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17 Jun 2026, 12:23 pm
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Reviewed by
Hyun Bang Shin, Judith Audin, Yi Jin, Karita Kan, Kean Fan Lim, Xiaobo Su, Shaun S. K. Teo, Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang
Book Review Forum: Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies
Wu Fulong and Zhang Fangzhu, Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies, Routledge: London, 2025; 222 pp.: ISBN: 9781032408934, £145.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9781032408965, £37.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781003355175 (ebook, Open Access)
Introduction
Hyun Bang Shin – London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
China’s urban development has been a source of inspiration and awe for scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and travelers. In the 1990s and 2000s, experiencing China’s fast-paced urban development was a frequent topic of conversation over dinner tables among returning visitors to China, who discussed how cities were changing at breakneck speed, to the point that a place fondly remembered on one visit might no longer be there on the next. Questions followed about what made this pace of development possible. This is where governing urban development in China becomes an important area of scholarly scrutiny.
One of the most important conceptual frameworks that has helped Chinese urban studies flourish is state entrepreneurialism, which helps explain how the Chinese state has both shaped the market and actively participated in it to advance its mandate. Central to understanding the strong, strategic, and productive role of the state in its “planning for growth” (Wu, 2015), the concept of state entrepreneurialism has been a powerful tool for analyzing the multi-scalar operation of the Chinese state at the county, municipal, and provincial levels. Fulong Wu’s work on state entrepreneurialism, building on the work of Jane Duckett, Jean Oi, and David Harvey, among others, has become a landmark contribution, not only enabling the translation of Western urban theories into Chinese contexts but also helping to theorize from China itself by reconciling the tension between strong states and market prevalence, which characterized China’s development.
Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies by Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang consolidates their decades-long research on urban development and governance in China. Starting with a broad overview of governance theories and perspectives (Chapter 1), the book presents a detailed account of the historical formation of state entrepreneurialism and its practices (Chapter 2), and of how planning emerged as a regulatory exercise, becoming central to China’s growth politics, which resorted to entrepreneurial statecraft (Chapter 3). The book then examines selected aspects of entrepreneurial statecraft, including financing China’s urban development through the commodification of land and the financialization of the state, including the financialization of local debts (Chapter 4); practices of urban redevelopment, especially the redevelopment of urbanized villages and the recent popularization of so-called “micro-regeneration,” implemented as a way of fulfilling the national directives such as upgrading slum areas and heritage preservation (Chapter 5); governance of innovation (Chapter 6); and the rise of ecological civilization as a socio-ecological fix or a “green turn” to address emerging urban crises (Chapter 7).
This book review forum brings together contributions from six scholars at diverse career stages and from a range of geographical locations across Asia (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore), Europe (France and the United Kingdom), and North America (the United States). All contributors are engaged in research on China’s urban governance and draw on strong empirical, field-based scholarship. The reviews, therefore, reflect their extensive research on urban China, carried out in varied settings, from what can be termed “overlooked cities” in China urban studies (Ruszczyk et al., 2021; e.g. Datong in Shanxi Province for Judith Audin and Luzhou in Sichuan Province for Yi Jin) to major metropolises and city-regions (e.g. Chongqing and the Pearl River Delta region for Kean Fan Lim and Shenzhen for Shaun S.K. Teo), as well as the border regions (e.g. the China–Myanmar border for Xiaobo Su) and urbanizing rural China (e.g. rural counties in Jiangsu and Guangdong Provinces for Karita Kan).
Taken together, the reviews in this forum offer a rich and multifaceted engagement with the work of Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang from theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives. They provide opportunities not only to affirm the book authors’ insightful contributions but also to offer constructive critiques that advance contemporary debates on Chinese statecraft, particularly its evolution in response to China’s mounting economic, social, and geopolitical challenges, and on the nature of the state more broadly, in light of the growing attention to state capitalism (e.g. Alami and Dixon, 2024) and managerial statecraft (Jin and Shin, 2025; Wu et al., 2025). Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies thus stands as an important foundational work that opens the door to more sustained, critical, and generative scholarship on the Chinese state and beyond.
References
Alami I, Dixon AD (2024) The Spectre of State Capitalism. Oxford University Press.
Jin Y, Shin HB (2025) Revisiting urban governance in China: The manifestation of entrepreneurial neo-managerialism in shantytown redevelopment in Luzhou. Urban Studies 62(10): 2136–2153.
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Ruszczyk HA, Nugraha E, De Villiers I (eds) (2021) Overlooked Cities: Power, Politics and Knowledge Beyond the Urban South. Routledge.
Wu F (2015) Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China. Routledge.
Wu F, Deng H, Feng Y, et al. (2025) From entrepreneurial to managerial statecraft: New trends of urban governance transformation in post-pandemic China. Urban Studies 62(15): 3092–3109.
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Commentary 1
Judith Audin – Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Chinese urbanization—and its dramatic acceleration in the 21st century—has long captivated scholars across multiple disciplines, each seeking to grasp its scope and implications through distinct theoretical and methodological lenses. As the authors note, China’s urban governance “demonstrates perplexing features. It presents a picture of intertwined state policies, market exchanges, and social agencies in everyday urban life” (p. 3). As a researcher examining the socio-political consequences of urban transformations in contemporary China, particularly in medium-sized hinterland cities, I have often sought works capable of providing a broader theoretical perspective on these complex and evolving dynamics of Chinese urbanization. At the same time, I have been struck by the limitations of established Western frameworks—such as capitalism, neoliberalism, authoritarianism, or transition theory—in adequately capturing these processes. Likewise, the ubiquitous use of “post-” prefixes (e.g. post-socialism, post-communism) often proves insufficient: rather than clarifying the object of study, these categories primarily emphasize the surpassing of a historical era, while paradoxically remaining conceptually tethered to that very past. How, then, can we avoid exceptionalism about Chinese urbanization?
