Fundamentals of China's urbanization and policy

China Review

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 63-94

  Chan, Kam Wing ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

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EID: 77955889017     PISSN: 16802012     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Kam Wing Chan, Vernon Henderson, and Kai Yuen Tsui, "Spatial dimensions of Chinese economic development," in China's Great Economic Transformation: Origins, Mechanisms, and Consequences of the Postreform Economic Boom, ed. by Thomas Rawski and Loren Brandt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 776-828;
2. Clifton W. Pannell, "China's continuing urban transition," Environment and Planning A, Vol. 34, No. 9 (2002): 1571-1589.
3. Globalization is another fundamental aspect of urbanization, which has been addressed quite extensively in the literature and will not be tackled here.
4. Some of the pertinent issues have been well covered elsewhere. Examples of summary or review articles in urban geography and policy are: Si-ming Li, "China's changing urban geography: A review of major forces at work," Issues & Studies, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2005): 67-104
5. , and Laurence Ma and Fulong Wu, "Restructuring the Chinese city: Diverse processes and reconstituted spaces," in Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing Society, Economy and Space, ed. by Laurence Ma and Fulong Wu (New York: Routledge, 2005), 1-20.
6. A recent book addition in Chinese is Gu Chaolin, Yu Taofang, and Li Wangming, Zhongguo chengshihua: Geju, guocheng, jili (China's urbanization: Configuration, process, and mechanisms), (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2008).
7. Richard Walker and Daniel Buck, "The Chinese road: Cities in the transition to capitalism," New Left Review, Vol. 46 (2007): 39-66;
8. Shahid Yusuf and Tony Saich, China Urbanizes: Consequences, Strategies and Policies (Washington DC: The World Bank, 2008);
9. Shenjing He and Fulong Wu, "China's emerging neoliberal urbanism: Perspectives from urban redevelopment," Antipode, Vol. 41, No. 2 (2009): 282-304.
10. Examples are Wing-Shing Tang and Him Chung, "Rural-urban transition in China: Illegal land use and construction," Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 43, No.1 (2002): 43-62;
11. Kai Yuen Tsui and Youqiang Wang, "Between Separate Stoves and a Single Menu: Fiscal Decentralization in China," The China Quarterly, No. 177 (2004): 71-90;
12. David Kelly, "Reincorporating the Mingong: Dilemmas of citizen status," in Migration and Social Protection in China, ed. by Ingrid Nielsen and Russell Smyth (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2008), 17-30.
13. For example, Zhou Yixing examined the special characteristics (tese) of China's urbanization in his lecture entitled "Foreign Urbanization Development Models and the Special Characteristics of China's Urbanization Road" delivered to China's supreme decision-making body, the Politburo, in 2005
14. (as noted in Zhou Yixing, "Guanyu Zhongguo chengshihua sudu de sikao" (Contemplating the speed of urbanization in China), Chengshi guihua (City Planning Review), No. 20, Supplement (2006): 32-40).
15. For instance, Thomas J. Campanella also discusses what he considers as the most distinguishing Chinese urban experience in the last chapter of his new book, The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008). I believe that neither Zhou nor Campanella has covered the two points I am examining below.
16. According to the annual survey of China's 500 largest enterprises, 70% were state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 2007. These SOEs accounted for 85% of all the revenues of these 500 enterprises. None of the top 20 was a private company. See http://ccnews.people.com.cn/GB/87320/6202521.html. The same point can be made using 2008 data.
17. See Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), Chapter 1.
18. This has been well researched. See Gur Ofer, "Economizing on urbanization in socialist countries: Historical necessity or socialist strategy?" in Internal Migration: A Comparative Perspective, ed. by Alan A. Brown and Egon Neuberger (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 277-303;
19. Kam Wing Chan, Cities with Invisible Walls: Reinterpreting Urbanization in Post-1949 China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994);
20. Orjan Sjoberg, "Shortage, priority and urban growth: Towards a theory of urbanisation under central planning," Urban Studies, Vol. 36, No. 13 (1999): 2217-2236.
21. In relation to this, the existence of a large "floating population" has contributed greatly to the difficulties in measuring the numbers of "urban residents," and, hence, the scale and rate of urbanization and urban growth.
22. Since the early 1980s, several other special status cities have also been established. See Kam Wing Chan, "Urbanization and Urban Infrastructure Services in the PRC," in Financing Local Government in the People's Republic of China, ed. by Christine Wong (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 83-125.
