Understanding the changing geography of China’s state-owned enterprises: a ‘new regionalism’ perspective

Abstract

The growth dynamics of socialist transitional economy in general and China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in particular, has long been the subject of great scholarly interest and extensive documentation. However, much of the existing literature is built upon analytical concepts and theoretical perspectives from economics, management science and other cognate social science disciplines without any significant contribution from economic geography. Drawing insights from the recently resurgent theories of firm-region nexus in new economic geography, this paper attempts to bridge this knowledge gap by examining the internal variations of SOEs situated in different regional economies undergoing profound structural changes. Through three sets of statistical analyses, this paper finds that there exists strong correlation between the spatially varied performance of SOEs and the extent of external economies unfolded in their situated regions. Empirical tests suggest that region is not passive receptacles of productive activities as implied by the extant literature in China studies, but instead active sources of external economies, the spatial manifestation of which affect to a considerable degree the success or failure of SOEs located therein. Introducing the perspective of new regionalism into the study of China’s SOEs proves to be an innovative geographical lens for Chins specialists to better examine the heterogeneity and complexity of China’s state-owned sector.