This book by Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang successfully moves beyond such conceptual impasses by, as the authors put it, “theorizing Chinese urban governance from the ground up” (p. 2). In doing so, it provides an innovative and empirically grounded framework for rethinking the relationships between state, market, and urban transformation. Beyond the specific domain of Chinese urban studies, the volume makes a highly heuristic and conceptually rich contribution to urban theory more broadly. It engages in sustained dialogue with the wider literature and judiciously selects the analytical concepts that best capture the political economy of China’s urban development. By revisiting and reframing critical urban theory through the lens of the Chinese experience, the book’s interdisciplinary and interregional perspectives advance conceptual innovation and foster analytical creativity. Formally, the book is elegantly produced and illustrated by evocative photographs that complement its analytical depth. Each chapter concludes with a thoughtful discussion of concepts in critical urban studies—such as gentrification, heritage preservation, and financialization—that spoke to my own research, thereby positioning the Chinese experience within broader theoretical debates.
For this forum, I would like to discuss three lines of reflection that explain why I found this book both inspiring and intellectually challenging. First, the discussion of power dynamics in China’s urban development—structured around the central concept of state entrepreneurialism—deeply engaged with my own work. Drawing on rigorous engagement with critical urban theory and authors such as David Harvey and Jennifer Robinson, the book provides a precise and up-to-date conceptualization of the political, economic, and material transformations of urban China. It defines the two key features of state entrepreneurialism: first, the state acts through the market by “governing at a distance” and following the market logics; second, it acts within the market, by “controlling or participating in the public sector of the market,” through “quasi-government agencies that include urban development and investment corporations, land reserve centers, various state-owned enterprises, and financial instruments such as urban development corporation bonds and local government bonds” (p. 38). These intertwined relations between multi-scalar state and market actors have shaped China’s urban governance, especially in the aftermath of the 2008 stimulus designed to counter the global financial crisis.
Second, this theorization resonates strongly with my understanding of urban transformations in the city of Datong, a medium-sized municipality in northern Shanxi Province, known for both its ancient cultural heritage and its coal industry. Drawing on my own research on Datong, I can confirm that the political economy of real estate—although involving private developers—was deeply intertwined with municipal planning schemes and local redevelopment projects. The city’s former mayor, Geng Yanbo, epitomized what Wu and Zhang describe in relation to the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus (p. 86), which aimed to generate new construction dynamics at the local level. Between 2008 and 2013, Geng devoted his mandate to an ambitious project to recreate an “ancient city of history and culture” (lishi wenhua gucheng), before being unexpectedly transferred to Taiyuan. His project entailed, among other measures, the relocation of nearly all residents from the old city center, provoking numerous conflicts over compensation and the often-violent demolition of their homes. This initiative clashed with the interests of another branch of the Chinese state—namely, heritage experts based in Beijing—who argued that the local government had destroyed too many authentic sites to reconstruct pseudo-historic architecture (see Cui, 2018). Following the mayor’s sudden transfer to Taiyuan, the provincial capital, Datong entered a phase of reordering and slowdown, aligned with central directives on real estate speculation. As the authors note in Chapter 4, the Xi Jinping administration evolved toward deleveraging developers and deflating financialization by regulating local government debt. In this sense, state entrepreneurialism aptly characterizes the case of Datong—a relatively understudied city that nonetheless reproduced governance and development patterns observed in China’s metropolises. Yet the subsequent downturn of the real estate sector hit smaller cities like Datong much harder than major urban centers.
Third, I was also particularly drawn to Chapter 7, which focuses on China’s “socio-environmental fix,” and adds a crucial dimension to understanding how urban governance seeks to transform the environment “through changing socio-nature relations” (p. 158). Since the late 1990s, China’s environmental governance evolved “from a growth-oriented polity with ineffective pollution control to a strengthened rationality of ecological civilization” (p. 159). Through a multi-scalar analysis of state action, the book convincingly shows how environmental policy has become integral to contemporary urban development. I definitely appreciate that the volume incorporates socio-environmental measures as a constitutive element of urban governance in the Xi Jinping era. However, given the growing centrality of climate policies in China, I would have welcomed a more explicit discussion of the notion of just transition within the framework of critical urban studies. Such an approach could have enriched the claim that “carbon control [is] an overwhelming problem for urban and regional governance” (p. 159). In my own research on Datong, I have examined the social consequences of the coal transition, observing that environmental regulation and pollution control have not necessarily coincided with policies of social inclusion. This has, to some extent, resulted in forms of “low-carbon gentrification” (see Bouzarovski et al., 2018). While substantial efforts have been made toward environmental improvement, the restructuring of the coal sector has yet to provide solutions for the local labor force. For most miners, the only option remains to be reassigned (fenliu) to more distant mines, which undermines their capacity to sustain long-term, place-based livelihoods. Further references to China’s shrinking and resource-based cities would have strengthened this chapter, especially given the growing body of scholarship addressing these issues.
Overall, Governing Urban Development in China is a brilliantly written and theoretically ambitious contribution to the study of Chinese urban governance. The central argument on state entrepreneurialism is both theoretically robust and empirically well grounded. The authors demonstrate an impressive capacity to engage with—and bridge—international urban theory and China-focused scholarship, thus connecting academic dialogues that too often remain fragmented. That said, one area that might have been developed further is methodology. How is research on urban governance and finance conducted in China in practice? Through what research strategies did the authors—and those they cite—gain access to the “black box” of the state’s role in China’s urban land and financial systems? To what extent might some aspects of such inquiries be considered sensitive by Chinese authorities? Addressing these questions in an additional chapter would have further enriched my understanding of the epistemological and practical challenges involved in conducting research on the political economy and political ecology of urban development in contemporary China.