23. Christine Wong (ed.), Financing Local Government in the People's Republic of China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);
24. Li Tie, "Chengzhenhua huhuan xin tizhi" (Urbanization calls for a new institution)", Zhongguo gaige (China Reforms), Vol. 12 (2001): 30-31;
25. Roger C. K. Chan and X. B. Zhao, "The relationship between administrative hierarchy position and city size development in China," Geojournal, Vol. 56, No. 2 (2002): 97-112;
26. Kam Wing Chan, Kai Yuen Tsui, and Qing Yu, "Understanding China's spatial administrative system and changes: An exploration," paper presented at the International Conference on Globalization, the State, and Urban Transformation in China, Hong Kong Baptist University, 15-17 December, 2003;
27. Laurence J. C. Ma, "China's changing urban administrative system: Spatial restructuring and local economic development," Political Geography, Vol. 24 (2005): 477-497.
28. Jao Ho Chung and Tao-chiu Lam, "China's 'city system' in flux: Explaining post-Mao administrative changes," The China Quarterly, No. 180 (2003): 945-964.
29. Susan Whiting, Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Other non-economic priority national policies (such as the family planning policy) are also included in the assessment. In an interesting quantitative analysis of the top 200+ CCP members in the last two decades, Shih et al. demonstrate that their career advancement is linked positively to the performance of fiscal revenues in their respective local units. (Victor Shih, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu, "Getting ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the advancement of Central Committee members in China," paper presented at CSSS Seminar, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, 7 October, 2009.) However, their work does not show that local GDP performance is an important determinant of career advancement. I suspect that this is partly due to the published local GDP statistics (the "public set") they used, which are not the internal accounting GDP statistics actually used in evaluating local officials.
30. See an examination of environment and labour aspects in Dongguan, one of the cities which have recorded the highest GDP growth rates in China in the last twenty years, in Godfrey Yeung, Foreign Investment and Socioeconomic Development in China: The Case of Dongguan (London: Palgrave, 2001).
31. See Thomas Rawski, "What's happening to China's GDP statistics?" China Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2001): 347-354;
32. Carsten Holz, "Institutional constraints on the quality of statistics in China," China Information, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2002): 25-67;
33. Kam Wing Chan, "Misconceptions and complexities in the study of China's cities: Definitions, statistics, and implications," Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 48, No. 4 (2007): 383-412.
34. The rivalry among cities in the Pearl River Delta is a case in point, where channels of horizontal cooperation are weak and disputes often have to be resolved by the centre. The construction of three large international airports (in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai) in the Delta, along with two nearby but outside the Mainland (Hong Kong and Macao), is an oft-cited example of duplication due to inter-jurisdictional rivalry. See also Note 51 for academic references on this topic.
35. See, for example, Li Shangtong, Hou Yongzhi, Liu Yunzhong and Chen Bo, "Zhongguo guonei defang baohu de tiaocha baogao" (An investigation report of local protection in China),
36. in Ma Hong, Wang Monghui (eds.), Zhongguo fazhan yanjiu 2005 (China Development Studies 2005) (Beijing: Zhongguo fazhan chubanshe, 2005), 93-105.
37. See also Sing Tao Daily, 28 July, 2000, A8 for a report of local protectionism and the "beer wars" in China. For an example in English, see The Economist, 23 July, 2005: 38-39 on the rivalry between Beijing and Tianjin.
38. See, for example, Jinghua shibao (Beijing Times), September 15, 2006: A21.
39. See Kam Wing Chan and Li Zhang, "The hukou system and rural-urban migration in China: Processes and changes." The China Quarterly, No. 160 (1999): 818-55;
40. Fei-ling Wang, Organizing Through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).
41. See Kam Wing Chan, "The Chinese hukou system at 50," Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 50, No. 2 (2009): 197-221.
42. Kam Wing Chan, "Recent migration in China: Patterns, trends, and policies," Asian Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2001): 127-155;
43. C. Cindy Fan, "Interprovincial migration, population redistribution, and regional development in China: 1990 and 2000 census comparisons," The Professional Geographer, Vol. 57, No. 2 (2005): 295-311.
44. The term is used in the narrow sense, excluding those employed in nearby township and village enterprises. Including this subgroup, "rural migrant labour" numbered about 225 million in 2008. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), "2008 nianmo quanguo nongmingong zongliang wei 22,542 wan ren" (Total rural migrant labour reaches 225.42 million at the end of 2008), 25 March, 2009, see www.stats.gov.cn Accessed on 29 March, 2009.
45. The 2008 figure is from NBS, see Note 24 above. The 2009 figure is also from NBS, see full details in Kam Wing Chan, "Global financial crisis and migrant workers in China," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, (forthcoming.)
