THE STATE COUNCIL RECENTLY APPROVED A PLAN, submitted by the Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provincial governments, to develop a cross-province city cluster along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Comments:

Officials and media outlets like to boast how big the city cluster might be. And truly, the planned city cluster is big - 317,000 square kilometers, equivalent to 85 percent of Japan and 89 percent of Germany in size. However, being big does not necessarily mean being competitive, because even cooperation among cities within the same province is still hindered by bureaucratism; the barriers need to be removed to realize trans-provincial cooperation.

Beijing News, April 8