State policy of the PRC on urban development (1949-2020): historical, regional and socio-demographic characteristics

. The chronological framework of the study includes the period of development of the People’sRepublic of China from 1949 to the present, when state policy was formed in relation to large, medium and small cities, which had a significant impact on the socio-economic transformations of China. Goals and objectives of the study. It is necessary to consider the features of the implementation of the state policy of the PRC in the 1949–2000s. in relation to the development of urban areas, the regulation of the urbanization process. Materials and methods. The article was written on the basis of sources on the economic history of the PRC: materials of five-year plans, documents of the State Council and the Central Committee of theCommunist Party of China. The study used such special historical methods as problem-chronological and retrospective. Results. In the history of China’s state policy in relation to urban development, two main stages can be distinguished: 1. The initial period of urban construction management (1949–1976), when the main industrial urban centers of the PRC were formed. 2. The period of urban construction management in China after the start of the policy of “reform and opening” (from 1978 to the present), when cities began to act as the main “development poles” of the surrounding territories. Throughout its 70-year history, the Chinese city has become a center of national economic development and a “growth pole” for the regional economy. A modern production base, modernized educational, scientific and technological centers were formed in the cities. The state policy in the field of development of urban areas was regulated not only by five-year plans, as throughout the history of the PRC, but also by such important documents as the “National program of urbanization of a new type for 2014–2020” from 2015, Plan for the construction of 19 urban agglomerations in the Central, Western and North-Eastern regions from 2016. Conclusions. The formed state policy of China in relation to urban areas at the present stage is dictated by the tasks of co-development of urban and rural areas, the principles of building an ecological civilization, the norms of sustainable regional development, the requirements of modernizing economic changes in the interests of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, as well as the goals of implementing the updated strategy of coordinated regional development.