Building a Southern Dynamo: Guizhou and State Power
Author(s)
Oakes, Tim
Abstract
Guizhou’s west to east electricity transfer project is a major energy infrastructure development project associated with the campaign to Open Up the West. In terms of state investments, the project has been the major feature of the campaign in Guizhou. It indicates the intensification of, rather than departure from, a long-term pattern of western primary resource exploitation for the purposes of eastern development. Guizhou’s experience in the campaign to Open Up the West has mostly been about “big development,” and the campaign may even represent a new stage in the province’s long history of internal colonization. In broader terms, the west to east electricity transfer project is indicative of the campaign’s agenda to recentralize state political and economic control away from provinces which have gained considerable autonomy during the reform era. Along with the burst of infrastructure, the implications for Guizhou appear to be a continuation of uneven patterns of exchange between coast and interior. Tied increasingly to its role as net supplier of power to Guangdong, Guizhou could face fresh challenges in diversifying its economy sufficiently to withstand the impacts of China’s World Trade Organization accession.
