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

About the Author :
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.

Review :
'In this foundational investigation, Kean Fan Lim shows how contemporary Chinese urbanization has been stimulated through new state policies designed to territorialize transnational capital investment. These rescaled state spaces have, he argues, figured centrally in the production of new forms of uneven development across the national territory. This systematically researched, lucidly argued book is an essential resource for anyone concerned to understand the contemporary urban condition, whether in China or elsewhere.' Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University 'Kean Fan Lim makes a breakthrough in existing studies of the Chinese political economy by astutely integrating a multi-scalar and historically grounded framework to illustrate the rationale and effects of economic restructuring in contemporary China. The empirical focus on the 'nationally strategic new areas' offers an important platform for understanding the regulatory challenges facing Chinese policymakers across different scales.' Weidong Liu, Professor in Economic Geography, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences 'This book is the first systematic treatment of China's state rescaling and an innovative application to the widespread 'nationally strategic new areas' in China. Kean Fan Lim should be congratulated for successfully tackling the concept of scale and state rescaling and for demonstrating their analytical power to understand China's regional development.' Fulong Wu, Bartlett Professor of Planning, The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London 'Published as part of the RGS-IBG book series, this publication details a significant aspect of China's economic reform, namely, 'crossing the river by feeling for stones' (p. 1). This metaphor has long been used to illustrate that China's transition to a market economy has no precedent and cannot rely on other countries' experiences for guidance and, hence, must be a trial-and-error process. Rather than taking this aspect for granted, the book argues that this process foregrounds the nature of China's political economy, and that these longstanding policy experimentation practices therefore warrant detailed examination. As highlighted in chapters 1 and 2, for example, this process is shown not to be specific to China's post-economic reform; rather, it is an inherent process that is commonly used by the Communist Party of China (CPC).' Yi Li, National Research Centre for Resettlement, Hohai University, Nanjing, China (Regional Studies, 2019)