Makeeva S.B. History of demographic development of the Chinese province of Heilongjiang (1970–2020). Vestnik Samarskogo universiteta. Istoriia, pedagogika, fi lologiia = Vestnik of Samara University. History, pedagogics, philology, 2023, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 17–23. DOI: http: ...

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://journals.ssau.ru/hpp/article/view/24054 (дата обращения 04.08.2023)

Abstract

The article presents the history of the demographic development of one of the Chinese northeastern provinces. The demographic processes of the Chinese border province of Heilongjiang were influenced by various processes of socio-political, trade, economic, foreign policy and spatial-regional transformations of the PRC in the second half of the 20th century. The purpose of the article is to consider the historical features, factors and reasons for the depopulation of the population of the Heilongjiang province bordering Russia. As a result of studying the natural-climatic, institutional-political and modernization-industrial factors of the historical evolution of Heilongjiang Province, it has been established that the current decline and aging of the population, the decline in the birth rate, the migration of labor resources from the province to other regions of China is a consequence of the reduction of state-owned enterprises, the implementation of a strategy of regional uneven development in 1978 – 1999, low investment attractiveness, long-term innovation and technological adaptation of Heilongjiang Province to the rapid pace of China's economic development. In the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the economy of a neighboring state was in difficult conditions, proximity to Russia did not bring economic growth to Heilongjiang. On the contrary, it was the heavy industry that provided the leading positions for Northeast China in the middle of the 20th century that became an obstacle to the economic development of Heilongjiang. In the 1990s the reform of state-owned enterprises led to the dismissal of workers who, having lost their jobs, left Heilongjiang province. The decline in the growth rate of the old industrial base in the Northeast of the PRC has had an impact on the fact that Heilongjiang Province has gradually turned from the territory of the main influx of population (1950 – 1960s) into the territory of the largest outflow of population (2010s to the present).