Hebei New Area in Tianjin, 1902–1912 – implementing Japanese commercial and industrial urban planning ideas in China

A transnational flow of capital exchange during the 19th and early 20th centuries brought planning ideas and modernity into China. Since European countries and America used violence to place China into a colonial world and its forms of power-knowledge, the existing works too often focus on the impact of the ‘west’, treating the Chinese as passive recipients who responded to ‘western’ transnational planning ideas, while neglecting the transnational flow of Intra-Asia. By exploring the formation of urbanism in Hebei New Area in Tianjin, this article reveals that the Chinese did not allow themselves to be dictated to by the planning ideas emanating from the west. Instead, they both sought the most suitable ideas based on their local situations and actively imported planning ideas from the east – Japan. The authorities in Tianjin sent officials to Japan to draw upon Japanese industrial and commercial planning models to set up their own organizational framework, urban built environments, and operational management. Consequently, they incorporated planning ideas from the ‘east’ to re-organize the daily life of the masses and modernize their city. These ideas were juxtaposed with ideas from the ‘west’ to shape the urbanism of Tianjin.