The Provincial Strategy of Opening-Up: Political Leadership and Policy Making

The chapter will examine issues such as what opening up means in Yunnan. How has this opening up process restructured the province economically? What was the role of the provincial elites, and what were the key ideas generated in this entire process? Did the central directives constrain Yunnan’s development strategy, or did they also consider the interests of the local elites? The question arises as to what the central and provincial imperatives were behind this economic restructuring of a province. What strategies were adopted to integrate the province with the global economic model? How were the geographical spaces repositioned to encourage the transnational flow of commodities, trade, and investment? It will analyse the point of how social and political spaces largely unknown earlier got transformed into a strategic space to meet state development needs. The geographical position of these local spaces transforms the region from one inward-looking to a mode of outward investment.