Political Dynamics of Elite Collaboration in China

Abstract

Existing research has studied extensively about inter-provincial competition in China, which is considered to be one of the engines motivating Chinese economic development in the past decades. However, in addition to competition, Chinese provinces also collaborate with each other, provide help and aid to each other, and learn from each other for successful experiences and evidences when making new policies. This research focuses on this less studied cooperative inter-provincial connection. We conduct a network analysis upon a self-compiled dataset of inter-provincial visits lead by provincial party secretaries and/or provincial governors from 2004 to 2016. Tentative analysis shows that while in general neighboring provinces interact more often, inter-provincial visits have become more frequent and developed into a web involving all provinces rather than segmented purely by regions in the past ten years. Also, while developed provinces are busier visiting others or receiving visits, some less-developed provinces tend to constantly stay in the margin of the network, appearing to be relatively isolated. Further research is needed to explain the varied patterns over time and across provinces. Our findings may potentially contribute to the literature on subnational governmental relations in a large country, such as China.