By Zhao Zheng, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC; Yuan Jiansi, Development Research Center of Hunan Provincial People’s Government; Li Fen, China Academy of Macroeconomics

Research Report, No. 100, 2020 (Total 5844) 2020-5-9

Abstract: Cross-regional governance and government cooperation is an important way to realize coordinated development across regions. The revitalization and development of the old revolutionary base areas along the Hunan-Jiangxi border is crucial to improving the new landscape for China’s regional economic development. This research summarizes several foreign and domestic cases of cross-regional governance, for example, the U.S. model of city clusters and multi-entity cooperation, Japanese model of cross-regional coordination in its metropolitan areas and the “three-level operation” model of government cooperation in the Yangtze river delta. The report analyzes the current challenges facing China in terms of institutional arrangement, implementation and technological application, and in light of the conditions of the old revolutionary base areas along the Hunan-Jiangxi border, proposes the following policy options for promoting cross-regional governance and government cooperation. First, a governance system with multiple entities should be established to advance the standardization of cross-regional governance. Second, dynamic supervision and evaluation should be implemented to enhance the performance of local governments’ cooperation. Third, technological application should be improved in governance to refine the collaboration between regions. Fourth, innovation should be promoted in cross-regional governance and the collaborative governance in the old revolutionary base areas along the Hunan-Jiangxi border should be set up as a pilot zone.

Keywords: cross-regional, collaborative governance, government cooperation