In conclusion, Governing Urban Development in China provides an original and sophisticated characterization of urban governance in China. It will undoubtedly stimulate further dialogue between urban studies and China studies by bridging theoretical and empirical inquiry.
References
Bouzarovski S, Frankowski J, Tirado Herrero S (2018) Low-carbon gentrification: When climate change encounters residential displacement. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 42(5): 845–863.
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Cui J (2018) Heritage visions of Mayor Geng Yanbo: Re-creating the city of Datong. In: Maags C, Svensson M (eds) Chinese Heritage in the Making. Experiences, Negotiations and Contestation. Amsterdam University Press, pp.223–244.
Commentary 2
Yi Jin – Nanjing University, China
In recent years, particularly since all restrictions imposed to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted at the end of 2022, virtually all cities in Mainland China have witnessed a decline in real estate prices to varying degrees. Some may find it astonishing that the scale of the decline has reached as high as 50% in some cases. However, for long-term readers of Fulong Wu’s and Fangzhu Zhang’s work, the challenges China now faces may not come as a surprise. Consistent with their previous research, in their new book titled Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies the authors seek to bridge theoretical frameworks in critical urban studies with China’s urban experience. This book not only offers an alternative perspective for theorization in urban studies but also provides an excellent synthesis of the authors’ major findings over the past decades at the turning point of China’s urban development trajectory, inviting readers to reflect on how urban China (and the country in general) has arrived at its current situation.
A major contribution made by Fulong Wu is his evolving theorization of the concept of state entrepreneurialism (see Wu, 2017), which also serves as the key analytical framework for this book. Coined by Harvey (1989), the concept of urban entrepreneurialism was initially used to capture the transformation of urban governance in the United States and parts of Europe (particularly the United Kingdom) after the 1970s. In general, it highlights the facilitating role of the local state in promoting capital accumulation and local economic growth. Its essence overlaps, at least partially, with other theories in the field of urban governance, such as urban regime theory and the urban growth machine thesis, and can be regarded as a precursor to neoliberalism. Scholars have long applied this concept and its variations to the Chinese context. As early as 1996, Duckett (1996) employed the term “state entrepreneurialism” to describe the practices of some bureaux in Tianjin that established affiliated enterprises to engage directly in business activities. Coincidentally, several other influential theories on China’s development, such as Oi’s (1992) concept of local state corporatism and Walder’s (1995) notion of local government as industrial firms, emerged around the same time, based on scholars’ observations in Tianjin as well. How, then, should we evaluate the novel contribution made by Wu and Zhang in this book?
The first highlight of this book lies in its new periodization of the historical formation of state entrepreneurialism in China, which situates changes in governance within the broader trajectory of China’s economic and industrial development (Chapter 2). According to the authors, it was only after Deng Xiaoping’s famous Southern Tour in 1992 that state entrepreneurialism began to emerge in China. This year also marked the establishment of the socialist market economy system at the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. At this stage, local governments in China, eager to attract external investment, sought to create a more market-friendly environment, similar to their counterparts in the West. It was also against such a backdrop that Duckett proposed the concept of state entrepreneurialism. The second stage began in 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization and soon became the world’s factory. During this period, land played an increasingly central role. Local governments used their planning powers to assemble land for export-oriented factories and the real estate sector, provide infrastructure, and generate land-based revenues. State entrepreneurialism in this phase began to diverge significantly from its Western archetype, as the Chinese state became more directly involved in economic activities. The current stage began in 2008, when China adopted financialized strategies to cope with the global financial crisis. Instead of using fiscal revenues for economic stimulus, the central government allowed local governments to secure debt financing. Through local government financing vehicles, they leveraged loans from state-owned banks to fund development projects. In this regard, financialization did not weaken but rather strengthened the central role of the state. The authors compellingly combine state entrepreneurialism with the emerging concept of financialization to define this phase as financialized state entrepreneurialism. This long-term periodization not only helps us to better understand the shifting priorities and evolving strategies of China’s governance but also reveals how empirical cases from China extend the theoretical scope of urban entrepreneurialism.
Building upon this, the second highlight lies in how the authors theorize state entrepreneurialism. As the discussion above suggests, state entrepreneurialism not only transcends the facilitating role of the state in market development as emphasized in the original formulation of urban entrepreneurialism but also moves beyond a simple focus on the state’s centrality. The authors’ key contribution lies in demonstrating how the state has appropriated different market instruments to achieve its strategic goals, or in some sense even instrumentalizing the market per se, as seen in the phase of financialized state entrepreneurialism. Nevertheless, however powerful the state may be, it cannot escape the basic operational logic of the market. Returning to the phenomenon discussed at the beginning of this commentary, from the perspective of state entrepreneurialism, the authors observe that although state officials actively engage in market affairs, they are not genuine market actors, as they often lack competence in market operations (p. 184). They tend not to follow market rationality or to heed market signals; instead, they replace them with their own wishes, encouraging their financial vehicles to borrow recklessly. In this sense, the challenges currently confronting China’s real estate sector, and indeed the broader economy, are internal to the logic of state entrepreneurialism itself.
