Abstract: Tianjin’s role to serve the northeastern regions of China (including the capital Beijing) has historically been a very large and important one. Designated as a new economic zone, the so-called Tianjin Binhai New Area, is designed to strengthen Tianjin’s role as North China’s corridor and window towards the world. The spatial coverage of the Binhai Area is ca. 2700 square km, with a coastline of 153 km. Structurally, it supplements the Tianjin Free Trade Zone, and the Tianjin Economic-Technological Area (TEDA), and links the Tianjin as an urban locality to the coast.

The paper will mainly discuss three aspects of the Binhai New Area:

1.The historical function and ecological value of the area covered.

2.The notion of China’s “Three Norths” and the projected macro-regional impact of the new economic zone.

3.The mechanisms of “state-planned competitiveness” of the Binhai New Area in comparison to the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Yangzi River Delta (YRD) economic zones.