Abstract:

Following the island-wide independent customs operation (“island-wide closure”) of the Hainan Free Trade Port, the Hainan FTP will provide a new practical model for China’s coordinated regional development. Coordinated regional development is, first and foremost, coordination under the rule of law, and coordinated regional legislation is an important tool for the Hainan FTP to carry out regional cooperation after the island-wide closure. At present, efforts to advance coordinated regional legislation for the Hainan FTP face issues such as complex legislative competences, constrained models and pathways for coordination, and relatively weak institutional and infrastructural foundations. It may be considered to promote unified legislation at the central level, and to improve the mechanism for coordinated regional legislation by straightening out the relationship among legislative competences, exploring and enriching coordination models and pathways, and enhancing foundational conditions in both “hardware” and “software.”

Keywords:

Hainan Free Trade Port; island-wide closure; coordinated regional legislation; coordinated regional development

【CLC Classification】DF01 【Document Code】A

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to coordinated regional development, continuously enriching and improving the concepts, strategies, and policy framework for coordinated regional development. The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC proposed to “thoroughly implement the strategy of coordinated regional development.”[1] The Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, adopted upon deliberation at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC, proposed to “give full play to the overlay effects of the strategy of coordinated regional development, major regional strategies, the strategy of main functional zones, and the new-type urbanization strategy; optimize the layout of major productive forces; leverage the role of key regions as growth poles; and build a regional economic layout and territorial spatial system featuring complementary advantages and high-quality development.”[2]

On December 18, 2025, the island-wide independent customs operation of the Hainan Free Trade Port was officially launched, entering an institutional model of “opening the first line, controlling the second line, and ensuring free movement within the island.” With its distinct institutional particularities, how the Hainan FTP will coordinate development with other inland regions in the future, realize the overlay of regional advantages, and further serve the overall national development agenda has become an important issue worthy of attention. Coordinated regional development is, first of all, coordinated development in terms of the rule of law. Reform and the rule of law are like the two wings of a bird and the two wheels of a cart: the deeper reform and opening-up goes, the more it requires the assurance of the rule of law. Coordinated regional legislation is one of the basic paths and important guarantees for advancing regional development practices in China. After the island-wide closure, it will also become the institutional foundation and key tool for the Hainan FTP to deepen regional cooperation.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC proposed to “explore coordinated regional legislation.”[3] Both the revised Organic Law of the Local People’s Congresses and Local People’s Governments of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Organic Law of Local Governments) and the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Legislation Law) contain provisions relevant to coordinated regional legislation. Clearly, coordinated regional legislation activities for the Hainan FTP enjoy explicit policy support and legal space. However, in the context of the island-wide closure, the concrete practice of coordinated regional legislation faces new issues. How to promote coordinated regional development through coordinated regional legislation remains a topic that requires further discussion.

Important Functions

Coordinated regional legislation helps realize the strategic requirements for the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port. Taking the Hainan FTP as the coordinate origin, the above strategic requirements include three levels. First, integrating regional development resources within the Hainan FTP (hereinafter referred to as “intra-region”). Second, promoting cooperation and coordination between the Hainan FTP and other regions (hereinafter referred to as “inter-region”). Third, enhancing the overall level of the Hainan FTP in serving the overall national development agenda.

Institutional guarantee for consolidating intra-regional development synergy.The advantage of coordinated intra-regional development lies in enabling optimal allocation of resources and complementarity of advantages within the region, allowing the constituent units of this “intra-region” to develop in a coordinated and orderly manner and generating a “1+1>2” effect. To achieve such an effect, it is necessary to break local protectionism and remove unhealthy competition among regions. In the construction of the Hainan FTP, coordinated legislation is needed to straighten out intra-regional development relations and consolidate intra-regional development synergy.

