Abstract

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Many agree that rapid urbanization in China in the late 20th  and early 21st  centuries is a mega process significantly reshaping China and the global economy. China’s urbanization also carries a certain mystique, which has long fascinated generations of scholars and journalists alike. As it has turned out, many of the asserted Chinese feats are mostly fancied claims or gross misinterpretations (of statistics, for example, but much more than that). There does exist, however, an urbanization that displays rather uncommon "Chinese&" characteristics that remain inadequately understood. Building on my past research and studies on the socialist industrialization strategy, this paper dissects the complexity of the interrelationships of China’s urbanization, the hukou system and various socialist institutions. The paper points to the continuity of a powerful rural-urban dual system established in Mao’s era in shaping urbanization in the reform era.

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About the Speaker: 

 

Prof. CHAN is currently the professor of Department of Geography, The University of Washington. He was the author of Cities with Invisible Walls: Reinterpreting Urbanization in Post-1949 China (Oxford University Press, 1994), and Urbanization with Chinese Characteristics (Taylor & Francis, 2018) and some 70 articles and book chapters. His research focuses on China’s urbanization, cities, migration, urban labor market, spatial economy and the hukou (household registration) system.

 

He has also served as a consultant for the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Labor Organization, and McKinsey & Co. and worked with the Chinese Government on a number of policy projects. He is currently co-editor of Eurasian Geography and Economics. His commentaries and interviews have appeared in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Economist, South China Morning Post, BBC, CBC Radio, Caixin, Ming Pao and China Daily.