Table Of ContentCHINA’S URBAN CHAMPIONS
Princeton Studies in Contemporary China
Yu Xie, Series Editor
The Contentious Public Sphere, Ya- Wen Lei
China’s Urban
Champions
The Politics
of Spatial
Development
Kyle A. Jaros
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2019 by Princeton University Press
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Cover image: Juzizhou (Orange Islet) Bridge in Changsha, capital of
central China’s Hunan Province. Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables vii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Selected Chinese Names xv
1 Introduction: Picking Winners in Space 1
2 Spatial Policy in China 27
3 The Multilevel Politics of Development 54
4 Hunan: The Making of an Urban Champion 80
5 Jiangxi: The Politics of Dispersed Development 115
6 Shaanxi: Uneven Development Redux 145
7 Jiangsu: Shifting Tides of Spatial Policy 182
8 Rethinking Development Politics in China and Beyond 221
Appendix A. Analyzing Outcomes across China 243
Appendix B. Cross- National Extensions to Brazil and India 259
Notes 275
Bibliography 301
Index 331
v
FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
1.1. Share of investment (FAI) captured by each province’s top
city, 2001–2010 9
1.2. China’s provinces: the four main cases and extended sample
of 26 units 21
3.1. Key explanatory variables and expected outcomes 78
4.1. Hunan and its major cities 82
4.2. Hunan cities’ shares of provincial population and GDP, 1997
and 2012 84
4.3. Changsha’s increasing economic dominance in Hunan 85
5.1. Jiangxi and its major cities 117
5.2. Jiangxi cities’ shares of provincial population and GDP, 1997
and 2012 120
5.3. Variation over time in Nanchang’s share of investment and GDP 120
6.1. Shaanxi and its major cities 148
6.2. Shaanxi cities’ shares of provincial population and GDP, 1997
and 2012 151
6.3. Xi’an’s outsize share of provincial investment 151
6.4. The Xi’an- Xianyang New Area 175
7.1. Jiangsu and its major cities 185
7.2. Jiangsu cities’ shares of provincial population and GDP, 1997
and 2012 187
7.3. The changing fortunes of Jiangsu’s metropolitan cities 188
7.4. The fragmented urban and administrative geography of Suzhou 215
8.1. Explanatory variable measures and top- city FAI share 232
A.1. Joint relationship of explanatory variable measures and top- city
FAI share 251
vii
viii LIST OF Figures and Tables
Tables
1.1. A spectrum of spatial development models 6
1.2. Overview of four main provincial cases 23
3.1. Different government levels and their policy preferences 70
3.2. Conceptualizing provincial strength: Key dimensions and
indicators 76
4.1. Overview of outcomes in Hunan 83
4.2. Hunan’s development indicators circa 1996 and 2012 88
5.1. Overview of outcomes in Jiangxi 118
5.2. Jiangxi’s development indicators circa 1996 and 2012 123
6.1. Overview of outcomes in Shaanxi 149
6.2. Shaanxi’s development indicators circa 1996 and 2012 154
7.1. Overview of outcomes in Jiangsu 186
7.2. Jiangsu’s development indicators circa 1996 and 2012 191
A.1. Top- city FAI share 2001–2010 and sources for FAI data
by province 246
A.2. Provinces’ relative economic performance and provincial
government strength 250
A.3. Summary statistics for cross- sectional analysis 251
A.4. Main cross- sectional regression results 252
A.5. Additional regression results with alternative explanatory
variables 254
A.6. Summary statistics for panel analysis 256
A.7. Main panel regression results 257
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been most of a decade in the making and has taken shape across
three continents. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to pursue a project
of this scope, even if the process has been disorienting at times. I am also
deeply appreciative of the people and organizations who helped this undertak-
ing to come full circle. There is not space to name all of them here, but I hope
they will derive some satisfaction from seeing this research finally in print. I
also hope they will forgive any shortcomings of the project, which are mine
alone.
The book grew out of my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Gov-
ernment at Harvard University, and it owes interest on the debts of gratitude
incurred during that project. Elizabeth J. Perry supervised the dissertation
and provided crucial guidance during later stages of the project as well.