In this book, the authors adopt a governance perspective and conceptualize state entrepreneurialism as a new technique of governance. In doing so, they extend the analytical scope of the concept beyond urban development and redevelopment, with which urban scholars are most familiar, to include innovation and environmental governance. This demonstrates how productive and versatile the perspective of state entrepreneurialism can be. Looking ahead, as China enters its next stage of (urban) development, this analytical lens will continue to prove insightful and robust for different topics, be it small-scale urban regeneration or AI and electric vehicles development. It is also noteworthy that the other end of urban entrepreneurialism, namely urban managerialism proposed by Harvey (1989), has recently been revisited by some scholars and applied to the Chinese context, including the authors of this book (Jin and Shin, 2025; Wu et al., 2025). It will be particularly interesting to observe how the interplay between state entrepreneurialism and managerialism, grounded in China’s development experience, can contribute to advancing theoretical debates.
References
Duckett J (1996) The emergence of the entrepreneurial state in contemporary China. The Pacific Review 9(2): 180–198.
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Harvey D (1989) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography 71(1): 3–17.
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Jin Y, Shin HB (2025) Revisiting urban governance in China: The manifestation of entrepreneurial neo-managerialism in shantytown redevelopment in Luzhou. Urban Studies 62(10): 2136–2153.
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Oi J (1992) Fiscal reform and the economic foundations of local state corporatism in China. World Politics 45(1): 99–126.
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Walder AG (1995) Local governments as industrial firms: An organizational analysis of China’s transitional economy. American Journal of Sociology 101(2): 263–301.
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Wu F (2017) Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism. Urban Studies 55(7): 1383–1399.
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Wu F, Deng H, Feng Y, et al. (2025) From entrepreneurial to managerial statecraft: New trends of urban governance transformation in post-pandemic China. Urban Studies 62(15): 3092–3109. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980251333304.
Commentary 3
Karita Kan – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
The current moment has been called an age of polycrisis as societies grapple with ecological, economic, political, and social emergencies that are increasingly interconnected with one another, from global pandemics and climate catastrophes to heightened geopolitical tensions, growing precarity, and persistent rural–urban inequalities. Examining the transformation of urban governance amidst these phenomenal changes requires both a deep understanding of the evolution of modes and strategies of governance from the past and an incisive grasp of current and future developments and challenges. This is what Fulong Wu’s and Fangzhu Zhang’s new book offers in the context of China: a masterful analysis of changes and continuities in urban development and governance in the People’s Republic, presented with novel theoretical frameworks, rich empirical materials, and meaningful historical and comparative perspectives.
The book is a piece of authoritative scholarship published at a unique juncture of China’s developmental trajectory. After decades of breakneck growth, the country now faces a period of structural transition brought on by overlapping external and internal drivers. Rising labor costs and the relocation of manufacturing precipitated the demise of the “world-factory” model of export-led growth, a shift accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and intensified geopolitics. Domestically, economic slowdown, the local debt crisis, low birth rates, and rising youth unemployment deepened the “new crisis of capital accumulation” (p. 142). The environmental impact of development, from arable land loss to pollution, further undermined the biophysical underpinnings of furthering accumulation. The convergence of these challenges from within and without shines a spotlight on the reconfiguration of governance strategies by the Chinese Party-state at this critical crossroads.
At the heart of their contribution is the notion of “state entrepreneurialism,” which Wu and Zhang propose as the framework for examining the strategic role of the state in contemporary urban governance. In contrast to urban entrepreneurialism, the notion of state entrepreneurialism concerns the art of governance and highlights how the Chinese state both acts through market instruments and acts in the market to achieve strategic policy guidance. The strengthened role of the state in steering development and the reorientation of developmental goals from purely growth-driven ones toward “extra-economic” objectives are pronounced themes throughout the chapters. Across diverse domains of urban governance, the book details parallel policy shifts occurring from the mid-2010s onwards where political rationalities and governmental technologies take center stage: in planning, a shift from “planning for growth” to “national territorial spatial planning” which emphasizes central regulation and high-quality development; in finance, a new approach of “de-financialization” that entails deleveraging the debt of developers and stepped-up regulation over local government debt; in urban redevelopment, a replacement of property-led, speculative urbanization by “micro-generation” projects that prize “common prosperity” and “social happiness”; and in suburban development, from real estate projects and informal peripheral developments to planned greenways and centrally endorsed megaprojects that aim at sustainability and innovation. Put together, the more interventionist role of the state across various aspects of urban development is palpable and points to the leadership’s broader attempt to redefine and recalibrate its basis of legitimacy beyond growth and economic performance.
The framework of state entrepreneurialism creates fertile ground for further theorization of the political economy and central–local dynamics of urban development. One poignant observation emerging from the book is that, while the central government has put forward new political mandates, it often falls on local governments to implement and materialize these visions. Local authorities, however, are operating in much more constrained environments as the central government tightened regulatory control over many facets of urban development, from municipal finance to planning and land use. This reveals fundamental contradictions and tensions within state entrepreneurialism. The first is expressed in multi-scalar politics: to fulfil political mandates under heightened control and diminishing resources, local officials might resort to breaching or manipulating fiscal and land-use regulations to demonstrate achievements. This directs attention to the agency of local officials and their strategic maneuvers, updating discussions of selective policy implementation, feigned compliance, and performative enforcement in current contexts. The second is “exceptionality to routine politics” (p. 49). To proactively steer urban development, the central government now intervenes directly through designating megaprojects that are aligned with its strategic goals, appointing management committees with special powers, and acting through quasi-state agencies as its local partners. How such exceptionality may act as a method of governing urban development has important implications for the evolving ideologies and technologies of governance under actual or proclaimed crises.
