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China GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY
Before 1949 industry was concentrated in the large east-coast
cities and in the northeast. Shanghai was the largest industrial
center, followed by Anshan, Fushun, and Shenyang, all in Liaoning
Province. Qingdao, in Shandong, and Tianjin also were important
industrial centers. Only a few cities in the interior had any
modern industry; they included Wuhan, Chongqing, and Taiyuan
(see fig. __. Major Industrial Areas and Facilities, 1983).
During the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), the government
specifically emphasized development of the northeast and areas
other than Shanghai, China's most important industrial base.
Industrial sites were constructed in the north around the new steel
mills at Baotou, Nei Monggol Autonomous Region, and in central
China in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Industrial centers also arose in
the southwest, mostly in Sichuan Province.
In the 1950s, industrial centers in east and northeast China
accounted for approximately two-thirds of total industrial output.
However, by 1983 industrial centers in the north, south, and
southwest had increased their share of output to more than 40
percent
(see fig. __, Percentage Distribution of Gross Industrial
Output Value by Region, 1983). This increase was the result of a
policy begun in the 1950s to gradually expand existing industrial
bases to new areas, to build new bases in the north and south, and
to establish a new base in the southwest.
From 1952 to 1983, south, southwest, and northwest China
registered higher industrial growth than the east, northeast, and
north regions. Total industrial output grew the fastest in the
south--from 13.7 percent of total output in 1952 to 18.5 percent in
1983
(see
table __, Gross Value of Industrial Output, By Province,
1952, 1957, 1983. Appendix A). The government had stressed
developing the interior regions since the 1950s, but by 1986 it had
abandoned that strategy in order to develop areas with more
established infrastructures. According to this plan, the south
would continue growing, but the east and northeast would be the
main benefactors.
Data as of July 1987
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