Globalization and Domestic Coping Strategies: The Development of China’s Industrial Clusters

Industrial clusters play an important role in China’s economic development. This paper argues that the concentration of Chinese industrial clusters at the low end of the value chain reflects the stage of China’s economic development; Chinese industrial clusters’ high-level of openness to international markets was a result of the timing of these clusters’ emergence which enabled them to seize the special opportunities offered by multinational corporations’ global production methods; Chinese industrial clusters’ competitiveness has been strongly supported by specialized markets; and Chinese industrial clusters’ governance, which relies on social networks based on consanguinity, kinship, and neighborhood, is due to the special pattern of state-society relations in China.