On the one hand, overall coordination, systematic advancement, and balanced development constitute basic requirements for building the Hainan FTP, and coordinated regional legislation helps translate such requirements into specific legal guarantees. For example, both the Guiding Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Hainan in Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Opening-up (hereinafter referred to as the Guiding Opinions) and the Master Plan for the Construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port (hereinafter referred to as the Master Plan), issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, stress the importance of systematic coordination of reform measures, requiring that various reform initiatives complement and reinforce each other. “One chessboard for the whole province, and integrated urbanization of the whole island” is a long-standing regional development concept consistently upheld in Hainan Province. This concept highly aligns with the documents’ requirements for reform coordination, aiming to break geographical and institutional barriers and promote a development pattern featuring coordinated linkage and holistic advancement.

On the other hand, uneven levels of development and significant differences in real conditions among areas within the Hainan FTP constitute a reality that must be addressed. Coordinated regional legislation helps guarantee coordinated and orderly intra-regional development. For this reason, Article 10 of the Regulations of Hainan Province on the Formulation and Approval of Local Regulations stipulates: “People’s congresses and their standing committees of cities divided into districts and ethnic autonomous areas may, in accordance with the needs of coordinated regional development, establish a mechanism for coordinated regional legislative work, and jointly formulate local regulations and autonomous regulations for implementation within their respective administrative regions or relevant regions.”[4]

An important tool for stimulating inter-regional cooperation momentum.Strengthening regional spillover and driving effects, deepening integration and coordination, stimulating linkage momentum with other domestic regions and major strategies, and promoting complementarity and overlay of advantages constitute one of the main strategic orientations of the Hainan FTP. On the morning of November 6, 2025, after hearing a work report on the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port in Sanya, Hainan, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Strengthen coordinated development with the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, deepen regional cooperation with the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River Economic Belt and other regions, and deeply integrate into the joint construction of the ‘Belt and Road’.”[5] The Guiding Opinions also previously set out “serving and integrating into major national strategies” as a dedicated section and made specific arrangements regarding “strengthening regional cooperation, exchanges and interaction.”[6]

Meanwhile, coordinated regional cooperation covers a very wide range of fields. According to the Implementation Opinions of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee and the Hainan Provincial People’s Government on Establishing a More Effective New Mechanism for Coordinated Regional Development, it is necessary to “actively align with the construction of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, and fully promote coordinated linkage in industrial division of labor, infrastructure, public services, environmental governance, opening-up, reform and innovation, etc.”[7] This indicates that there are clear and specific coordination needs between the Hainan FTP and relevant regions, involving multi-dimensional arrangements. In particular, after the island-wide closure, significant differences may emerge in rules and mechanisms among regions. Promoting coordinated regional legislation helps alleviate constraints and resistance arising from such differences at the source.

A key measure for enhancing the level of serving national development.General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “The main purpose of building the Hainan Free Trade Port to high standards is to promote high-quality development in Hainan and help the whole country build a new development paradigm.”[8] The island-wide closure is an important node in building the Hainan FTP. This requires the FTP not only to “serve and integrate into major national strategies” through inter-regional cooperation, but also to shoulder broader missions within the overall national development agenda, proactively aligning with and supporting the realization of national development goals in multiple fields such as industrial upgrading and innovation exploration.

The Master Plan proposes to “gather global high-quality factors of production, strive to achieve new breakthroughs in promoting institutional innovation, cultivating growth momentum, and building a new pattern of comprehensive opening-up, and provide solid support for realizing national strategic goals.”[9] Coordinated regional legislation practices help expand the spillover pathways and application scenarios of the Hainan FTP’s institutional innovation achievements and reform-and-development experience, enabling the pilot experiences of the Hainan FTP in economic system reform and social governance innovation, and its achievements in aligning with high-standard international rules, to form coordinated applicability with other regions within a localized scope. This provides a solid foundation for wider applicability of relevant rules and systems, and continuously responds to real needs in national development across various types of rules and institution. In this sense, coordinated regional legislation will organically integrate with the Hainan FTP’s “pioneering trials” and proactive innovation, promoting the Hainan FTP’s future exploration and practice of rules and mechanisms in a targeted, step-by-step, and selective manner.

Practical Challenges

At present, in advancing coordinated regional legislation, the Hainan FTP faces multiple challenges, including complex legislative competences, constrained coordination models and pathways, and relatively weak foundations in “hardware” and “software.” In an inter-regional coordination context, these problems may become even more pronounced and therefore require key focus.

