Since the reform and opening-up, coordinated regional development has been central to China's national strategy, evolving from a low-level to a high-level stage with increasing demands. As China enters the new era, development goals are evolving from mere economic growth to achieving harmony among economic, social, and ecological dimensions, with a shift in driving forces from large-scale resource input to enhancing total factor productivity and innovation.

Driven by national strategy, extensive regional coordination development plans, such as those for the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, are being actively advanced alongside smaller-scale plans for city clusters and metropolitan areas, such as the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and the Shenzhen Metropolitan Area. However, under a strong governmental system and a decentralized power structure between central and local governments, the competing interests of local governments have weakened the collaborative effects of regional coordination. The competitive and cooperative relationships among parallel cities or smaller regional administrative divisions are often unhealthy, leading to issues such as uneven resource allocation and vicious competition. These problems are exacerbated in larger regions with more complex administrative hierarchies.

From the most fundamental co-opetitive relationships between administrative divisions, especially between cities, in the ideal world cities should seek collaboration through healthy competition, which would help optimize resource allocation and promote balanced development. However, in practice, the differences between cities often outweigh their consensus. Zhu Yuyu, director of Shanghai Tongji University's Urban Planning and Design Institute, has stated, "In cross-border areas, there are often irreconcilable differences, whether large, such as developmental positioning. For major issues, one city might want to focus on ecology while another aims for industrial growth. For minor issues, differing construction standards and timelines among various locations can lead to conflicts and discrepancies".

According to field research conducted by ANBOUND's researchers, the regional resource coordination capacity within the Shenzhen metropolitan area remains relatively weak. Due to competing interests, there is a lack of collaborative mechanisms for benefit-sharing and cost-sharing between the central cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan. The competition between the two outweighs cooperation, which has hindered the maximization of their collaborative synergies. To some extent, this has even fueled unhealthy competition between the cities, leading to industrial homogeneity and resource waste.

Taking Shenzhen and Dongguan as examples, the urban co-opetition in regional coordinated development manifests as competition through homogeneity and internal competition, as well as a lack of collaborative mechanisms, which has led to unstable cooperative relationships. This urban co-opetition is also commonly found in other regional coordinated developments. To break this "curse", ANBOUND suggests addressing both competition and cooperation: first, by implementing differentiated competition, and second, by establishing effective collaborative mechanisms to break down inter-regional competitive barriers, thereby forming a healthy urban co-opetitive relationship.

From a competitive perspective, differentiated competition is essential for fostering healthy co-opetitive relationships between cities. Each city within an urban agglomeration should leverage its unique resources and comparative advantages to clearly define its roles and divisions of labor. This can be achieved through the industrial value chain. For instance, Japan's regional development plans emphasize industry differentiation. The Tokyo metropolitan area includes cities like Yokohama and Kawasaki, which serve distinct roles, contributing to the efficient allocation of resources. The Keihin Industrial Zone, for example, is known for its major manufacturing sectors, while Tsukuba focuses on research and education, housing over 300 institutions. Moreover, the government should enhance market forces to encourage differentiated competition. High marketization encourages businesses to prioritize efficiency, avoiding redundancy and homogeneity. Thus, the government should guide rather than impose mandatory policies, facilitating a more competitive and cooperative regional environment.

Differentiated competition requires robust cooperation mechanisms. Urban agglomerations need a collaborative development model based on shared costs and benefits. Many current strategies in China feature a multi-center structure, leading to independent city developments that lack necessary government coordination, resulting in harmful rivalry. Complex hierarchical structures complicate regional integration, making it challenging to ensure fair power distribution and balanced competition among different levels of government. At the same time, local protectionism and administrative fragmentation hinder coordinated development. In China, fiscal decentralization and political incentives restrict resource flow, initially boosting local economies but ultimately impacting regional synergy and productivity. For this reason, China has emphasized the importance of a unified large market in recent years. In this sense, establishing a clear cooperation model for cost-sharing and benefit-sharing will be vital for the country. Cities should form alliances to resolve inter-administrative conflicts through horizontal cooperation. A relevant example is the Great Lakes region, where cities like Chicago and Toronto formed the Great Lakes Governors' Council in the 1980s to coordinate economic and environmental issues, offering valuable lessons for China's regional integration.

Final analysis conclusion:

Currently, regional coordinated development in China is transitioning toward high-quality coordination, which demands higher standards for regional cooperation models—specifically, fairness, balance, and deeper integration. To achieve this goal, it is essential to break the " co-opetitive curse" between cities. This requires addressing both competition and cooperation: promoting differentiated development within urban agglomerations and advancing regional integration. Both aspects are interdependent and complementary, and both are crucial for establishing a healthy competition-cooperation relationship among cities.