Is China looking to Mao Zedong’s ‘Third Front’ as part of economic self-reliance drive?
The original plan moved industries west to counter the threat of invasion, but now the prime motivation appears to be supply chains
China is reviving aspects of a Mao Zedong-era plan to relocate critical facilities away from the country’s most densely populated areas to its western hinterlands.
Mao’s 1964 “Third Front Construction” initiative was motivated by Cold War fears of nuclear attack, fuelled by the deepening American involvement in Vietnam and increased hostility between China and the Soviet Union.
Some observers say the new plan – unofficially described as the “new third front”– may still have a military dimension, but the main focus this time around appears to be economic security in the face of multiple challenges such as US tech curbs and wider moves to end supply chain reliance on China.
“In many ways, I see this [latest scheme] as a continuation of the ‘Third Front’ and ‘Go West’ policies, including their goals of developing poor, geographically remote regions in the West as well as creating strategic buffers by relocating some key parts of the supply chain to western provinces,” said Christopher McNally, a professor of political economy at Chaminade University of Honolulu.
The new policy reflects the multiple challenges facing the country, including growing hi-tech curbs from the United States, wider moves to end supply chain reliance on China, trade tensions with the European Union and a worldwide trend toward decoupling.
