The two "less prominent provincial capitals", one in the south and the other in the north, have been assigned heavier responsibilities.

Making provincial capitals "strong" is being elevated to an unprecedented level.

Following the high-profile conference held by Jiangxi Province themed "Implementing the Provincial Capital Leading Strategy and Promoting High-Quality Development of Nanchang's Real Economy", Shanxi, another province in central China, recently also convened the "Conference on Promoting High-Quality Economic Development of Taiyuan".

The former explicitly put forward that: Nanchang must resolutely assume its primary responsibility, play the leading role, comprehensively raise work standards, and earnestly demonstrate the due responsibility of a provincial capital.

The latter required that: (Taiyuan) should better take on major responsibilities, move ahead and set an example in the overall situation of high-quality development and modernization drive of the whole province; genuinely lift the leading position of Shanxi's high-quality development.

Across the country, it is rare to see a provincial-level government make systematic arrangements for the high-quality development of a single city, and clearly assign responsibilities and tasks to the provincial capital.

A more noteworthy detail is that both conferences were attended by the 1st Central Steering Group.

In particular, the "Conference on Promoting High-Quality Economic Development of Taiyuan" was clearly stated in official reports to be co-hosted by Shanxi Province and the 1st Central Steering Group.

As is known to all, both Nanchang and Taiyuan, whether in terms of their comprehensive capacity or their "visibility" across the country, have long been regarded as typical representatives of "weak provincial capitals".

It is by no means a coincidence that the two "similar" cities have taken the same high-profile action within a short period of time. The signal conveyed behind this is highly meaningful.

01

How special are these two conferences exactly?

Several common details are worth noting.

First, the duration of both conferences is "two half-days". This is uncommon in provincial-level special meetings, which fully demonstrates the high specification and significant topics of the events.

Second, both put forward new requirements for the development goals of the provincial capitals. Jiangxi emphasized the need to effectively enhance the sense of responsibility and mission to implement the provincial capital leading strategy and promote the high-quality development of Nanchang's real economy; Shanxi proposed that Taiyuan, as the provincial capital, should further enhance the sense of mission, responsibility and urgency to promote high-quality development, further improve industrial agglomeration capacity, comprehensive carrying capacity and regional radiation capacity, and give better play to the leading driving role.

Third, both emphasized that the whole province should increase support for the provincial capital.

Jiangxi put forward that all provincial departments should strengthen collaborative linkage, coordinate resources and forces, consolidate work responsibilities, and form a work pattern where the provincial and municipal governments join hands to tackle the same issues together.

Shanxi also made it clear that relevant provincial departments should continue to increase support for Taiyuan's high-quality economic development, strengthen classified guidance for all cities, enrich policy supply, improve service guarantees, and build a work pattern of upper and lower linkage, cross-departmental collaboration, concerted efforts and aligned advancement.

Although the official wording does not directly mention the three characters of "strong provincial capital", the intention of "mobilizing the whole province's resources to empower and support the provincial capital" is almost palpable.

02

"A strong provincial capital makes a strong province, a prosperous provincial capital makes a prosperous province".

For Jiangxi and Shanxi, promoting the expansion and strengthening of their provincial capitals is not only necessary but also urgent.

In terms of primacy ratio, the primacy ratios of Nanchang and Taiyuan in 2025 both just exceeded 20%, and ranked the last two among the six provincial capitals in central China. There is still a clear gap between this figure and the widely recognized threshold of around 30% for "strong provincial capitals".

Judging from the growth momentum in recent years, the leading and driving role of both Nanchang and Taiyuan in their respective provinces also needs to be strengthened.

Among them, Nanchang has recorded a GDP growth rate lower than the provincial average for four consecutive years from 2022 to 2025.

Taiyuan's GDP growth rate has lagged behind the provincial average for nearly 5 consecutive years, and its GDP growth rate in the past two years was only 1.1% and 1.3% respectively, ranking last among the 27 provincial capital cities across the country.