A related theme that stands out across several chapters is the new zonal politics that characterizes contemporary urban development. The Chinese state has long deployed administrative-territorial strategies to dictate the geography and pace of development. While the goals were previously primarily growth driven, zonal technologies are now used to achieve imperatives beyond profit making, such as providing ecological services for the nation, and to reconcile these aims with continuing demands for revenue and rent extraction. Zoning under this context performs the role of spatial rationalization and functional classification, imposing new boundaries and assigning specialized functions to previously undifferentiated parcels of land. The recent policy of dividing national space into urban, agricultural, and ecological space exemplifies how zoning is used as a technical device to hold together diverse and at times contradictory developmental objectives. The establishment of specialized zones set up new sovereignties of land control and might give rise to new patterns of uneven development. The innovation zones and eco-cities described in the book serve as illustrations. These planned spaces are revealing sites for understanding the reconfiguration of relations between the urban, the suburban, and the rural, and connect more broadly with the study of operational landscapes, productive territories, and functional hinterlands. Examining these dynamics advances interdisciplinary dialogue between urban studies on the one hand and rural studies, critical agrarian studies, and environmental studies on the other, and offers important insights into how processes of peripheral urbanization and agrarian transformation are co-productive of one another.
While Wu’s and Zhang’s book focuses on state entrepreneurialism as governmentality and statecraft, their scholarship paves the way for further research that goes beyond state-centric perspectives. Even as the Chinese government strives to promote extra-economic goals such as livability, sustainability, and happiness, many of the projects described still engendered exclusionary outcomes for groups in society. In redevelopment, for example, while large-scale demolition and resettlement have become less common, “micro-generation” projects continue to generate new forms of inequality and marginalization. These dynamics invite further investigation of the varied processes and outcomes of dispossession beyond the conventional focus on coercive expropriation and forced relocation. The different ways by which residents are displaced from their homes and property, are excluded from value capture, or see their neighborhoods transformed by newly imposed zoning regulations may, in turn, forge novel forms of agency from below. These forms of agency may not necessarily be organized, overt, or confrontational, as are characteristic of anti-dispossession and anti-eviction struggles, but may take more nuanced forms, from everyday practices of survival and improvisation to emergent relations of care, sociality, and alternative practices. Locating these varied societal responses to state entrepreneurialism, whether in resistance to it, in symbiosis with it, or occurring at its niches and interstices, would afford valuable insights into the dynamics of state–society interaction in this current moment of urban development.
Understanding the broad shifts in governance is more urgent and consequential than ever in these extraordinary times of great global restructuring. In putting forward a cogent framework of state entrepreneurialism to analyze and interpret ongoing transformations, Wu’s and Zhang’s book is a timely, erudite guide that opens up new paradigms for future research. It should be a crucial source of reference and point of engagement for researchers of urban China and beyond.
Commentary 4
Kean Fan Lim – Newcastle University, UK
Introduction
A major achievement in critical urban studies over the past decade is its acute wariness of theorizing through the North–South binary. This dichotomous approach is problematic because theories derived from the “Global North,” a term that has largely become synonymous with “the West,” are presented as universal, while urban processes in the “Global South” are positioned as mere variants of these theories. What has emerged, in turn, is a commitment to complicate this binary through contextually specific “grounded theories.” One important context that has generated substantial attention is what Shin (2021) terms the “Global East,” namely the unique trajectories of East and Southeast Asian cities that can be categorized neither as “Global North” nor “Global South.”Governing Urban Development in China by Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang is a sparkling exemplar of “Global East” theorizing.
Readers will find in this highly engaging book three distinct features of Chinese urban governance: (i) the logic of “entrepreneurialism” in urban regions does not correspond to that of urban entrepreneurialism as postulated by Harvey (1989); (ii) the implementation of “governance” does not mark a zero-sum retreat of “government” (i.e. the nation-state); and (iii) urban land use does not simply reflect the formation of “desakotas” as found in many developing countries. Rather, the process of urban governance becomes a prism to understand the delicate attempt by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to reproduce sovereign state rule within a context of global economic integration: “urban governance is … simultaneously subject to the capital logic of accumulation and the territorial logic of the multi-scalar state” (p. 30).
Urban governance and the contingency of structural coherence
The logic of urban governance in China is explored via the conceptual pillars of governance (Chapter 1) and state entrepreneurialism (Chapter 2). These two chapters build onto each other—the focus on state entrepreneurialism fortifies extant debates on urban governance by foregrounding the core logic of Chinese urban governance: “state legitimacy through its role in maintaining structural coherence” (p. 13). This framing is a major contribution in itself because earlier studies on producing structural coherence have not explicitly considered the importance of regulating urbanization (c.f. Lim, 2019; Su and Lim, 2023). While this regulation is more about “governance” than “government” because it involves enrolling and collaborating with non-state actors, it is not simply a zero-sum process wherein the state takes a backseat and allows non-state actors to “govern at a distance” (p. 38); it involves proactive intervention within the sprawling Chinese state apparatus through incentivizing subnational state actors to align place-specific initiatives with national mandates: “The central government initiated a series of campaigns that guided local development … However, local government officials must understand the importance of, and adhere to, the spirit and redlines” (p. 125).
Despite this substantial focus on the state, this book does not reduce urban governance to intra-state dynamics. As Wu and Zhang emphasize, the “logic of governance is beyond the state itself or the state logic” (p. 181) because it is the state’s relations with the market and society that shape governance outcomes. This important point highlights how the CPC’s pursuit of structural coherence is contingent on the social agency of non-state actors. Such is the focus on agency that even the state itself is construed as a multifaceted actor with “diverse interests, intentions, and motivations,” most prominent of which are “maintaining political stability, presenting itself as a benevolent guardian of society, and containing economic crises” (p. 125). The subsequent part of the book builds on this conceptual framing to examine how such “diverse interests” are pursued across five domains of governance: planning (Chapter 3), financialization (Chapter 4), urban redevelopment (Chapter 5), innovation (Chapter 6), and the environment (Chapter 7).