Legislative competences are complex.On the one hand, multiple types of legislative powers are involved within the Hainan FTP. In addition to the general legislative power of a provincial-level administrative region, Hainan also has legislative power as a special economic zone and the power to formulate FTP regulations. Within the Hainan FTP region, there also exist the legislative powers of “cities divided into districts” (such as Haikou and Sanya) and ethnic autonomous legislative powers (such as Baisha Li Autonomous County and Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County). On the other hand, when the Hainan FTP engages in inter-regional coordinated legislation with other regions, legislative competences may become even more complex. For example, when coordinated legislative matters involve the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, the complexity of the Hainan FTP, coupled with the GBA’s characteristic of “one country, two systems and three legal jurisdictions,” will make the legislative situation even more complicated.

Coordination models and pathways still require exploration.In the context of the island-wide closure, the current legal bases are relatively principled, and coordination models and pathways for coordinated regional legislation still need to be explored in practice.

First, the main dimension remains to be observed. Whether under the Legislation Law or the Organic Law of Local Governments, the main of coordinated legislation are primarily the people’s congresses and their standing committees of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government, and cities divided into districts and autonomous prefectures; neither law addresses coordinated regional legislation involving government entities as legislative subjects. Under the institutional arrangement of “opening the first line, controlling the second line, and ensuring free movement within the island,” the government will undertake large actual working, and inter-regional cooperation is also mainly government-led, primarily carried out through inter-governmental agreements. For example, the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Promoting Mutually Oriented Development between Guangdong and Hainan, signed in 2023, was concluded in the form of an inter-governmental agreement between the governments of Guangdong Province and Hainan Province. In the context of “granting Hainan greater autonomy in reform,” whether there is room to explore the government’s status as a main in coordinated legislation, whether restrictions on government coordinated legislative powers are conducive to promoting the Hainan FTP’s participation in regional cooperation and development, whether they enhance the legality of its regional cooperation practices, and whether they facilitate the regional spillover of the Hainan FTP’s rule-and-mechanism achievements—these questions remain to be observed.

Second, the effectiveness of coordinated regional legislation requires attention. At present, there are no unified provisions or practices regarding the forms of coordinated legislation. Depending on different models of coordinated legislation or different stages of the legislative process, coordinated regional legislation may be divided into pre-legislation coordination, drafting-process coordination, deliberation or voting coordination, and promulgation and implementation coordination.[10] Overall, this also reflects that there may be differences in the degree of coordination, and the effects of coordination often naturally emerge as the process advances through different stages. The degree of legislative coordination directly affects the role of the Hainan FTP’s policy advantages, which is also an issue requiring attention.

The “hardware” and “software” foundations for coordination need improvement.At present, coordinated regional legislation for the Hainan FTP still needs further improvement, both in terms of “hardware” conditions such as specific working mechanism configurations and in terms of “software” conditions such as concepts and culture.

Insufficient mechanism building for coordinated regional legislation may directly affect the effective initiation and advancement of coordinated legislation. Constructing specific and operable coordination mechanisms is often a necessary condition for achieving good coordination effects. The Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Establishing a More Effective New Mechanism for Coordinated Regional Development emphasized the importance of institutionalization in coordinated regional development. From other relatively mature regional cooperation practices in China, the establishment of coordination mechanisms constitutes an intrinsic foundation for effective practice. In this respect, the Hainan FTP is relatively weak, and the process of coordinated legislative work lacks corresponding mechanism tools.

The Hainan FTP also needs further improvement in “software” conditions such as the culture and concepts of regional coordination. Improving regional culture and concepts helps strengthen the internal driving force of regional cooperation, cultivate acceptance and recognition among groups within the region toward corresponding coordination measures, and enhance the effectiveness of rules and mechanisms. Regional rule-of-law culture has an inherent promoting function for building a regional rule-of-law society and advancing regional development.[11] Perhaps due to geographical location and other reasons, the Hainan FTP’s practice in participating in regional cooperation remains relatively limited, and the atmosphere of regional cooperative governance needs to be further strengthened. For example, in day-to-day development and construction, governance thinking featuring regional co-building, resource sharing, and common standards still needs to be cultivated.

