Synchronous Development Strategy of China’s New Four Modernizations: An Analysis Based on Interactive Mode

The Chinese government has proposed a synchronous development strategy for new urbanization, industrialization, informatization, and agricultural modernization (called “New Four Modernization,” NFM), which provides new ideas for solving social sustainable development problems such as large urban-rural gaps, irrational industrial structures, and environmental pollution. This study aims to examine their interactive modes and provide a theoretical basis and empirical evidence for the synchronous development of NFM. The analysis started with the interaction mechanisms of new urbanization, industrialization, informatization, and agricultural modernization. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to comprehensively evaluate the level of NFM development. A vector auto-regression (VAR) model was constructed to analyze the interaction effect empirically. The findings were as follows: (1) China’s new urbanization, industrialization, informatization, and agricultural modernization development levels were rising, and there was a long-term equilibrium relationship between them. (2) The Granger joint test found that the combined effects of any three developments in new urbanization, industrialization, informatization and agricultural modernization have a significant causal relationship with the development of the other, which showed that the synchronous development of NFM had an inherent motivation. (3) New urbanization occurred at the core of NFM interaction mode and was the main driving force for the development of the other three modernizations. Lastly, this study provides a new case for better understanding the interaction mode of NFM in emerging countries such as China, and provides Chinese experience for developing countries.