Online Urbanization: Online Services in China’s Rural Transformation

241 Pages·2019·10.81 MB·English

by  Li Zi

Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements
Li Zi
Online
Urbanization
Online Services in China’s Rural
Transformation
Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements
Series editor
Bharat Dahiya, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Advisory Board
Andrew Kirby, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
Erhard Friedberg, Sciences Po-Paris, Paris, France
Rana P. B. Singh, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Kongjian Yu, Peking University, Beijing, China
Mohamed El Sioufi, UN-Habitat, Nairobi, Kenya
Tim Campbell, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC, USA
Yoshitsugu Hayashi, Chubu University, Kasugai, Japan
This Series focuses on the entire spectrum of human settlements—from rural to
urban,indifferentregionsoftheworld,withquestionssuchas:Whatfactorscause
and guide the process of change in human settlements from rural to urban in
character,fromhamletsandvillagestotowns,citiesandmegacities?Isthisprocess
different across time and space, how and why? Is there a future for rural life? Is it
possibleornottohaveindustrial developmentinruralsettlements,andhow? Why
does ‘urban shrinkage’ occur? Are the rural areas urbanizing or is that urban areas
are undergoing ‘ruralisation’ (in form of underserviced slums)? What are the
challenges faced by ‘mega urban regions’, and how they can be/are being
addressed? What drives economic dynamism in human settlements? Is the
urban-based economic growth paradigm the only answer to the quest for
sustainable development, or is there an urgent need to balance between economic
growth on one hand and ecosystem restoration and conservation on the other—for
the future sustainability of human habitats? How and what new technology is
helping to achieve sustainable development in human settlements? What sort of
changesinthecurrentplanning,managementandgovernanceofhumansettlements
are needed to face the changing environment including the climate and increasing
disaster risks? What is the uniqueness of the new ‘socio-cultural spaces’ that
emergeinhumansettlements,andhowtheychangeovertime?Asruralsettlements
become urban, are the new ‘urban spaces’ resulting in the loss of rural life and
‘socio-cultural spaces’? What is leading the preservation of rural ‘socio-cultural
spaces’ within the urbanizing world, and how? What isthe emerging nature of the
rural-urban interface, and what factors influence it? What are the emerging
perspectivesthathelpunderstandthehuman-environment-culturecomplexthrough
the study of human settlements and the related ecosystems, and how do they
transform our understanding of cultural landscapes and ‘waterscapes’ in the 21st
Century? What else is and/or likely to be new vis-à-vis human settlements—now
and in the future? The Series, therefore, welcomes contributions with fresh
cognitive perspectives to understand the new and emerging realities of the 21st
Century human settlements. Such perspectives will include a multidisciplinary
analysis, constituting of the demographic, spatio-economic, environmental, tech-
nological, and planning, management and governance lenses.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13196
Li Zi
Online Urbanization
’
Online Services in China s Rural
Transformation
123
LiZi
Department ofArchitecture,
Schoolof Designand Environment
National University ofSingapore
Singapore, Singapore
ISSN 2198-2546 ISSN 2198-2554 (electronic)
Advances in 21stCentury HumanSettlements
ISBN978-981-13-3602-7 ISBN978-981-13-3603-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3603-4
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Foreword I
Since its first accession to China in 1993, the Internet has undergone remarkable
growth. Its rapid development in China attracts lots of attention from society, the
political circle, and the business sector in particular. People show strong interests
becauseofnotonlyitsunstoppablemomentum,butalsoitsdeepimpactonsociety,
politics, culture, and other facets of people’s daily lives. With a large population
and a fast-growing economy, China will continue to embrace wider use of the
Internetandinformation technologies in diverse forms. Though China hasbecome
an Internet giant with the largest number of Internet users, there is large room for
improvement, as over a half of the Chinese population still has no Internet access.
TheInternethasalreadyplayedaprominentroleinsmoothingrelationsbetween
thestateandthesociety,asvarioussocialpowersshowdistinctpreferencestoward
and different interests in the Internet. Under the existing political system in China,
thesocialpowersstillrelyontheirrelationswiththegovernment,unabletodevelop
independently.Theirinteractionswiththegovernmentaccruedaybydaytosuchan
extentthatitisabletoreshapethestateandthesociety.Whydowesayso?Onthe
one hand, in most of the cases the state must adjust itself to accommodate social
powers; on the other hand, the social powers might also realize the need to adjust
themselveswheninteractingwiththestate.Inaword,thetwocontinuouslyinteract
with and reshape each other. It is with such interaction that the Internet is able to
facilitate a significant transformation in China.