In the first half of this year, the GDP growth rates of the two cities still fell behind the national average level.

In addition, from the perspective of population attraction, Nanchang saw a negative growth in its permanent resident population in 2025, while Taiyuan only added more than 10,000 residents. This shows that the development vitality and factor resource agglomeration capacity of the two cities still need to be improved.

Such performance naturally makes it impossible for the two cities to truly assume the "leading role" in the overall development of their respective provinces, let alone "move ahead and set an example".

At such a critical development juncture, it is obviously not a coincidence that the two cities simultaneously received high-level support from the central and provincial authorities within a short period of time.

To a certain extent, this is not only "assigning more responsibilities", but also boosting morale and giving reassurance.

03

For Nanchang and Taiyuan, there are obvious differences in their resource endowments, industrial structures, economic and population sizes.

However, the two cities, one was once a traditional industrial hub, and the other used to thrive on the coal industry, both had their own glorious moments. At the same time, the current "sluggishness" shared by the two cities can be traced to the same root cause, that is, it is related to industrial transformation.

For example, Nanchang's traditional pillar industries including electronic information, automobile manufacturing, textile and garment have all undergone profound industry changes in recent years.

However, in this new round of emerging industry tracks represented by AI hard technology, the two cities failed to secure a competitive position like Wuhan and Hefei which are also located in central China, leading to a phased "stuck point" in the transformation of old and new growth drivers.

Taiyuan is a typical resource-based city. Its four traditional industries of coal, coking, steel and power are deeply tied to resource cycles, and their development trend shows obvious cyclical fluctuations, with insufficient internal resilience.

Meanwhile, the four advantageous industries that Taiyuan has proposed to develop and expand in recent years, namely new materials, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, and new-generation information technology and semiconductors, have not yet formed sufficient new growth driver support.

This conference also clearly put forward that Taiyuan should actively explore the transformation development path of promoting the upgrading of non-coal traditional industries and fostering new non-coal emerging industries based on local realities, and form a "dual-engine" driving system of "coal science" and high-quality development of non-coal industries.

Overall, the transformation of the two cities is still underway, and a sense of urgency is indeed required.

04

It is worth noting that the central steering group put forward the same requirement at both conferences: overcome the wrong mindset of being reluctant to serve enterprises and the wrong thought of ignoring taxpayers (slack emotions).

Obviously, this directly points to the shortcomings in the business environment. And compared with the adjustment of industrial structure, the transformation of concepts and services is equally urgent, and even more fundamental. Of course, from another perspective, this is also the potential that the two cities can tap into.

Overall, the central authorities' direct involvement in the high-quality development deployment of provincial capitals releases a thought-provoking signal.

On the one hand, this is in line with the national-level emphasis on "major economic provinces should take on major responsibilities" on many previous occasions. It further demonstrates that as the core engine of regional development, the development quality of provincial capitals is never only related to the glory of a single city, and they must show their due responsibility in the overall provincial development. On the other hand, this also indicates that in the new development stage, the importance of central cities has not been weakened, but has become more prominent.

The logic is simple. Although the "strong provincial capital" strategy has long been controversial, one undeniable point is that the vast majority of provincial capitals are "important hubs for the whole province to gather resource factors, cultivate advantageous industries, and carry core functions", serving as the center of politics, economy, culture and transportation.

If the development of the provincial capital shows fatigue, the whole province cannot be truly "strong", which is also a kind of waste of resource endowments.

At the same time, for many provinces, the overall development capacity of the province directly depends on the development capacity and carrying capacity of the provincial capital. It is extremely critical whether the provincial capital can "genuinely lift the leading position of high-quality development".

In this sense, the two conferences in the south and the north may just be a start. Under the new pattern of regional competition and cooperation, provincial capitals will be entrusted with heavier missions and greater responsibilities.

This article is from WeChat Official Account "Western City Review", author: Xibu Jun, published with authorization from 36Kr.