Towards a 'harmonious society'? Multidimensional development and the convergence of Chinese provinces

The paper analyses multidimensional patterns of development across Chinese provinces over the last two decades (1993–2016) from a balanced or ‘harmonious society’ perspective. The harmonious multidimensional index and other indexes are introduced to explore different development patterns among Chinese provinces. In order to analyse multidimensional convergence amongst the provinces, β- and σ-convergence methods are applied. The results indicate that recent efforts to move towards a ‘harmonious society’ are paying off, although notable differences across provinces remain and specific domains deserve special consideration.