Article
Crafting a Sustainable Next Generation Infrastructure:
Evaluation of China’s New Infrastructure Construction Policies
Jun Wu * , Yuanjie Zhang and Zhun Shi
Citation: Wu, J.; Zhang, Y.; Shi, Z.
Crafting a Sustainable Next
Generation Infrastructure: Evaluation
of China’s New Infrastructure
Construction Policies. Sustainability
2021, 13, 6245. https://doi.org/
10.3390/su13116245
Academic Editor: Paolo Renna
Received: 5 May 2021
Accepted: 26 May 2021
Published: 1 June 2021
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4.0/).
School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Beijing 100876, China; zhangyuanjie@bupt.edu.cn (Y.Z.); shizhun@bupt.edu.cn (Z.S.)
* Correspondence: wujun1127@bupt.edu.cn
Abstract:
How to boost the economy and achieve more sustainable development with enhanced
quality, efficiency, and fairness by leveraging digital technology in the post-COVID-19 era has been an
important agenda faced by many countries. As China’s new infrastructure initiative has the potential
to open a new pathway for economic resilience, its policy characteristics and orientation have
attracted more and more attention by policy makers and researchers. Taking the new infrastructure
policies issued by Chinese local governments since 2020 as a data source, this paper, on the one hand,
uses text mining and social network analysis to reveal the scope and coverage of the construction of
new infrastructure and its orientation. On the other hand, a quantitative evaluation of 12 provincial
policies grounded on a revised framework and policy modeling consistency index approach was
conducted. The results show that Chinese governments adopt a bottom-up incrementalism planning
mode for the policy steering of the construction of new infrastructure. This policy arrangement is a
kind of goal-oriented modulation that makes planning more adaptive and participatory to enhance
the infrastructure sustainability.
Keywords:
new infrastructure construction; policy evaluation; policy modeling consistency index;
text mining; social network analysis; infrastructure sustainability
1. Introduction
The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact and the uncertainty about its future
course and consequences are forcing changes in organizational, industrial, and societal
fields. Meanwhile, fast development of the new generation of information and commu-
nication technology is not only accelerating the growth of the digital industry, but also
promoting the deepening of traditional industry digitization. How to facilitate achievement
of the Sustainable Development Goals by leveraging digital technology is a key concern for
developed and developing countries. The significance of the new infrastructure construc-
tion (NIC) has been highlighted by the Chinese government in recent years as the digital
transformation of many industries in China has benefited from the comparative advantages
of more advanced infrastructure, richer business scenarios, and the larger market scale. In
December 2018, the Central Economic Work Conference held by the central government
made clear guidance for the promotion of NIC, and those related to 5G commercialization,
artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, Internet of Things, and so on were designated as
the investments of the new infrastructure. To alleviate the dual impact of COVID-19 and
market downturn, the concept of new infrastructure has also for the first time been included
in China’s Government Work Report for 2020, which vowed to develop next-generation
information networks and expand 5G applications, build more charging facilities, promote
wider use of new-energy automobiles, stimulate new consumer demand, and promote
industrial upgrading. With the new infrastructure initiative rising to the national strategic
level, many local governments have issued NIC policies to respond to the central govern-
ment guidelines and stimulate infrastructure-related investments. As policy text is the
reflection and behavior imprint of the government thought and analysis, evaluation of NIC
Sustainability 2021, 13, 6245. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116245 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
