The 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that China’s economic development has stepped into a new period, where the focus of economic development should be on quality rather than speed, and that China’s economy is moving toward high-quality development. Encouraging HQED in the new era is an inevitable trend in China. The western region holds a crucial strategic position, but because of the constraints imposed by objective natural conditions, humanistic backgrounds, and other factors, it has lagged behind in development as a whole, being the “weak spot” of China’s economic and social development. There is an urgent need to strengthen the HQED of the region. The Guiding Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting the Formation of a New Pattern in the Large-scale Development of China’s Western Regions also pointed out that the unbalanced and inadequate development of West China remains a pressing issue. Given that consolidating poverty eradication is still an arduous task and that there is a large gap in development compared with the eastern region, it is necessary to study the issue of western HQED. Therefore, this paper focuses on West China from the perspective of studying the HQED of the western region in recent years and hopes to summarize the development problems, advantages, disadvantages, and development trends of this western region and provides corresponding development suggestions according to the development characteristics of each region. The main problems solved in this paper are as follows: What is the level of HQED in West China? Is there a large difference in the HQED of West China? If so, where do these differences come from? What is the trend of HQED in West China? How can we raise the level of HQED in West China to a higher level? The research of this paper is helpful to provinces in the western region such that they can examine their own development, and the suggestions put forward in this paper are of great significance for the scientific promotion of the high-quality development level of the western economy. This paper consists of seven parts. The first part reviews the research on the quality of development and the impact of economic policies. The second part constructs an evaluation index system for HQED in the western region by referring to the existing research and expounds on the indexes contained in each sub-dimension. The third part briefly describes the study area and study methods of the article. The fourth part analyzes the result of the high-quality development of the western economy. The fifth part analyzes the regional differences, dynamic evolution process, and development trend of HQED in the western region. The sixth part discusses problems that exist in the economic development of the western region according to the research results and then provides corresponding suggestions according to these problems, and it analyzes the limitations of the article and future research trends. The seventh part summarizes the conclusion of the whole paper.
Literature Review
Some scholars have begun to study economic growth and economic development in the last century, but at first, scholars were more concerned about the speed of economic growth, and the selected measurement indicators were also very singular [
1]. Kamaev (1977) was the first to define the “quality of economic growth”, stating that “quality of economic growth” is a complex concept that includes the rate of economic development, the quality of the goods produced, and the efficiency of the material means of production. Scholars then discussed the concept of the “quality of economic development”. Xu Xuemin argued that the improvement of production efficiency is equivalent to an increase in the quality of the economy; i.e., it is the ability to produce more output for a given input [
2]. Other scholars believe that the quality of economic development should include the regulation of economic risk and allocations of social resources (Thomas 2001) [
3], the social order and health of the people (Barro RJ 2002) [
4], the urban ecosystem and social welfare (Fabio Sabatini 2008) [
5], and the economic growth and living standards of people (Boyle, D.; Simms, 2009) [
6]. It can be seen that the early scholars’ research identified the limitations of a single indicator in measurement but failed to establish a complete system to study the “quality of economic development”.
In later years, scholars tried to set up a complete system to define and study the “quality of economic development”. The system constructed by Liu Shucheng (2007) [
7] showed that the “quality of economic development” includes ”the stability of the economic development, the sustainability of the development model, the harmony of the development structure, and the harmony of the development interests”. The system built by Qian Xiaojing and Hui Kang (2009) [
8] contains five points, that is, “the structure of development, the stability of development, the distribution of benefits and outcomes of development, the use of development resources, and the environmental costs of development”. Meng Xia (2011) [
9] pointed out that the quality of economic growth is driven by the five factors of “balance, inclusiveness, sustainability, innovation, and stability”. It is obvious that, at this stage, the research on the “quality of economic development” began to start from the perspective of the system, but scholars did not have a unified view of how to select the system.
