CHINAwatch

China's city clusters - a new urbanization model?

The Economist of 23 June, 2018 ran a report on how China is turning itself into a country of 19 super regions, some of which represent bigger economies or populations than certain advanced countries. 

As early as March 2011, a McKinsey Report Urban World: Mapping the Economic Power of Cities highlighted the dynamics of the world's leading cities, predicting that as much as 60% of global GDP will be driven by the world's top 600 cities by 2025.

Monocentric gigantic megacities are prone to challenges of congestion, pollution, and socio-economic divide, including slums. What is happening in China's breakneck urbanization, the most rapid and extensive in human history, portrays a different model. Giant cities like Beijing and Shanghai are no longer allowed to exceed a population cap. Many cities are managed to spread their productivity across a hub-and-spoke region or city clusters, linked up by high-speed rail to create a closely-knit living and economic circle within an hour or two's commuting time. 

I took part in a panel discussion on Radio Television Hong Kong's Back Chat of 6 July, 2018 to explore the changing dynamics of China's urban city clusters. 

Download RTHK Back Chat on China's city clusters  (The discussion starts at time counter 3:48)

China fights back against America's threat to the China Dream but success is not assured

What is portrayed as a US trade war increasingly appears as part of a full-blown arsenal to retard and degrade China's emerging challenge to America's global dominance. This sharp turn in US-China relations is supported by recent strategic think-tank research, bipartisan consensus, and growing public anti-China sentiments. Click here

There are many elements in driving this about-turn, not limited to President Trump's "America First" strategy, and China's perceived economic predatory practices. All in all, it's nothing less than what Thomas Wright depicts in his 2017 book All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power Click here

Under Trump, the gloves are off, brandishing raw, maximalist coercion on China's bilateral trade, technological engagements, direct investments, market access and even admission of Chinese students in the United States. A common thread is push-back against China's rivalry in leading technologies likely to define dominance in the 21st century. Trump's focus on Beijing's "Made in China 2025" strategy is instructive. Click here

Despite quantum leaps in technological and innovation capacity Click here, China, and the rest of the world, remains captive to America's stranglehold in core semiconductor and wafer fab technologies. These are imbedded in the heart of a milliard high-tech products, including computers and i-phones. Click here.

According to a Reuters report, China imported $227 billion worth of integrated circuits in 2016, more than its imports of crude oil, iron ore and primary plastics combined. Dependence on US semiconductor technologies of Chinese giant IT conglomerates is embarrassing, as exemplified by ZTE's near-death by US technology sanctions. Xiaomi and even Huawei are not immune. 

While the current US trade and technology war is a wake-up call that is bound to spur China on to advance its own core technologies, it is by no means certain that China may be able to dominate in power-wielding technologies in the 21st century, such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Click here