Advancement Strategies

In response to the main problems identified above, and in light of the institutional characteristics of the Hainan Free Trade Port, it may be considered to promote unified legislation at the central level, and to improve the coordinated regional legislation mechanism by straightening out legislative competence relationships, exploring and enriching coordination models and pathways, and enhancing foundational “hardware” and “software” conditions.

Straighten out legislative competence relationships through unified central legislation. In coordinated regional legislation issues, the complex relationship among legislative competences is only a formal manifestation; intrinsically, it involves the allocation and delimitation of legislative power. Cross-regional legislation is essentially an issue of allocating power between the central and local levels,[12] and this is evidently even more the case for coordinated regional legislation concerning the Hainan Free Trade Port. Therefore, for existing problems such as unclear scope of coordinated legislative matters and unclear legislative competences of the coordinating subjects, resolving them through negotiation among coordinating subjects is not an appropriate response, nor can it fundamentally solve the problems. It may be considered to adopt unified central legislation to provide institutional guarantee for all aspects of coordinated regional legislation, ensuring standardized and orderly advancement.On the one hand, unified central legislation can clarify basic principles and guiding mind, straighten out existing problems regarding legislative competences, and rationalize competence relationships. On the other hand, it helps express central authority in coordinated regional legislation practice, delineate the boundaries of coordinated legislation, and enhance its scientificity and effectiveness. In fact, in theoretical research on domestic regional cooperation practices, there has long been a viewpoint advocating the formulation of unified central legislation,[13] calling for the clarification—through a unified legislative form—of key issues such as the competences of coordinating legislative subjects, the hierarchy of legal effect, procedural rules, and the division of legislative matters between central and local levels.[14]

Explore and enrich coordination models and pathways.The Hainan Free Trade Port can leverage its policy advantages in reform and innovation and proactively explore and enrich models and pathways for coordinated regional legislation.First, explore and innovate mechanisms for government participation. Although current coordinated regional legislation does not position government entities as legislative subjects, Article 80 of the Organic Law of Local Governments, which provides that local people’s governments at or above the county level may jointly establish a working mechanism for coordinated regional development, indicates that there is not absolutely no space for coordination. Combined with the Hainan FTP’s reform autonomy, it is first possible to explore richer mechanisms for government participation and coordination within coordinated regional legislation, or to explore including same-level government entities within the scope of coordinated regional legislative subjects in certain fields, thereby continuously strengthening the role of government in coordinated legislation. When conditions mature, the main status of government coordinated regional legislation can be explicitly established through amendments to the Legislation Law and the Organic Law of Local Governments.

Second, establish diversified and progressive coordination models. With respect to legislative links such as legislative planning, drafting and revision, research and problem-solving, and deliberation, formulate specific coordination work rules. On this basis, establish coordination models of varying depths, allowing coordinating subjects to select different models according to the rule needs of relevant fields of affairs. After long-term accumulation of coordinated practice experience, and when conditions permit, gradually establish stable, deep, whole-process coordination in relevant fields, and then extend it to more fields and wider scopes. At the same time, innovate forms of coordinated regional legislation, exploring taking cooperation agreements among relevant subjects directly as, or transforming them into, the space and pathways for coordinated regional legislation.

Enhance foundational “hardware” and “software” conditions.On the one hand, enhance the level of mechanism configuration for coordinated regional legislation in the Hainan Free Trade Port. Strengthen the building of organizational mechanisms for coordinated legislation, and pay attention to supporting mechanisms including benefit-compensation mechanisms, coordinated mechanisms for the review and clean of regulations, supervision and evaluation mechanisms, and joint training and exchange mechanisms, so as to ensure steady advancement of coordinated legislative work at different levels.

On the other hand, cultivate an atmosphere and theory of coordinated cooperation within the region. Improve multi-party participation mechanisms, and provide different subjects with stable opportunities and platforms for consultation, communication, and exchange of views. While enhancing the fairness and scientificity of coordination practices, this will also strengthen the overall effectiveness of coordinated regional practices.