These efforts to explicitly follow the Japanese post-World War II model of
development, and especially the cases of Baoshan and Rizhao, illustrate both the
potential benefits and risks of following this model and creating an integrated
set of generative sectors in steel and transport. Steel and other heavy industry
based growth poles following this model can be found on the coasts of a number
of nations in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. However, most, despite
billions of dollars of investment by states, international financial institutions,
and domestic and foreign firms, remain at best poorly integrated enclaves that
have failed to generate sustained economic growth. State policies and the availability
of funding are only parts of the broader process of international competition
that shapes the developmental trajectories of particular growth poles,
regions and states within the world economy. The strategies, successes and failures
of other ascendant economies and the existing hegemon shape the technological,
organizational, socioeconomic and political parameters that determine
global competitiveness, and more successful rivals can effectively circumscribe
the best policy choices and largest investments of other competitors. In the steel
industry since World War II, for example, dozens of nations invested billions of
dollars in what has been in some cases this driving force of economic development.
However, the steel mills built by Japanese firms with the support of the
Japanese state and those built following the Japanese model in South Korea
have been far more successful in terms of international competitiveness than
similar complexes in Europe, Latin America, and other nations in Asia. The
outcomes of these developmental efforts are highly contingent on the strategies
of other competing economies, and the long term sustainability of China’s
efforts to sustain its economic ascent by following the Japanese model is far
from assured.