Disparity and Development in the West of China. Social Sciences Essay

China launched its “go west” strategy in 2000 to boost economic development of 12 western provincial-level regions — Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Qinghai — that are home to more than 400 million people.  After carefully reading this week's reading selections, summarize (1) how the 'develop the west' campaign promises to materially transform China's West (drawing from Goodman (2004), specifically), and (2) how development is both enabled and constrained by the cultural diversity and politics of the region (drawing specifically from Yeh 2007).

*Hint, the Goodman (2004) article is descriptive and is a useful guide for understanding how development was conceptualized and implemented initially.  The Yeh (2007) article is more theoretical and nuanced; take your time with it and really try to understand her arguments.  For instance, she is NOT arguing that Tibetans are lazy (indolent), she is describing how and why Tibetans themselves describe themselves as lazy as compared to Han Chinese.  Why might they do this?  What does this reaction to the kind of development taking place in Tibet tell us about Chinese development in west, more generally?

(1) responds to all aspects of the prompt, (2) use concrete examples from the text(s) to validate your response and be sure to cite (page numbers needed), and (3) draws connections across of the readings.

Reading materials

1.   Goodman, David. 2004. The Campaign to "Open up the West": National, Provincial-Level and Local Perspectives China Quarterly 178: 317-334.

2.   Yeh, Emily. 2007. Tropes of Indolence and the Cultural Politics of Development in Lhasa. Annals of the Association for American Geographers 97 (3): 593-612.