IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v56y2019i1p33-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban China through the lens of neoliberalism: Is a conceptual twist enough?

Author

Listed:
  • Yu Zhou

    (Earth Science and Geography Department, Vassar College, USA)

  • George CS Lin

    (Department of Geography, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

  • Jun Zhang

    (Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Canada)

Abstract

Neoliberalism as a hegemonic global ideology and framework of governance has been the subject of extensive critical analyses in geography and urban studies. Despite the conceptual difficulties involved, a growing number of scholars have attempted to apply this critical discourse to China. In this commentary, we critically interrogate the urban China literature that deploys the neoliberal lens, mostly authored by scholars outside China, and we raise the fundamental question as to whether this discourse can ever capture the central stories or trajectories of China’s urban transformation. We examine the interpretations of China’s urban land property market, urban inequality and its spatial manifestation, and the emerging urban governmentality – the areas in which neoliberalism has been most often invoked – to highlight the utility and limitations of a neoliberal treatment of China. We argue that the neoliberal representation of China’s urban (re)development, with its preoccupation with capital and class interests, is unable to effectively capture the distinctive nature of entanglement of capital, state and society in China, and thus obscures the driving role and the competing rationalities of the authoritarian state, and the rapid reconfiguration of urban society. By citing examples of recent urban China research, we show that the neoliberalism framework, even in its ‘variegated’ or ‘assemblage’ versions, tends to trap China’s analysis within a frame of reference comfortable to Western researchers, and ultimately hinders the development of diversified, potentially more fruitful inquiries of the urban world.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu Zhou & George CS Lin & Jun Zhang, 2019. "Urban China through the lens of neoliberalism: Is a conceptual twist enough?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(1), pages 33-43, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:1:p:33-43
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098018775367
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018775367
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098018775367?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Robinson, 2011. "Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Peck, Jamie, 2012. "Constructions of Neoliberal Reason," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199662081.
    3. Helga Leitner & Eric Sheppard, 2016. "Provincializing Critical Urban Theory: Extending the Ecosystem of Possibilities," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 228-235, January.
    4. Hsing, You-tien, 2010. "The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199568048.
    5. Henry Wai-chung Yeung & George C. S. Lin, 2003. "Theorizing Economic Geographies of Asia," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 79(2), pages 107-128, April.
    6. Jamie Peck, 2020. "Cities beyond Compare?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 160-182, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gavin Shatkin, 2022. "Mega-urban politics: Analyzing the infrastructure turn through the national state lens," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(5), pages 845-866, August.
    2. Michael Hoyler & John Harrison, 2017. "Global cities research and urban theory making," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2853-2858, December.
    3. Byron Miller & Kevin Ward & Ryan Burns & Victoria Fast & Anthony Levenda, 2021. "Worlding and provincialising smart cities: From individual case studies to a global comparative research agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 655-673, February.
    4. Jamie Peck, 2017. "Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 4-30, January.
    5. Shenjing He & Junxi Qian, 2017. "From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 827-846, March.
    6. Fulong Wu, 2016. "China's Emergent City-Region Governance: A New Form of State Spatial Selectivity through State-orchestrated Rescaling," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(6), pages 1134-1151, November.
    7. Jim Glassman, 2018. "Geopolitical economies of development and democratization in East Asia: Themes, concepts, and geographies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(2), pages 407-415, March.
    8. Hyun Bang Shin & Loretta Lees & Ernesto López-Morales, 2016. "Introduction: Locating gentrification in the Global East," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(3), pages 455-470, February.
    9. Kevin Ward & Timothy Bunnell, 2021. "Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 863-878, March.
    10. Jennifer Robinson & Katia Attuyer, 2021. "Extracting Value, London Style: Revisiting the Role of the State in Urban Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 303-331, March.
    11. Fulong Wu, 2018. "Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(7), pages 1383-1399, May.
    12. Suryono Herlambang & Helga Leitner & Liong Ju Tjung & Eric Sheppard & Dimitar Anguelov, 2019. "Jakarta’s great land transformation: Hybrid neoliberalisation and informality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(4), pages 627-648, March.
    13. Kristin Kjærås, 2021. "Towards a relational conception of the compact city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1176-1192, May.
    14. Erin Collins, 2016. "Postsocialist informality: The making of owners, squatters and state rule in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (1989–1993)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2367-2382, December.
    15. Christof Parnreiter, 2022. "The Janus-faced genius of cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(7), pages 1315-1333, May.
    16. Jennifer Robinson, 2016. "Comparative Urbanism: New Geographies and Cultures of Theorizing the Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 187-199, January.
    17. Tariq Jazeel, 2021. "The ‘City’ As Text," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 658-662, July.
    18. Mary Lawhon & Yaffa Truelove, 2020. "Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(1), pages 3-20, January.
    19. Carolyn Cartier, 2017. "Contextual Urban Theory and the ‘Appeal’ of Gentrification: Lost in Transposition?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 466-477, May.
    20. George C S Lin, 2021. "Drawing up the missing link: State-society relations and the remaking of urban landscapes in Chinese cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 917-936, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:1:p:33-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.