The emphasis of China's regional development strategies has evolved from balanced development (1949-1978) through imbalanced development (1979-1990) to the coordinated development (1991 till now) since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The newest evolvement is characterized by the following trends. At first, not only the central government which was the only decision maker in the period of plan economy but also regional governments are participating in the making of regional development strategies and policies. Secondly, the objectives of the regional development strategies have shifted from the national safety in the plan economy period through the economic development at the beginning of the reform to the multifaceted development including economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection. Finally,the contents of regional development strategies are focusing on more detailed spatial levels. At the same time, the effectiveness of regional development strategies is weakened by their own flaws in four aspects. 1) The ongoing regional development strategies specially designated for given regions aim at seeking preferential policies from the central government rather than essential institutional innovation which is more urgent;2) There exist still much incoordination both among the regional strategies from different regions, among from different levels and even among different sectors of the central government; 3) The bottlenecks which hinder the market integration, in particular the institutional barriers to the free flowing of production factors are not fully eradicated; 4) There are disproportionally more regional development strategies for the developed regions than for the undeveloped ones.