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China''s economic rise became one of the most important stories in the world economy once the Chinese economy began to open to the rest of the world in 1979. However, this rise was not evenly distributed across all of China''s regions. By 2003, some regions had emerged as clear leaders in the economic development process, while others lagged far behind. A variety of forces also prevented the People''s Republic of China (PRC) from being a single national market of 1.3 billion people, so that the national economy was perhaps better described as a set of coupled regional markets. Politically, China was not a monolith either. Competition between regions and between individual jurisdictions had been played out in the corridors of power in Beijing as well as in the regions themselves, as locations vied for investment and for positions in the market. Understanding China''s regional economies became virtually a prerequisite for success for economic policy and for firms'' strategies in China.