46. See a discussion of the land issue in Li (Note 3).
47. World Bank, World Development Report 2009 (Washington D.C: The World Bank, 2009), 146.
48. See the voluminous literature on this, most recently, Chan (Note 17) above. Some earlier articles are: Kam Wing Chan and Xu Xueqiang, "Urban population growth and urbanization in China since 1949: Reconstructing a baseline," The China Quarterly, No. 104 (1985): 583-613;
49. Jianfa Shen, "Counting urban population in Chinese censuses 1953-2000: Changing definitions, problems and solutions," Population, Space and Place, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2005): 381-400.
50. Zhou Yixing and Laurence J. C. Ma, "China's urbanization level: Reconstructing a baseline from the Fifth Population Census," The China Quarterly, No. 173 (2003): 176-196;
51. Kam Wing Chan and Ying Hu, "Urbanization in China in the 1990s: New definition, different series, and revised trends," The China Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2003): 49-71.
52. The latest review is in Kam Wing Chan, "Measuring the urban millions," China Economic Quarterly, March (2009): 21-26.
53. National Bureau of Statistics, "2005 nian quanguo 1% renkou chouyang diaocha zhuyao shuju gongbao" (Report of Major Figures from 2005 1% Sample Population Survey), 16 March, 2006, www.stats.gov.cn/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/ t20060316-402310923.htm.
54. See Chan and Hu (Note 29).
55. Computed from NBS's 2005 1% Population Survey data. See Note 30.
56. The UAA refers to an urban administrative area legally distinguished from surrounding rural territory. For details, refer to United Nations, "Methods for projections of urban and rural population," Population Studies No. 55 (New York: United Nations, 1974), Chapter 1. In China, the UAA refers to the "city districts" or shiqu for prefecture-level cities and above; and the entire administrative area for county-level cities.
57. One year's residence in the 1990 census and six months in the 2000 census.
58. Yixing Zhou and Laurence J. C. Ma, "China's urban population statistics: A critical evaluation," Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 46, No. 4 (2005): 272-289.
59. An example of an early study based on a set of de jure city population statistics is G. C. S. Lin, "Urbanization and the changing system of cities in socialist China," Journal of Population Studies, Vol. 24 (2002): 89-139. See a review of this issue in Chan (Note 17).
60. Chan and Hu (Note 29).
61. Ministry of Civil Affairs, Zhongguo minzheng tongji nianjian (Chinese civil affairs statistics) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2003 and 2004).
62. There were 432 cities in both 1990 and 2000. The final sample used excludes 18 cities with an annual rate of decrease of more than 10% between 1990 and 2000 and one city with a highly unusual growth rate. A great majority of these cases had undergone extraordinarily far-reaching reclassification of the UAA.
63. To avoid confusion, the term "big city" is used in this section to refer to cities of more than one million population in size while restricting the word "large" to the specific categories of city size as defined in this section.
64. Chun-Chung Au and J. Vernon Henderson, "How migration restrictions limit agglomeration and productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 80 (2006): 350-388;
65. J. Vernon Henderson, "Growth of China's Medium-Size Cities," in Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 2005, ed. by W. G. Gale and J. Rothenberg-Pack (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005), 263-303.
66. Justin Yifu Lin, Fang Cai and Zhou Li, The China Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1996).
67. Chan in Note 10.
68. For details on this classification, see Chan (Note 22). A more technical treatment is in Kam Wing Chan and Kai Yuen Tsui, "Agricultural" and "Non-agricultural" Population Statistics of the People's Republic of China: Definitions, Findings and Comparisons (Hong Kong: Department of Geography and Geology, The University of Hong Kong, 1992, Occasional Paper No. 1).
69. National Bureau of Statistics of China data, see www.china.com.cn/txt/ 2009-04/15/content-17609148.htm. Accessed on 15 April, 2009.
70. J. Vernon Henderson, Urban Development: Theory, Fact, and Illusion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
71. Some earlier studies include: Dwight H. Perkins, "The influence of economic reforms on China's urbanization," in Chinese Urban Reform: What Model Now? ed. by R. Yin-Wang Kwok et al. (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990);
72. Sen-dou Chang and Won Bae Kim, "The economic performance and regional systems of China's cities," Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, Vol. 6 (1994): 58-77. AH of them suffer from data problems reviewed in Chan (Note 17).
73. Chun-Chung Au and J. Vernon Henderson, "How migration restrictions limit agglomeration and productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 80 (2006): 350-388;
74. Li Xun, Xu Xiangxiang, and Chen Haofei, "20 shiji 90 niandai Zhongguo chengshi xiaolu de shikong bianhua: 1990-2000" (Spatial and temporal change of urban efficiency in China in the 1990s), Dili xuebao (Journal of Geographical Science), Vol. 60, No. 4 (2005): 615-625.
