The surest way of knowing where the Chinese national government wants to go is to follow the money they put into mega-projects.

The development of Shenzhen and Pudong over the 6th – 9th Five Year Plans (FYP) showed the government’s attitude toward market-opening in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, the Binhai project in Tianjin likewise demonstrates the central government’s commitment to clean energy development  and the China Medical Center in Jiangsu demonstrates their interest in advanced health technologies to combat cancer and other diseases affecting an aging population.

Cloud Computing is high on the government’s to-do list. Beijing is reported to have committed more than US$150 million (RMB 1 billion) to develop a 10 square kilometer “‘cloud computing’ Special Administrative Region (SAR)” for high-tech and start-up firms in the south-western city of Chongqing. Although the initial financial ante is modest, the stakes being played for are high.   Importantly, the cloud computing SAR will reportedly be exempted from the the country’s strict system of internet censorship control, known affectionately as  “The Great Firewall (GFW).”

For the issue of how Beijing’s central Five Year planning process translates to mega-projects, I try to tackle this in my book in the chapter called “Managing Hyper-Growth.”.