Throughout our interactions, she has unstintingly shared her tremendous
knowledge and excitement about China, and she has offered clear-h eaded ad-
vice when I needed it most. I am similarly grateful to the other members of
my committee, Jeffrey Frieden, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Prerna Singh,
whose guidance and feedback helped the project reach its first incarnation but
also move past it. I also received helpful advice and assistance from many other
scholars and staff members at Harvard and other institutions, particularly
Roderick MacFarquhar, Nara Dillon, Steve Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, Nahomi
Ichino, Steve Bloomfield, Lex Berman, Nancy Hearst, Joseph Fewsmith,
Diane Davis, Neil Brenner, Jefferey Sellers, Sebastian Heilmann, John Don-
aldson, Bill Hurst, and Ben Read.
I am also greatly indebted to the many former classmates and colleagues
who have provided help and inspiration throughout the arc of the research
and writing process. I am especially grateful to Daniel Koss, Alisha Holland,
Charlotte Cavaille, Emily Clough, Meg Rithmire, Kristin Looney, Nick Smith,
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Shelby Grossman, Victor Seow, Brett Carter,
Zachary Barter, Brandon Van Dyck, Iain Osgood, James Loxton, Kris- Stella
Trump, Patrick Lam, Iza Ding, Jeffrey Javed, Peter Volberding, Jennifer Pan,
Molly Roberts, Jingkai He, Saul Wilson, Jeff Friedman, Mai Hassan, Yue Hou,
S Travis Warner, Rory Truex, Andrew MacDonald, Nicholas Martin, and Taiyi S
Sun, whose ideas and assistance made this project far stronger. For their
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x acknowledgmenTs
constructive feedback, I would also like to thank members of Harvard’s Com-
parative Politics Workshop, the Harvard- MIT- Boston University Chinese
Politics Research Workshop, and the Harvard Weatherhead Center’s Graduate
Student Associates seminar.
Of course, without the opportunity to conduct multiple rounds of research
in China, there would have been no project to begin with. I am grateful to the
institutions that provided financial support for fieldwork and to the many in-
dividuals in China who kindly shared their time, insights, and hospitality. It
was the generosity of the Social Science Research Council’s International Dis-
sertation Research Fellowship and the Harvard Committee on General Schol-
arships’ Sheldon Fellowship, as well as grants from Harvard’s Weatherhead
Center, Asia Center, Fairbank Center, and Taubman Center that made pos-
sible the dissertation research on which this book is based. The Harvard Ken-
nedy School’s Ash Center supported two later rounds of research, enabling
me to fill crucial gaps in my earlier fieldwork. I owe particular thanks to the
dozens of interviewees in China who made this project possible. Although
they must remain anonymous, their contributions of time and knowledge
were invaluable, and the project would have been impossible but for the per-
spectives they provided on China’s politics, economy, and geography. It is
equally important to recognize the individuals and institutions that made my
fieldwork possible in the first place, facilitating my research and helping me
map out the complex world of Chinese development politics. I was delighted
to spend time as an academic visitor at the Peking University School of
Government, the Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Management, and the
Hopkins- Nanjing Center, and to visit numerous other research institutions.
And I am deeply appreciative of the research guidance and assistance I re-
ceived from Fu Jun, Chen Wen, Huang Wei, Lu Jun, Zhao Ting, Zhao
Dongyue, Gu Chaolin, Wu Yongping, Yin Cunyi, Pei Zhao, Ma Zhihui, Peng
Yanjie, Liu Shouying, Liu Yong, Luo Xiaolong, Zhang Jingxiang, Xu Jin, Liang
Xuecheng, Ren Jianghua, Zhou Jiancong, Xu Chengwei, Zhang Muyang, Li
Chao, Jia Min, Hardy Simes, and Aaron Back, among others.
It was during my two years as a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow
at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and
Innovation that this project matured into a book manuscript. I am very grate-
ful to Tony Saich, Ed Cunningham, Kaori Urayama, Jessica Eykholt, and other
Ash Center faculty and staff, who gave me intellectual guidance, logistical
help, and a sense of community. Apart from offering me the invaluable gift of
time for research and writing, the Ash Center sponsored a book workshop
that helped me clarify crucial aspects of the manuscript’s argument and orga-
nization. I am indebted to the aforementioned Ash Center faculty and staff as
S well as to Jeremy Wallace, Yuhua Wang, and Veronica Herrera for taking part S
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