In-Depth Exploration of the Question of Regional Blockades

After a decade of reform, China has laid the initial foundations for a unified national market. With the tilting toward a "dual-directional division" (>i>shuangxiang fenquan>/i>) of administrative power, however, the abnormal phenomena of increasingly strong local power, fragmented markets, and regional blockades have appeared. The primary market structures, distribution channels, and organization have all become more complicated and order has been disrupted. Since 1990, in particular, many regions, in an effort to invigorate their own markets, have used economic and administrative means to practice local protectionism, reinforce regional blockades and market divisions, and obstruct the lateral flow of production factors. As a result, interregional conflicts have escalated and trade barriers have risen throughout the nation. All this has seriously affected macroeconomic coordination and orderly development and has become a major impediment to improvement of the economic environment and straightening out of economic order, as well as revitalization of the market. This article aims to make a systematic and in-depth study of the origins and dangers of regional blockades, and seeks to present a cure for this problem.