A gateway to conceptual engagement
A unique feature of this book is the extension of conceptual engagement within each of these five domains. This approach is unlike conventional book structures that place where conceptual reviews at the beginning before the subsequent chapters focus exclusively on empirical analyses. For instance, the discussion on innovation (Chapter 6) begins with a critical engagement with key concepts in economic geography (pp. 137–140), specifically how innovation capacities are developed via local buzz, global pipelines, and strategic coupling with global production networks. Through this engagement, a specific gap is identified: existing economic-geographical treatment of innovation focuses “less on urban development within which innovation spaces are constructed and knowledge dynamics occur” (p. 139). This approach immediately connects the book’s focus on urban governance with economic-geographical concepts and cogently demonstrates how the urban scale constitutes the Chinese state’s attempt to bolster innovative capacities. In doing so, Wu and Zhang complicate and inject explanatory power to existing concepts in economic geography.
To be sure, the sheer amount of empirical data in Chapters 3–7 means there is less scope for extensive conceptual re-engagement in the “critical reflections” section at the end of each chapter. For example, the multi-scalar state’s attempt to attract talent (p. 150) and drive driven development (p. 152) has much to say about the reconfiguration of regional assets in strategic coupling. The competition to construct innovation-oriented parks in urban areas also calls into question the relevance of the “national innovation system” approach for explaining the Chinese state’s ambitious attempts to boost innovation capacities. Yet precisely because attempting such a detailed conceptual reengagement is not the professed aim of the book, it becomes a gateway to exciting conversations on a wide range of concepts on changes in the Chinese political economy. It is through this extensive impact that Wu and Zhang demonstrate the true value of “Global East” theorizing.
Methodological questions
Arguably the most important aspect of the book is its focus on the state’s attempt to resolve “the tension between capital accumulation and territorial politics” (p. 52). Situating this recurring quest within the logic of urban governance in contemporary China, the book instantly shifts the scalar focus beyond the urban scale by entwining it with national-level concerns to sustain what it frequently terms “territorial integrity.” At the same time, readers will find that the research design underpinning this analytical focus is not explicitly presented. As such, the book raises methodological questions on how to ascertain and evaluate the tensions intrinsic in the embeddedness of urban governance within state strategic calculations.
A key question concerns the deployment of “critical cases” that could highlight the production and resolution of tensions. Wu and Zhang’s approach involves using an impressive range of original photographs and detailed presentation of examples such as Yongqingfang (p. 130) and Zhangjiang High-Tech Park (p. 153) to illustrate the manifestation of tensions. This presentation is situated within critical interpretations that allow readers to understand the significance and purpose of the examples. For instance, following the detailed description of the formation of Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, Wu and Zhang conclude that the case “highlights the limitation of entrepreneurial governance when applied to high-tech development and innovation, as these emerging technological sectors are investment-intensive and highly uncertain in financial return” (p. 154).
It is less clear, however, whether the tensions of urban governance can be fully grasped without a higher level of granularity that involves foregrounding the sources of the claims and listing who the actors are and these actors’ discursive justifications of their action. In the Zhangjiang case, for instance, the actors driving the developmental plans in institutions such as the Zhangjiang Group (p. 152) are not named; the name of the plan for Zhangjiang (p. 75) is also not listed. Understanding how these actors feel about their respective plans and strategies would provide a stronger portrayal of social agency within the broader context of state entrepreneurialism. In turn, the discourse would paint a clearer picture on whether these actors’ intentions align with state strategies.
Readers may also debate whether some omitted but historically significant cases could have more effectively reinforced the arguments in the empirically focused chapters. Guizhou’s Zunyi city comes to mind as a highly significant “critical case” that could strengthen Chapter 4’s examination of the treatment of land as a fictitious commodity, excessive borrowing through local government financing vehicles, and the large-scale construction of infrastructure to support growth led by real estate. In 2023, Zunyi’s government officials publicly proclaimed they could not repay their debts and subsequently negotiated a 20-year debt-restructuring program that was unprecedented across China: the local government would only pay interest for the first 10 years. What ensued is an urban landscape of incomplete construction projects, including the highly visible but empty Fengxin Expressway that cuts across the city. Analysing the discourse of the specific officials from Zunyi who engaged in such projects and presenting photographs of the incomplete projects across Zunyi would offer more context-specific substantiation of the “increasing tension between financial logic and territorial politics” (p. 14). Why these officials dared to risk social unrest by going public with their cash flow problem is also an intriguing question. Such actor-oriented illustrations would provide indicative signs regarding a key concern of the book: “the internal tension between the state and entrepreneurialism and perhaps the end of state entrepreneurialism” (p. 53).
Where next for urban governance in China?
The true value of Governing Urban Development in China shines through by showcasing how any attempt to understand the Chinese political economy cannot be disconnected from a distinctive geographical process — urban governance. Crucially, it provides a platform for assessing from five domains (Chapters 3–7) whether state entrepreneurialism has run its course as the organizing framework for an urbanizing China. This would not be possible without Wu and Zhang’s effective attempt to “theorize from the ground up” (p. 2). Indeed, to follow Shin (2021: 63), the book has fully demonstrated why it is important to “re-insert cities outside the West (or North Atlantic) in the global epistemological map of urban theorizing.” Understanding and explaining the future of urban governance in China need not be contingent on borrowing so-called “universal” theories from “the North” — engaging with this book would be a wonderful place to start.
References
Harvey D (1989) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 71(1): 3–17.
