Restructuring the composition of, and setting top-level strategic design for the central region has showed the central government's high expectations in this region.

The central region's contribution to socialist modernization

The region is an important base in terms of the country's grain production, energy and raw materials, modern equipment manufacturing and high-tech industry, and serves as a comprehensive transportation hub.

Generally speaking, solid efforts should be made to further energize the central region, including building a modern industrial system supported by advanced manufacturing, building a beautiful central region with green development, promoting high-level opening up of the hinterland, reforming and improving the system and mechanism, and enhancing the coordination of urban and rural development, as well as improving the level of basic public services. All these efforts should be directed to the realization of high-quality development, and the central region should follow the principles of high-quality development in the course of building socialist modernization.

According to documents issued by the Chinese government, high-quality development can fully meet the people's growing needs for a better life, embodying the new development paradigm, and is a type of development in which innovation becomes the primary driving force, coordination an endogenous feature, green development a universal form, openness the only way, and sharing the fundamental purpose.

The development in the new era and on the new journey must implement this new development concept and must be high-quality. For instance, in terms of innovation, governments should accelerate the construction of national manufacturing innovation centers such as the National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center in Hubei Province, the Zhuzhou advanced rail transit equipment innovation center in Hunan Province, and the Luoyang agricultural machinery equipment innovation center in Henan Province, and cultivate a number of new industrial and manufacturing innovation centers relying upon their respective geographical and technical advantages.

High-quality development is a prerequisite for all aspects of economic and social development, not only in central China, but all regions of the country. The entire country should deeply understand the strategic intent of the central government to promote the rise of the nation and make new major breakthroughs based on high-quality development.

An assembly line of a Chinese luxury electric auto brand in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 1, 2024. /Xinhua

Editor's note: Gao Lei, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Center for Xi Jinping Thoughts on Opening-up, Research Institute of Globalization and China's Modernization, University of International Business and Economics. Xia Lu, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at the National Academy for Development and Strategy, the Academy of Xi Jinping Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Renmin University of China. The article reflects the authors' opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.