The economic prosperity of Northeast China began with industrialization and ended with digitization. In the second half of the 20th century, the mature heavy industry system in Northeast China created a good foundation for China’s economic development. However, with the digital upgrading of China’s overall industry, the transformation of northeast industry failed to keep pace with the times, and finally fell into the “economic development trap”. The author believes that under the background of carbon peak and carbon neutralization, the key to “revitalizing the northeast” lies in the transformation of green industry and driving the overall economic development with green production capacity, so as to realize the real sustainability of economic development.
There are also many successful cases of heavy industrial city transformation worth learning from all over the world. Pittsburgh, previously known as the “steel capital of the world”, is one of the excellent cases worthy of reference. During the Second World War, due to the sharp increase in the demand of the United States for military products, Pittsburgh shouldered the important task of American military production. Since then, Pittsburgh officially opened the heyday of industrial development.
The particulate pollution caused by the rapid development of heavy industry is the motivation for Pittsburgh to realize the industrial transformation. The heavily polluted environment has caused the local middle and high-income families to gradually move away from Pittsburgh, which has also directly hindered the urban economic development. Subsequently, the local government launched the “Pittsburgh revival plan”, that is, to phase out relatively backward heavy industrial enterprises and vigorously develop new industries, such as finance and medical treatment. Since then, Pittsburgh’s environment and economic development have been improved. In 2009, Pittsburgh hosted the group of 20 (G-20) summit and was rated as a livable city in the United States for many times.
In terms of urban development, Northeast China has many similarities with Pittsburgh, but in terms of natural endowment, Northeast China has its own transformation advantages. What is similar to Pittsburgh is that the lag of economic development caused by backward industry has led to a large number of population loss. According to the GDP ranking of all provinces in China in 2020, Liaoning Province ranks 16th, Heilongjiang Province and Jilin Province rank 25th and 26th respectively. The overall economic development of the three provinces is in the middle and lower reaches of the country. The results of the seventh national census show that Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang have the largest permanent outflow population. The continuous downward regional economic development has led to the continuous outflow of population, resulting in a significant lack of human resources.
The natural resources and manufacturing foundation of Northeast China are the advantages that can not be ignored in the future green development. The forest land area of Heilongjiang Province reached 2007 million hectares, ranking second among provinces in China. Changchun City of Jilin Province also had the reputation of “Oriental Detroit” before, and has unique industrial advantages in shifting from traditional energy vehicle manufacturing to new energy vehicle manufacturing.
Combined with the above cases and the situation of Northeast China, the core path to drive the overall economic development with the transformation of green industry lies in three aspects.
First of all, the Northeast should improve its soft power and form a high urbanization rate supported by employment. From the macro-economic level, the better the economic development of the city, the more the population will increase; On this basis, a high urbanization rate is formed, but behind the high urbanization rate does not represent absolute economic prosperity. Therefore, economic prosperity is a sufficient and unnecessary condition for a high urbanization rate. At present, the overall urbanization rate of the three northeastern provinces is not low. According to the data of the National Statistical Yearbook in 2019, the average urbanization rate of the three northeastern provinces is 62.6%, higher than the national average of 60.6%. However, there is no economic logic behind the high urbanization rate in Northeast China due to the continuous outflow of population in Northeast China and the slowdown of economic development. Under the background of the slow short-term transformation of heavy industry, Northeast China should improve the soft power industry with less cost investment and short return cycle. For example, expand the scale of urban green belt, improve the education quality of schools at all levels and strengthen the dissemination of urban image. The fundamental purpose is to attract the original middle and high-yield class in the city to return to the northeast, so as to stimulate the domestic demand of cities in the northeast, and finally realize the double growth of population and economic development.
Secondly, the Northeast should make rational use of its own regional development endowment to realize the “curve overtaking” of green industry development. As mentioned earlier, the development of heavy industry in Northeast China has left many sequelae for the current industrial transformation, but at the same time, it has also formed a certain basis for heavy industry transformation. For example, in terms of automobile industry, in 2019, China’s automobile output was 25.721 million, and Changchun’s automobile output was 2.889 million, accounting for 11.2% of the national automobile output, which shows the importance of Changchun’s automobile industry to China’s economic development. At present, many countries have announced the prohibition time of fuel vehicles. Although China has not made a clear statement on the prohibition of fuel vehicles, the rise of new energy vehicles has become a global trend. Therefore, if Changchun can transform the advantages of traditional automobile industry into new energy vehicles, Changchun will have the opportunity to become an industrial demonstration area of Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) automobile, and then drive the overall transformation of heavy industry in Northeast China.
In addition to industry, the advantages of green agriculture in Northeast China are also obvious. The Northeast Plain is rich in black soil resources, which is one of the only four black soil areas in the world. The rich organic matter in the black soil provides good nutrient support for the growth of crops. On this basis, Northeast China should further promote the greening of agriculture. After the realization of green production of crops, cultivated land can also be used for land use, land-use change and Forestry (LULUCF) to realize the independent emission reduction of cultivated land, and even form an agricultural carbon sink to carry out the automatic emission reduction transaction in the future.
When it comes to carbon sequestration, the advantages of forestry carbon sequestration in Northeast China must be mentioned. The forest land resource area of the three northeastern provinces exceeds 37 million hectares, accounting for about 27% of the national forest land area. After the official opening of the national carbon trading market in July 2021, forestry carbon sequestration can participate in the carbon trading market as a national certified voluntary emission reduction (CCER), bringing profits and benefits to local governments and enterprises.
Finally, we should implement preferential policies and reasonable subsidies for entrepreneurs, especially for green projects. At present, the financial situation in Northeast China is relatively tense, and the statistical ranking of both fiscal revenue and public budget is at the bottom of the country. Considering the financial constraints, it is unrealistic to introduce a large number of high-tech tertiary industry enterprises in the short term, but it is a feasible long-term strategy to gradually incubate green enterprises and projects. At the initial stage of Pittsburgh’s industrial transformation and Shenzhen’s economic development, science and technology enterprises were regarded as the pillar of urban economic development in the future, and facts have proved that this strategy is successful. In terms of implementation methods, local governments can use the form of cooperation between government and social capital (PPP mode) or prepare to build green ecological office area (EOD) mode. In this way, local governments will leverage more social capital with their limited financial investment to maximize the efficiency of capital investment.
Generally speaking, the concept of “revitalizing the northeast” has been put forward for nearly 20 years, during which countless means have been taken. Under the guidance of China’s “double carbon” goal, Northeast China is expected to regain the path of economic revitalization. Establish a regional green development mechanism with ecological construction as the concept, industrial green upgrading as the starting point and economic growth as the purpose. Northeast China should seize the important opportunity of this economic breakthrough and become a demonstration area for the green upgrading of China Shipbuilding Industry Company Limited(601989) industry in the future. (author: Zhao Yue, assistant researcher of Chongyang Institute of finance, Renmin University of China)