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Commentary 5
Xiaobo Su – University of Oregon, USA
For years, Fulong Wu and his research team have produced an immensely influential body of scholarship on China’s urban governance, with a particular focus on state entrepreneurialism—the central theme of Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies. While the concept of state entrepreneurialism is by now well established—largely due to the extensive conceptual and empirical elaborations by Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang—the book nonetheless offers a valuable window into the dynamics of state-centered governance. It provides in-depth discussions on the governance framework, planning mechanisms, financing and financialization, urban development and redevelopment, and, finally, environmental governance. At its core lies a rigorously constructed and critically balanced narrative of state-driven urban development in contemporary China. Through this narrative, readers gain a comprehensive understanding of how economic and environmental governance have evolved across Chinese cities. As a whole, Governing Urban Development in China synthesizes conceptual debates and empirical case studies through a processual-relational lens, offering a panoramic depiction of China’s phenomenal urban transformations over the past decades. In what follows, I engage with the theme of territorial politics as a central analytical agenda.
The book makes clear that territorial politics remains fundamental to any inquiry into urban governance in China. For instance, the authors emphasize that “state entrepreneurialism offers a perspective to stress that capital accumulation and territorial politics co-exist in urban governance” (p. 7). This coexistence, of course, is not unique to China. The relationship between the territorial logic and the capital logic has long been a key concern in political-economic analyses. As Harvey (2010: 204–205) asserts:
By territorial logic I mean the political, diplomatic, economic, and military strategies deployed by the state apparatus in its own interest … The capitalist logic, on the other hand, focuses on the way in which money power flows across and through space and over borders in the search for endless accumulation. This logic is more processual and molecular than territorial. The two logics are not reducible to each other but are closely intertwined.
While the capital logic operates through continuous spatial and temporal flows of capital and commodities, the territorial logic remains bound by defined borders, ensuring territorial integrity and preventing confrontation. The exercise of power thus unfolds through the opposition, negotiation, and reconciliation between these two logics.
Scholars have long faced a conceptual dilemma: whether to understand political economy as being governed primarily by the territorial logic of power or by the capital logic of accumulation. Much of the existing literature, explicitly or implicitly, assumes a fundamental contradiction between these two and tends to argue that the latter increasingly dominates the former in modern capitalist societies. Yet, growing numbers of researchers are moving beyond this binary, seeking analytical alternatives that conceive political economy as a dynamic, dialectical process arising from the continuous interactions between territorial and capitalist logics.
Fulong Wu’s and Fangzhu Zhang’s book vividly explores the interplay between these two logics, albeit somewhat tangentially. They employ a range of spatial metaphors: “in China, the state is above market principles” (p. 9); the state acts “through the market” in the first version of state entrepreneurialism and “in the market” in the second (p. 38); and “the intertwined nature of state and market” (p. 38). Across different chapters, they substantiate these metaphors with empirical cases that illuminate how such dynamics materialize in specific urban contexts. These metaphorical formulations offer critical insights into the state–market nexus while simultaneously reinforcing a state-oriented conception of entrepreneurialism. As the authors note, this orientation differentiates the Chinese case from what Harvey (1989) termed urban entrepreneurialism. When viewed through the lens of territorial politics, the state acting above, through, and in the market, as Wu and Zhang describe, provides a valuable theoretical entry point for understanding the dynamic interrelations between territorial and capital logics in China, which transcends the public–private partnerships central to Harvey’s original formulation.
That said, I contend that the book gives insufficient attention to territorial politics, a limitation that somewhat constrains its contribution to broader debates on urban governance. At least three aspects merit deeper exploration in this regard.
First, China’s urban development must be situated within the context of great-power rivalry. This extra-local dimension of territorial politics has become increasingly salient since the onset of the US–China trade war in 2020. Economic decoupling policies promoted by the United States have prompted the Chinese central government to prioritize self-reliance, channeling substantial investments into high-tech sectors and endogenous R&D in various cities. Consequently, self-reliance has evolved from a survival strategy of the 1950s and 1960s into a mechanism of national rejuvenation in the global economy of the 2020s. Chinese cities are now tasked with developing industrial clusters to foster innovation and address structural weaknesses—specifically, by building independent, controllable, and secure domestic production and supply systems in sectors critical to national security. In this context, urban diplomacy extends beyond image building and investment promotion to engage directly with geopolitical competition (Phelps and Miao, 2020).
Second, the central–subnational relationship constitutes a defining feature of governance in China. The phrase “planning centrality, market instruments” (p. 3) aptly captures the enduring importance of top-down planning in guiding urban development. Yet, municipal governments are far from passive executors of central directives, nor do they form a homogeneous administrative apparatus in which all cadres proceed at an identical pace. Overemphasizing alignment with central policy may obscure the dynamic and negotiated nature of interactions between Beijing and subnational governments. Emerging research on state rescaling in China demonstrates how centrally authorized, place-specific policy experimentation interacts with local institutional path dependencies (Lim, 2017). Indeed, Wu and Zhang acknowledge a new round of state rescaling, noting that metropolitan planning reflects “concrete cross-boundary project delivery and coordination through soft governance” among governments at different levels (Wang et al., 2024: 1).
Finally, the tensions and negotiations within cities themselves constitute an integral dimension of the territorial politics of urban governance in China. In processes of new town development, urban regeneration, environmental beautification, and real estate expansion, diverse interest groups actively defend their own territories. For instance, residents in Beijing’s old city have launched legitimate complaints against developers to protect their rights and living conditions. These contestations have emerged as “a disabling force” in the course of state-led spatial restructuring, challenging the spectacular pace and teleology of urban redevelopment (Nguyen, 2017: 651). In Nanjing, residents of traditional courtyard neighborhoods maintain close social networks and resist relocation to high-rise apartments—symbols of modernization and happiness promoted by the state but perceived locally as emblems of loneliness and alienation. As they affirm, “their homes in the old city, no matter how dilapidated, are still valuable to them” (Tynen, 2019: 185). Despite such vernacular counter-movements in Beijing, Nanjing, and elsewhere, radical urban transformation has continued apace, rendering displacement an inescapable condition of everyday life in Chinese cities (Su, 2024).