Since the United Nations put forward 17 sustainable development indicators [
10] in 2015 and China proposed “HQED” and its five new visions for development [
11], the system of research on the quality of China’s economic development has gradually shown signs of unification; i.e., most scholars have begun to define and evaluate the quality of economic development according to their own understandings of the “new visions for development” and the current economic development in China. At the same time, there has been a shift in the measurement of the quality of economic development from a single indicator, total factor productivity [
12], to a composite indicator encompassing social governance, quality of life, employment, education, and national life expectancy [
13,
14,
15,
16]. With the new visions for development gaining popularity, innovation, coordination, green development, opening up, and sharing have been the main components of the measurement indicators of HQED in China [
17]. Yang et al. (2021) evaluated HQED in China from the perspective of economic structure, economic efficiency, and ecological environment and explored the relationship between green finance, fintech, and HQED [
18]. Pan et al. (2021) constructed an indicator system to measure the HQED index of 301 counties and explored its spatial pattern in the five dimensions of economic development, innovation efficiency, environmental impact, ecological services, and livelihood [
19]. Liu Yaxue, Tian Chengshi, and Cheng Liyan constructed a comprehensive indicator system to measure HQED based on the five development visions and analyzed the measurements of 99 countries [
20]. Kong et al. (2021) constructed a quality index system for economic growth, including efficiency, stability, and sustainability [
21]. Li et al. (2021) established a multi-indicator system to calculate HQED, including five dimensions and 24 detailed indicators that fully correspond to the five visions for development [
14]. Guo et al. (2023) constructed a municipal indicator-evaluating system for HQED in five dimensions of industrial structure, inclusive total factor productivity, technological innovation, ecological environment, and living standards of residents [
22]. Li Fanglin and Li Mingdi (2021) built an evaluation system including economic operation, social development, and ecological sustainability to calculate the HQED of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta and found there are significant differences between cities [
16]. Guan et al. (2023) constructed an indicator system to measure HQED in the Yellow River Delta in terms of innovation, coordination, green development, opening up, and sharing and analyzed its distributional and spatiotemporal evolution characteristics [
23]. Yin Peiwei, Xie Pan, and Lei Hongzhen (2023) [
24] constructed an indicator system to measure the HQED of nine national central cities based pm the three dimensions of quality change, efficiency change, and power change on the supply side of economic operation and found that the composite index of the HQED of national central cities showed an increase during the past 17 years but a gradient decline from east to west. Chao Xiaojing, Lian Yuanmei, and Shen Lu (2023) [
25] constructed an index system based on the three-dimensional framework of “conditions–process–results” to measure the HQED level of 282 cities at the prefecture level and above in China over the past 18 years and found that the HQED of these cities went up steadily, with a narrowing gap between the three dimensions. Li Yan (2023) [
26], by incorporating the government’s governance effectiveness into the study of HQED, measured the HQED of 30 provinces in China using the entropy weight method and found an increase in the HQED index of China and the eastern, central, and western regions every year. Chen Zixi (2022) [
27] built a measurement indicator system based on the “new visions for development” and evaluated the dynamic evolution and spatial convergence of the HQED of urban agglomerations in the three dimensions of time, region, and space, finding that it is significantly polarized and that there is an obvious gradient of high in the east and low in the west with a narrowing gap. Liu Yan (2023) [
28] constructed a regional HQED measurement system based on the new visions for development and analyzed the spatial–temporal evolution and regional differences of HQED in Hunan Province using the entropy method and spatial analysis tools on a multi-scale, finding that HQED in Hunan goes up on the whole, but there is a large gap between the four regional plates in the province.
In addition, scholars have also begun to pay attention to the impact of economic policies on HQED, and most of these studies have focused on the three sub-dimensions of green development, innovation development, and openness development. In terms of green-related policies, some scholars have said that environmental supervision (Yin Xingmin et al., 2023) [
29], environmental regulation (Wang Jun and Zhang Guixiang 2022) [
30], green finance, and energy development (Wang Rong and Wang Fayuan 2022) [
31] have a significant positive impact on HQED, while directive-based environmental regulation significantly hinders the improvement of the quality of economic development (Yin Xingmin 2023) [
29]. Some scholars believe that green finance (Gao Jing et al., 2023) [
32] and environmental supervision (Chen Lingming et al., 2020) [
33] can promote HQED by changing industrial structure, and environmental regulation (Yu Zhuoxi et al., 2023) [
34] inhibits HQED by influencing fiscal decentralization. In addition, Liu Yun et al. (2021) [
35] indicate that environmental regulations have a significant impact on HQED in the central and eastern regions, while this impact is not significant in the western regions. Lin Tao et al. (2022) [
36] believe that there is a U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation intensity and HQED, and the correlation between environmental regulations and HQED is affected by the level of green technology innovation. AlKhars Mohammed et al., 2020 [
37], however, suggest that GCC countries should be cautious in implementing energy conservation policies because the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth here mainly supports the growth and feedback hypothesis. Lu Weixue et al. (2023) [
38] found that the combination of environmental regulation and control policies has obvious synergistic effects on HQED. Related to innovation policy, Qi Peipei et al. (2023) [
39] found that data factors play an important driving role in high-quality economic growth and have a greater impact on coordinated development, green development, and innovative development, while the impact on open development is not obvious. Ding Chenhui et al. (2022) [
40] suggest that, although the digital economy can promote HQED, its role is diminishing. What is surprising is the research on the opening-up policy. Jahanger A. (2021) [
41] said that the comprehensive quality of FDI did not have a significant impact on the high-quality development of China’s economy. Luo Haiyan and Qu Xiaoe (2023) [
42] also indicate that China’s export trade has a positive impact on the opening-up and coordination subsystem of HQED only when the regional absorption capacity is higher than the threshold. It can be seen that the most direct and obvious impact on HQED is policies related to green development, which is worthy of reference in the subsequent provision of policy suggestions in this paper.
In summary, the current research on HQED in China has established a highly accepted method and paradigm. That is, this research has built an indicator system to measure HQED based on its own innovation points and the new development visions and then analyzes the differences and development trends between regions within the scope of the study using analytical methods and pointed out problems in existing development, providing corresponding recommendations for future development. A wide range of studies on HQED in China are already available at scales including the state, urban agglomerations, provinces, central cities, and other regions, but there is still little attention paid to the western region. Given the importance of its strategic location, studying its HQED is a vital task in the context of the continuous promotion of the strategy of large-scale development in West China. Based on relevant research and according to the new visions for development, this paper constructs an indicator system for evaluating western HQED to measure its development level with analysis and puts forward reasonable suggestions to address the existing problems.