Big gains, big gaps

But analysts warned that Beijing must figure out ways to tap the internal power of the western area for sustained economic growth, if it does not want the second round of the western development strategy to become another government spending binge.

The first phrase of the "go west" campaign during 2000 to 2009 was successful, at least in part.

During the ten years, the annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of the 12 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the western hinterlands, reached an average at 11.9 percent, about two percentage points higher than the national level, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's economic planning unit.

Over this period, the fixed asset investment to western regions hit 20 trillion yuan ($2.95 trillion), 5.5 times as much as the total for the 50 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Meanwhile, urban residents saw their net income rise by 170 percent, and farmers saw theirs up 130 percent, with the population living below the poverty line in western regions decreasing 60 percent to 23.7 million.

The most eye-catching success may be the infrastructure boom.

Over the past decade, the total length of railways in the western area grew by 50 percent, highways by 180 percent, and there's now five times as much electricity capacity as before.

But as far as living conditions are concerned, the gap between the coastal provinces and the western hinterlands has barely shrunk.

By 2009, the per capita GDP of the western area was just 45 percent of that in the eastern provinces, and the per capita net income of urban residents in western regions is only 68 percent of their eastern counterparts, according to the NDRC. For rural families, it's only 53 percent.

The difference in per capita GDP between the western hinterlands and the coastal provinces has actually grown wider in absolute terms, although the western area seems to be catching up with a faster GDP growth in the past few years.

In 2000, the per capita GDP of the western area was 7,000 yuan less than that of the eastern area; by 2009, however, the difference had widened to 21,000 yuan.

And when it comes to social welfare and public services such as healthcare, education, housing and old-age care, western regions lag even farther behind their eastern counterparts.