Premature Deindustrialization or Reindustrialization in China’s Latecomer Provinces

This study investigates whether latecomer provinces in China have experienced premature deindustrialization or reindustrialization by examining the positions of the provincial industry-income nexus using the latecomer index. The latecomer index facilitates the identification of the downward (premature deindustrialization) and upward (reindustrialization) positions of the nexus for latecomer provinces. The empirical analysis reveals that, for the nationwide level, the premature deindustrialization effect remains during the total sample period of 1992–2020 reflecting the initial regime prioritizing eastern coastal industrialization, whereas the pace of the premature deindustrialization is slowed down in the periods of 2002–2020 and 2009–2020 due to a series of industrial policies under the subsequent regime. At the regional level, the reindustrialization impact dominates the premature deindustrialization effect in the eastern and central regions, whereas this effect dominates the reindustrialization impact in the western region. The study identifies the existence of reindustrialization in China in the regional analysis, whereas extant literature on reindustrialization focuses only on European cases.