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340 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

(3) government spending; among them export has been the key engine driving
its economic growth. The current global financial crisis (2008e09) has already
indicated a concern for the first pillar because European and especially
American consumers can no longer consume at the debt-supported levels as
they had in the past (Economist, 2009). One of the perplexing questions is
whether the sustainability of China’s export-oriented development strategy can
be counted on to be sustainable and reliable into the future. Current data
suggest that China has weathered this storm and become the new financial
center for economic markets. Hence businesses are coming to China not only
to invest but also to seek investments. The new Chinese export has become
investment “capital” and financing. (SJBJ, 2011; Lo, 2011).

NEW POLICY THINKING: CHANGE OF ECONOMIC
GROWTH STRATEGY AND PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE
ENERGY

In Nov. 2005 Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declaimed at the Plenary of the
Chinese Communist Party that “energy use per unit of China’s GDP must be
reduced by 20% from 2006 to 2010,” and this declaration was turned into a
6
policy goal set up by China’s current 11th Five-Year Plan (2006e10). In this
national policy planning China’s energy policies are defined to be “from a
growth at any cost model” to “a sustainable, energy-secure growth path.” To
deal with the rising energy intensity, Chinese government has introduced a
number of energy- and emission-saving policies as well as administrative
plans and legal frameworks to strengthen energy conservation work.
According to HSBC in late 2010, the next 12th Five-Year Plan (enacted in
Mar. 2011) would focus on three key issues:
1. “Achieving more balanced and sustainable growth is the key.”
2. Requiring “real reforms of income distribution, industrial
regulations and fiscal system” and
3. Taking “steps towards financial reforms ... (that will) unleash the power of
consumers and inland regions.”
As Lo (April, 2011) reports from the Central Government and his
corporation in Shanghai, China has aggressively begun doing just these three
target areas plus more. Lo adds three other key elements to the 12th Five-Year

6. Five-Year Plan, shortened for The Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Devel-
opment, and even shorter for the plans are 11th Five-Year Plan, is a national goal-setting policy
paper. At the macrolevel, it disposes national key construction projects, administers the dis-
tribution of productive forces and individual sector’s contributions to the national economy and
maps the general direction of future development including specific policies and targets. The
current 5-year plan for 2006e10 is also called the 11th Five-Year Development Guidelines. The
12th Five-Year Plan or 12-5 year Plan came out in March 2011.