Its impact is also embodied in a critical issue that tops China’s development
agenda—poverty alleviation and a new-style urbanization in rural China. These
changes display significant economic and social meanings. The once rocketing
Chinese economy has entered into a more stable stage, or the new normal. While
maintaining a long-term moderate growth rate in the days to come, urbanization
will serve as a key area and a critical driving force to boost sustainable economic
growth. To become more sustainable, it is imperative for the Chinese economy to
transform itself in multiple aspects, including shifting its focus from an export to
domesticdemand,orbuildingaconsumption-orientedsociety.Theeffortstobuilda
consumption-oriented society will be made or broke by the urbanization process,
which happens to be an integral part of China’s social construction program.
v
vi ForewordI
Simply put, to achieve urbanization, it is a must to integrate urban and rural areas
and bridge the gaps.
In the past, what concerns local officials most is how to “urbanize” the land,
rather than the people. They acquire land resources, especially those resources of
rural lands tofinance urbanization. These conductsarelikelyto cause a deep local
financial crisis, or even a national financial crisis. We have learned from past
lessons that urbanization, if led by capital and power, would soon evolve into a
large-scale land plunder by ripping off farmers. If urbanization tumbles in this
pitfall, a profound social crisis may happen.
So, is the technology-empowered Internet enough to create a new model to
“urbanize” the people and achieve coordinated regional development?
In this book, the author Li Zi explains how the Internet empowers rural com-
munities and gradually creates a nationwide online business ecosystem in a
bottom-up manner, and how and why a series of concurrent events influence the
decisions of Chinese policymakers.
China now stands at a critical stage of reform and transformation, where urban
andruraldevelopmentappearstobedivergentasmoreandmoreruralresidentsare
movingout.Asamatteroffact,theseproblemsareexacerbatedbytheinformation
divide, financial gap, discrepant living standards, and unevenly distributed
resources. The author first explains how the capable brains in Suichang County,
Zhejiang Province, leverage the power of Internet technology, cooperate with
Internet giants like Alibaba, integrate local resources, create jobs locally, and
improve commercial and public services. Then, the author analyzes how Alibaba
andotherInternetbusinessesacclimatizeInternettechnologytothetraditionalrural
organization pattern and improve working and living standards of rural residents
throughinnovationandtalentcultivation.Againstthisbackdrop,rurale-commerce
is rolled out nationwide, but it never loses local characteristics because local
innovation iscarried out simultaneously. In the end, both policies and resources at
local and national level are leaning toward rural e-commerce. Government bodies
fromtheStateCouncil,theministriesandcommissionstothelocalgovernmentsare
developing policies and raising funds to support rural e-commerce, especially
e-commerce-based poverty alleviation programs.
This trend alters China’s urbanization approach, because it agrees with the
development orientation of regional town clusters. In the vast areas of Yangtze
River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, Taobao villages and Taobao towns who
benefitedfromrurale-commercehavemultiplieddaybyday.ThankstotheInternet
and information technology, towns and villages are turned into nodes at all sizes,
spontaneouslycreatinganurbanandruralnetworkandfittingintotheregionaland
even global production chain and living system. The author defines the restruc-
turing of regions, space, and time as “online urbanization.” To help the readers
understand how the IT-centered flowing factors in urban and rural China will
influenceurbanizationintheshortandlongrun,hefurtherexploresbestpracticesin
five aspects, including urban and rural human resource flows and cultivation, the
urban and rural logistic network and supply chain optimization, urban and rural
informationflow,effectiveresourceallocation,andecologicalandculturalprogress.
ForewordI vii
Based on this concept, the author concentrates his focus on the twin engines of
online urbanization—nodes and convection—to establish a conceptual framework
of online urbanization.
In retrospect of the vicissitudes in urban and rural China, we may easily realize
thatbeittheboomingCaoshi(marketplace)inSongdynastyortheprosperousrural
fairsinMingandQingdynasty,theruralsocietyhadremainedautonomousandlaid
equalstressonagricultureandcommerce.Thistraditioncontributestomaintaininga
relatively stable urban–rural relationship, differentiating China from Europe where
urban and rural areas have been in an antagonistic state. In the era of the Internet,
Chinaislikelytofindanewapproachtobalancedregionaldevelopmentbystriking
a consensus among central and local governments, enterprises, farmers, and other
partiesinvolved.Thisnewapproachisneitherthesuburbanizationmodeladoptedby
theUSA,northe“NewTown”modelprevalentinEuropeanwelfarestatesthatwas
designedtoimprovelivingstandardsandworkingenvironmentofworkers.Chinais
creating a new model to achieve rural development and urbanization in the infor-
mation era,amodel thatcanbefollowed byotherdeveloping countries,especially
those in theSilk Road EconomicBeltand the21st century MaritimeSilk Road.
The transforming urban–rural relations enabled by the Internet have eloquently
testified the changing relations between the state and society. It serves as a mirror
throughwhichwe can observehow the Internet reshapes therelations betweenthe
stateandthesociety.TheInternethaschangedthewayweliveandwork,bringing
about more frequent interactions between the state and society. These interactions
producediversifiedresults:Insomecases,thestateandsocietyreinforceeachother,
whileinothercasestheyarediminishingoneanotherandtendtobemoreexclusive.
