Internal Colonization?

Last week, I began work editing the poorly translated manuscript of another academic book. This one is about the development of China's western provinces.  It's pulling from a variety of perspectives, with economists commenting on the large-scale indicators and socio-cultural academics paying more attention to the specifics. By the definition used in this book, western China includes most of China's ethic minority regions, including Xinjiang and Tibet.  My post today quotes from the section outlining the remaining problems facing western development in a chapter by Lin Ling (林凌) and Liu Shiqing (刘世庆):

The west is an important source of resources and energy. In terms of China’s overall industrial layout, the east focuses on manufacturing and emerging industries, while the west focuses industries such as minerals, energy, and processing raw materials. Western China’s raw resource-oriented have been besieged by two unequal transaction systems. On one hand, there is distorted pricing system for raw resources and raw materials but high prices for finished products, resulting in very low profit margins for those developing resources in western China. On the other hand, eastern industries make excess profits through the low-cost resources and unfettered environmental exploitation. This is particularly true because resource exploitation by central government-owned enterprises does very little for local economic development. This structure has not worked in the interests of the west or its populace and has resulted in many social conflicts.

 If one were to look at this system purely in economic terms, it greatly resembles a colonial relationship. Western China, home to uncivilized pastoralists and impoverished farmers, is a source of cheap resources for the east. At the same time, however, all the major indicators used by economists to determine quality of life have gone up.

Along with economic progress, also worth nothing is:

As of the end of 2007, the critical “Two Basics Goals” (两基)—promoting nine-year compulsory education in rural areas and eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people—had been achieved in western China, with the education and literacy reaching 98 percent of the population.

So how does one evaluate this process?  As work on this book continues, I'll have more to share.