The Spatio-Temporal Distribution and Development Modes of Border Ports in China

Abstract

Border ports play a substantial role in socio-economic exchanges, which reflect the diplomatic relations between neighboring countries. This paper maps and analyzes the evolution process of border ports in China since the 1930s, in terms of the spatial distribution, transport modes, cargo and flows of people. Four development modes of border ports and cities are summarized based on the functions and development level of border ports and their proximity to urban core areas. The four modes include: (1) Port-Port mode; (2) City-Port-Port-City mode; (3) City (Port)-Port-City mode; (4) City (Port)-City (Port) mode, which also reflect the spatio-temporal evolution process of certain border ports and cities. The results show that the development of border ports is closely related to the bilateral relations with neighboring countries and their complementarities of natural resources and economic development, national foreign policies, as well as the physical, historical and cultural context. The findings of this study are helpful to promote the sustainable development of the border port system which is crucial for win-win reciprocity between China and its neighboring countries. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2014, 6 7090

Cross‐border tourism: Case study of inbound Russian visitor arrivals to China

“…The empirical finding of RAIL it may suggest that compared with other land transport for crossing the border, train service is obviously punctual, faster, and more comfortable and is more preferred by Russian visitors tourists. The empirical finding of PORT it is also consistent with Wang et al (), who claimed that border ports play a substantial role in socio‐economic exchanges. The variable of ln( HWYD it ) is reported to be a negative and statistically significant coefficient estimate at the 1% significance level in Model 3 in Table .…”

“…This study considers the likely impact of four different types of transport links (air, road, rail, and river transportation) established between Russia and China on Russian visitor arrivals to China: (a) For air transport link, the airport variable is introduced as a dummy variable, AIRPORT it , which takes a value of 1 if border city i in China has an airport in year t and 0 otherwise. It is expected that air transport and air access helps attract Russian visitor arrivals with a shorter travel time or transiting to other Chinese destinations by air (Bieger & Wittmer, ; Page & Connell, ); (b) land transport link is measured by the density of highways in the sampled Chinese prefecture‐level cities, HWYD it , which is computed by the total length of highways divided by the total area of the sampled Chinese prefectural‐level city i in year t ; (c) for rail transport link, China's railway link to Russian destinations, RAIL it , is introduced as a dummy variable, which takes a value of 1 if a Chinese prefectural‐level city i had a direct cross‐border railway link to Russian cities in year t and 0 otherwise; and (d) for land or river ports connecting to Russia, the number of river or land ports in Chinese prefectural‐level city i connected to Russian destinations, PORT it , may facilitate the flows of goods and passengers (including visitors) from Russia visiting or departing Chinese destinations in year t (Wang, Cheng, & Mo, ). All four transport‐related variables aim to measure the quality and accessibility of transport infrastructure (air, road, rail, and river) available in the sampled Chinese prefectural‐level cities to transport cross‐border Russian visitors to China.…”

Spatial-Temporal Variation Characteristics and Obstacle Factors of Resilience in Border Cities of Northeast China

“…The free flow of goods and personnel drives urban development. However, this development may also be fragile, owing to the tension in the local relations between the two countries [4]. Therefore, based on the mechanisms of resilience, this study comprehensively considers the systematic characteristics of border cities and believes that the resilience of border cities refers to the regional resilience state that is formed by the interaction between the maintenance of the basic production and living conditions of cities, and the conduct of a series of economic activities that are relayed to borders when they face various acute internal and external shocks and chronic pressures within the complex geographical environment at home and abroad (especially the influence of export-oriented economic fluctuations).…”

“…With the all-round improvement in the ecological environment and infrastructure of the domestic border areas, border tourism has gradually emerged, and border cities are responsible for being bases for both opening up and domestic cultural tourism centers [2]. Thus, the development of border cities has received extensive attention [3,4]. However, owing to the disadvantage of internal geographical location and the influence of the external geographical environment, the development level of border cities still lags far behind that of other cities, showing higher vulnerability when dealing with external threats [5].…”

A Geoweb-Based Tagging System for Borderlands Data Acquisition

“…The former directly refer to geographical locations which can be tagged automatically, and the latter, such as census and earthquakes, have particular spatial distributions and relatively large spatial extents so that we can identify and tag them on the map artificially. By the end of 2010, China had completed its digital boundary with a length of over 22,000 kilometers [12]. The European Union has also developed a boundary data model to integrate both the geometric and theme data of European nations.…”