In the current stage, active interaction is the defining characteristic in rural
e-commerce development and online urbanization, yet there is little evidence
indicating the role of capital and power in urbanization. Generally speaking,
farmers still remain a vulnerable group whose interests are always at stake.
Therefore, while pushing forward the new-type urbanization, it is imperative for
Chinatotryitsutmosttosafeguardtherightsandinterestsoffarmersandpromotea
fair and reasonable flow offactors between urban and rural areas.
TheauthorLiZihasbeenreachingdeepintothecountrysidetoacquirefirsthand
experiences of practicing rural e-commerce. He aims to build an analytical
frameworkbyadoptinganinterpretiveapproach,whichisconduciveforreadersto
better understand the real side of the Chinese society.
Thisbookwillhelpreaderscomprehendthestatusquoofrurale-commerceand
thefuture ofChina’s urbanization. Better still, the author tries toconceptualizethe
phenomenon pertaining to rural e-commerce by combining theories with experi-
ences. Therefore, it is a worth-reading academic work.
Singapore Zheng Yongnian
April 2018 Director of East Asian Institute (EAI)
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Foreword II
Online urbanization: Online Servicesin China’s Rural Transformation by Li Zi is
written at exactly the right time when e-commerce is in vogue. They are ground-
breaking urban studies of networked urbanization under the perspective of infor-
mation sociology. Beginning with the specific case of Suichang County, Lishui
City, in southwest Zhejiang Province and the rural strategy of Alibaba, the author
then analyzes the development of rural e-commerce and online urbanization. This
book is an outstanding academic work, a convincing proof of Li’s professional
competence as one of the lecturers in Cihu Auditorium (formerly known as Cihu
Academy) in Cicheng, Zhejiang.
What we regard as a breakthrough isthat Li Zi finds the most in-thing in urban
China, things that are most vigorous and unprecedented in human history. The
energetic activists in Suichang, Zhejiang, as detailed in the book, reveal the
renewedsocialstructureandstrongdevelopmentmomentumunderthenewurban–
rural relations. They include farmers, small commodity producers, couriers who
deliverpackages,ande-commercepractitionerswhoengageinonlinetrading.They
arenetworkersintheinformationeconomy,aswellasnetizensinthecybersociety.
CarryingonthetraditionsupheldbycitiesandtownsinthesouthofYangtzeRiver
and heritages of countryside markets in Ming and Qing dynasty, Taobao villages
and virtual communities came into being. They seized opportunities offered bythe
new-type urbanization whose focus had been shifted from export to domestic
demand. Taobao villages and virtual communities are different from English new
towns and American suburbs in the industrial society, who were caught in impla-
cabledesiresforlands.Instead,thosevillagesandcommunitiesborrowpowerfrom
IT-backed networks and the nodes that flow online. They are gridded into the
established city clusters in the Yangtze River Delta. In this way, the urban–rural
relationisrenewedasnetworkedurbanizationproceeds;thespaceofflowsreshapes
the correlations between urban and rural areas, as well as local communities.
Li Zi noted in the preface that the potential of e-commerce can be utilized to a
greaterscale.Central,west,southeast,southAsia,andevenEuropeandAfricawere
onceimportantregionsintheancientSilkRoad.Theystillhaveabigparttoplayin
the Belt and Road Initiative in the current information era. In a time when
ix
x ForewordII
colonialist wars are replaced by mutual dependence, it is important for them to
dispel their suspicions and trust China that “it will never pursue the expansionist
approachastheoldsuperpowersdidinthepast”;byforgingamaritimealliance,the
USAandJapanarecontinuingthecoldwarpattern,whereasbydevelopingtheBelt
and Road Initiative, we are carrying on our valuable heritages; the regions and
countries alongside the Silk Road are interconnected and interdependent, their
cultures shining distinctively and brilliantly, as equality and variety are all indis-
pensable;frontierandcentralregionsareinteractingmorefrequently.Therefore,we
may come to a conclusion that altruism, reciprocity, and coexistence are the solid
foundations of a successful Belt and Road Initiative. In other words, the funda-
mental principle of the Initiative is to build a Eurasian trading zone, one that
advocates “fair trade” instead of unequal exchanges and aims to improve relations
among countries and promote peace. The Chinese has always favored a Spring
Festival couplet: The business is so prosperous that it can reach out to the Four
Seas; the fortune flows in from so many channels that can cover the Three Rivers.
Isn’t the old adage telling us the same thing?
Taipei, Taiwan Hsia Chu-Joe
March 2018 Professor
Graduate Institute of Building and Planning
National Taiwan University (NTU)