75. In their model, output is value-added per worker in the non-agricultural sector of the city proper. Determinants include the capital stock to labour ratio, share of accumulated FDI in capital stock, distance to the coast, education and scale measures.
76. Fang Cai and Kam Wing Chan, "Global recession and unemployment in China," Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 50, No. 5 (2009): 513-531.
77. A case in point: under the UAA definition of city population, Wuhan had a city population of 8.3 million in 2000, as shown in Table 2. This definition includes at least some 3 million population in basically rural areas outside of the labour shed of Wuhan core city (data drawn from Census 2000).
78. Notable scholarly works include Liu Junde, Zhongguo xingzheng quhua de lilun he shijian (Theory and practice of the planning of administrative regions in China) (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1996);
79. Shu Qing and Zhou Keyu, Cong fengbi zouxiang kaifang (From closed doors to openness), (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 2003);
80. Chong-En Bai, Yingjuan Du, Zhigang Tao and Sarah Y. Tong, "Local protectionism and regional specialization: Evidence from China's industries," Journal of International Economics, Vol. 63, No. 2 (2004): 397-417.
81. In addition to those listed in Note 40, other works include: J. Vernon Henderson and Hyoung Gun Wang. "Urbanization and city growth: The role of institutions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2007): 283-313.
82. Li Xun and Li Yun, "Nongcun jiti suoyouzhi yu fensanshi nongcun chengshihua kongjian" (Rural collective system and dispersed urbanized space in the countryside), Chengshi guihua (City Planning Review), Vol. 29, No. 7 (2005): 39-42.
83. Even in the early years of the twenty-first century, China is still at the beginning of the metropolitanization of cities. Most of its largest cities are still relatively compact and do not yet have large urbanized areas or daily commuting zones. However, less prudent observers have in the last two decades used the term "metropolitan area" erroneously to refer to the very extensive administrative areas governed by municipalities, which often encompass several counties. For a review of this issue, see Chan (Note 17).
84. For an examination of this subject, see Richard L. Forstall, Richard P. Greene and James B. Pick, "Which are the largest? Why lists of major urban areas vary so greatly", Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol. 100, No. 3 (2009): 277-297.
85. The Gini coefficients for other countries and the world are calculated from a world city data set prepared by Rupa Ranganathan, Hyoung Wang, and J. Vernon Henderson for 1960-2000. See Chan et al. in Note 1.
86. See Henderson and Wang (Note 52).
87. This refers to indicator N in Table 2 in Chan (Note 17).
88. Masahisa Fujita and Dapeng Hu, "Regional disparity in China 1985-1994: The effects of globalization and economic liberalization," Annals of Regional Science, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2001): 3-37;
89. Bai et al. in Note 51.
90. Duncan Black and J. Vernon Henderson, "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 3, No. 4 (2003): 343-372.
91. Li (Note 12), and Li and Li (Note 52).
92. The rioting of unassimilated French-African youths in France in 2006 is a telling example.
93. Dorothy Solinger, "The creation of a new underclass in China and its implications," Environment & Urbanization, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2006): 177-93.
94. Albert Keidel, "China's social unrest: The story behind the stories," Policy Brief of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (September 2006). There have been many major peasant protests against inadequate compensation in land expropriation cases. One notable case took place in Shanwei, Guangdong, in November 2005. The event turned violent and several deaths were reported.
95. Chan (Note 25).
96. Cai Fang and Kam Wing Chan, "The political economy of urban protectionist employment policies in China," (Working Paper Series No. 2, Institute of Population Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2000.
97. See also a detailed discussion by Cai Fang, Du Yang and Wang Meiyan, Zhongguo laodongli shichang zhuanxing yu fayu (Transition and Development of China's Labor Markets), (Beijing: Shangwu chubanshe, 2005).
98. Kam Wing Chan, "Zhongguo huji zhidu gaige he chengxiang renkou qianyi" (Chinese hukou reforms and rural-urban migration), Zhongguo laodong jingji (China Labour Economics), No. 1 (2004): 108-124.
99. Su Hong and Kam Wing Chan, "Tudi zhengyong yu defang zhengfu de xingwei" (Land expropriation and local government behaviour) (Occasional Paper No. 58, The Centre for China Urban and Regional Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2005);
100. Lu Dadao, "Guanyu woguo daguimo chengshihua he quyu fazhan wenti de renshi he jianyi" (Knowledge of large-scale urbanization and regional development in China and suggestions), Zhongguo kexueyuan yuanshi jianyi (Suggestions by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), No. 1 (2006).
101. See Chan (Note 17). An updated review of the latest city population statistics is given in Chan (Note 29).