China's Metropolitan Coordinating Area (MCR) construction is being carried out in full swing under the strong promotion of policy and Internet celebrity. Many of the problems of urban development in China will be expected to be solved in the construction of MCR. All kinds of institutions who specialize in urban development, naturally rejoicing and jubilant, and there is spreading a sense of "business comes again".
The doubts are, whether the construction of MCR able to address the development? Will MCRs create more problems? These are actually the concerns that Chinese policy makers should pay attention to.
When Chinese Internet celebrity talks about the MCR, the Greater Tokyo Area in Japan was once the best example of a metropolitan area. It seems that whether the Chinese economy and urbanization can reach a higher level is depends on whether China's future coastal cities can achieve a metropolitan area like Tokyo. The problem is that few people in today's China seem to realize that the Greater Tokyo Area is not the pride of the Japanese government at all. In the eyes of the Japanese government, the Greater Tokyo Area is either a source of great trouble or failure in development.
In fact, the Japanese government has taken a series of measures to avoid further expansion of the troubles in the metropolitan areas. I don't know how Chinese scholars studying in Japan think about the construction of metropolitan area in Japan, but it seems to me that the Japanese government's policy against the expansion of Greater Tokyo Area is very obvious and getting increasingly stricter.
Since the 1950s, the Japanese government began to strengthen the control of the size of the capital circle, just like Beijing nowadays in easing the non-capital functions. Such measures include investing heavily in "satellite cities" and setting up "sub-capitals" (see the previous report of Anbound). In the 1970s, Japan moved factories and universities away from Tokyo. It was in 1973 that Tokyo University of Education was moved to Tsukuba, a city in Ibaraki Prefecture further away from the city. It was renamed University of Tsukuba and is now one of the largest universities in Japan in terms of the campus area. At that time, the Japanese government also explicitly proposed to transfer the functions of the Taiheiyō Belt to other regions, and this plan did temporarily prevent the flow of population to Tokyo. However, the effect of "anti-MCR" plan was difficult to sustain, because it was heavily depended on the construction of infrastructure which was financed by the government.
In the decades since, the Japanese government has also introduced a number of "decentralization" plan in the Greater Tokyo Area, but the results were not good. In fact, to sum up, by the end of the 20th century, the Japanese government had formulated five basic plans for the capital circle. The core problems and difficulties were all centered on how to realize the "decentralization" of the Greater Tokyo Area, so as to avoid excessive concentration of all kinds of resources in the Greater Tokyo Area. Even in the era of Abe's "stimulation of economic growth", contrary to what Chinese scholars and professors imagine, the Japanese government's economic policy still adheres to this direction.
In 2014, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed to make the revitalization of local regions' economics as the policy focus. He announced a package of preferential policies such as preferential taxation and included a 4 trillion yen regional revitalization budget in the 2015 Japanese government financial plan. By 2019, the Abe administration has already planned to take more aggressive measures to prevent the disorderly development of the Greater Tokyo Area. Shinzo Abe announced that he would push Congress to pass the bill in the first half of the year, changing the status quo of college students to concentrate in Tokyo, and changing the domestic population flow, strive to achieve a balance between the capital region and the local population inflows and outflows by 2020.
In terms of policy implementation, this policy is quite radical. The Japanese government intends to prohibit the expansion of the state, public, private and specialized colleges in the 23 wards of Tokyo within 10 years. In September 2018, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology has banned the expansion of private universities and colleges in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2018 and banned all universities and colleges from opening new majors in 2019. The Japanese government believes that students study in Tokyo and work in the capital after graduation, resulting in the loss of talent in other regions. According to the population mobility report released by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the local population in Japan continued to decline in 2016, while the population of the Greater Tokyo Area increased for 21 consecutive years, with a net inflow of nearly 120,000 people.
Judging from this series of "decentralization" policies, the Abe administration has actually regarded the "decentralization" of Greater Tokyo Area as one of the most important national strategies, aiming to rectify the trend of Tokyo's "unipolarization", alleviate the imbalance of regional development and enhance the national economic vitality. Among the policies, supporting "local entrepreneurship" is just one part of this national strategy.
As big as China is, its economy does not depend on several MCRs, nor does Japan. The experience of Japan's MCR shows that as the political, economic and cultural center of Japan, the Greater Tokyo Area has an adsorption effect on the national talent, capital, and social resources. The metropolitan area is actually unfavorable to the development of the local economy. Local towns and cities are chronically underpopulated and economically depressed and are prone to a vicious circle of brain drain and investment reduction. Even within the Greater Tokyo Area, young people from other regions are also under great pressure, and tend to marry late, not married, have fewer children or even no children, which is not conducive to solving the problem of fewer children and aging society.
The same is true for the construction of China's MCRs. As investments flock to the center, the surrounding areas lose opportunities for development; if the investment is balanced around the region, there is no center; decentralization after the centralization is a huge waste of resources. Although GDP can grow in nominal terms as it does so, the real growth of debt will certainly be more savage.
Final Analysis Conclusion:
Therefore, in general, the construction of China's MCR area must be prudent and calm. Now, China's GDP has reached RMB 90 trillion. In the face of such a huge size of the economy, the policy operation must be steadier and more prudent than before. Only by working conscientiously, predicting in advance, and stabilizing, can the Chinese economy be on a healthy track.
