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China’s New Development Strategies pp 113–140Cite as

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Active Local Governments and New Chinese Firms in Emerging Industries in Kunshan and Dongguan

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Abstract

Local governments have played an increasingly important role in China’s economic development since the 1990s. Comparing the industrial development processes of Kunshan and Dongguan, two export-oriented cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and the Pearl River Delta (PRD), respectively, we analyze China’s involvement in global value chains (GVCs) from the bottom up and explore the evolution of active local governments in China since the 1980s. We argue that local governments have been learning and adapting to both national directives and GVCs with evolving governing styles, assuming an increasingly active role in local economic development. We highlight the different upgrading trajectories of Dongguan and Kunshan in the information and communication technology (ICT) GVC in response to industrial policies from local governments, China’s national development programs, and shifting strategies of foreign and domestic Chinese firms in the ICT industry.

Keywords

  • Local governments
  • Global value chains
  • Regional development
  • Information and communication technologies (ICT)
  • Kunshan
  • Dongguan

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Xun Zhang & Gary Gereffi

  2. School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Cassandra C. Wang

Authors
  1. Xun Zhang
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  2. Gary Gereffi
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  3. Cassandra C. Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gary Gereffi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Gary Gereffi

  2. Duke Global Value Chain Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Penny Bamber

  3. Duke Global Value Chain Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Karina Fernandez-Stark

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Zhang, X., Gereffi, G., Wang, C.C. (2022). Active Local Governments and New Chinese Firms in Emerging Industries in Kunshan and Dongguan. In: Gereffi, G., Bamber, P., Fernandez-Stark, K. (eds) China’s New Development Strategies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3008-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3008-9_5

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