On Shifting Foundations State Rescaling, Policy Experimentation and Economic Restructuring in Post-1949 China

This book introduces readers to the current social and economic state of China since its restructuring in 1949.

• Provides insights into the targeted institutional change that is occurring simultaneously across the entire country
• Presents context-rich accounts of how and why these changes connect to (if not contradict) regulatory logics established during the Mao-era
• A new analytical framework that explicitly considers the relationship between state rescaling, policy experimentation, and path dependency
• Prompts readers to think about how experimental initiatives reflect and contribute to the ‘national strategy’ of Chinese development
• An excellent extension of ongoing theoretical work examining the entwinement of subnational regulatory reconfiguration, place-specific policy experimentation, and the reproduction of national economic advantage

Kean Fan Lim is Lecturer in Economic Geography and Urban and Regional Development at Newcastle University, UK. He is primarily interested in the impact of city-regional policy experimentation on national-level regulatory pathways in China. Kean’s research has been widely published in journals within and beyond geography.

Series Editor’s Preface viii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction 1

Part I A Geographical–Historical Re‐appraisal 27

2 Chinese State Spatiality as a Complex Palimpsest 29

Part II Conceptual Parameters 63

3 State Rescaling, Policy Experimentation and Path‐dependency in post‐Mao China: A Dynamic Analytical Framework 65

Part III State Rescaling in the Pearl River Delta and Chongqing 83

4 Becoming ‘More Special than Special’ I: The Pressures and Opportunities for Change in Guangdong 85

5 Becoming ‘More Special than Special’ II: Hengqin and Qianhai New Areas as National Frontiers of Financial Reforms 112

6 State Rescaling in and Through Chongqing I: The State as Economic Driver 145

7 State Rescaling in and Through Chongqing II: The Politics of Path‐dependency 174

8 Concluding Reflections 196

References 209

Index 230

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