Old Industrial Cities Seeking New Road of Industrialization

Book excerpt: In the context of market economy and competition from rapidly growing coastal areas, Northeast China became the burden to China's overall economic development. With a high concentration of state-owned heavy industries, cities in this region suffered from heavy losses in revenue and massive layoffs of millions of former state-owned enterprise workers, known as the "Northeast Phenomenon" or "Neo-Northeast Phenomenon". The once towering economic giant was down. Such a "phenomenon" is not uncommon in other "rust belt" regions in industrialized economies. However, since the implementation of the Chinese Government's "Revitalisation Strategy of Northeast China" in 2003, cities in Northeast China have gone through various transformations.