Despite these under-explored dimensions of territorial politics, Governing Urban Development in China remains a critical contribution to understanding how urban governance in China illuminates the intricate nexus between state and capital. What the book ultimately conveys—and what I fully endorse—is a call to move beyond the paradigm of “China exceptionalism” toward a deeper engagement with the entanglement of state and capital in shaping the governance of development, planning, financialization, and environmental protection.
References
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Commentary 6
Shaun S. K. Teo – National University of Singapore, Singapore
Governing Urban Development in China is a book that I wish had existed when I was a graduate student. During my PhD fieldwork, Wu’s (2015) Planning for Growth was a lifesaver. The book helped me appreciate the Chinese context on its own terms—in ways I could never have done through journal articles. That said, I felt that the deeply empiricist format of the book inadvertently framed urban China as an exceptional model of planning and development. It did not help that in some parts of the book, Western ideas were deployed as a cursory placeholder to be contrasted against and invalidated by the Chinese context to showcase the latter’s qualities (see Pow, 2012 and Ren, 2023 for critiques on Chinese exceptionalism in urban studies). How amazing it would have been if the deep nuances of Chinese planning and development detailed in Planning for Growth had been leveraged to think more conceptually about big questions in urban planning and development.
Governing Urban Development in China plugs the gap left by Planning for Growth. It focuses on the governance of planning and development. In so doing, the book is purposefully positioned by the authors as “a laboratory … [to rethink] the role of the state in urban development” (p. x). This “big question” is one which usefully connects urban scholars across the Global North, South, and East interested in urban governance and politics. As Wu and Zhang remind us, the book “is not a reference for specialists in China. Rather, it is an intersection between urban studies and China studies” (p. 1).
From my reading, the authors seek to achieve this goal in two steps. First, they purposefully specify the definition of “state entrepreneurialism” in Chapter 2. This is important because scholars have tended to largely interpret the concept to explain how the state aims to circumvent urban crises and accelerate development via active intervention through and in the market (e.g. Jiang and Waley, 2020). State entrepreneurialism is often misread as an expedited urban entrepreneurialism. The authors urge us to also consider planning centrality, which they regard as another crucial element of state entrepreneurialism—this entails a focus on variegated state goals, mechanisms, and politics that go beyond a reactionary politics of governance (Teo, 2023). In other words, it is imperative to adopt a more holistic interpretation of state entrepreneurialism, while remaining open to what it could entail.
Second, state entrepreneurialism is purposefully deployed as an overarching analytical frame to analyze various themes of urban governance. Chapters 5, 6, and 7, for instance, critically evaluate the state’s strategic intentions in urban redevelopment, innovation, and the environment. In each of these chapters, a similar structure unfolds: the discussion begins with a review of relevant Western literature; the authors then highlight both complementarities and, crucially, discordances between these Western concepts and cases of Chinese state entrepreneurialism. This juxtaposition is used by the authors to provincialize the Western concepts in question, and the broader resonance of these provincialized concepts is then reflected upon.
To instantiate, Chapter 5 traces the Western lineage of property-led redevelopment to show that urban redevelopment in China has, in many instances, exceeded a growth-at-all-costs property-led redevelopment model. Instead, the concept of micro-redevelopment as a mechanism of state entrepreneurialism is introduced, moving our understanding of urban redevelopment in China as now also encompassing a move beyond growth-machine politics (see also Wu et al., 2022). The authors end the chapter by purposefully asking how this provincialized concept can challenge or extend our use of popular concepts like gentrification and neoliberalism to understand urban redevelopment. To be sure, concepts like micro-redevelopment are not variants of their Western counterparts but become (quasi-)novel creations with the ability to “theorize back and better” to literatures and contexts elsewhere. Beyond a better empirical understanding of the governance of planning and development in China, this book presents a collection of such concepts—de-financialization and assetization (Chapter 4), micro-redevelopment (Chapter 5), and ecological civilization (Chapter 7), to name a few.
I wish the authors were less modest in their aims. For example, Chapter 6 is said to only “describ[e] existing practices governing innovation in China rather than [present] a theoretical or normative innovation governance model” (p. 154). I do find this a little bit of a waste, given how deeply the chapter already critically refracts Western models of innovation by presenting an account of urban innovation under state entrepreneurialism. It remains important to purposefully name and launch new concepts from urban China into the world of urban studies (Robinson, 2016). This move is epistemologically significant.
Nevertheless, I disagree that Governing Urban Development in China simply adds “a new narrative to the urban imagination embedded in the West” (p. 1). Instead, it clearly instantiates a purposeful, substantive pathway to move beyond Chinese exceptionalism and experiment with variegated ways of theorizing from and with urban China cases and contexts (see Teo et al., 2023). I hope urban scholars can stand on the shoulders of Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang to develop more purposeful analytical and conceptual conversations between urban China and critical urban studies.
References
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Authors’ response
Fulong Wu and Fangzhu Zhang – University College London, UK
We are immensely grateful to Hyun Bang Shin for organizing this book forum and to a group of the most active scholars in China research for providing a careful reading of our book. Their constructive comments helped elucidate issues that were unclear when we wrote the book. Their in-depth knowledge and insightful reflections come at a timely moment, as not only China but the entire world is entering an urban age amid a conjunctural moment of polycrisis. We address their points, which are of theoretical significance and practical implications.
Territorial logic
Xiaobo Su rightly stresses the importance of the territorial logic in urban governance. A usual reading of urban entrepreneurialism tends to focus on the capitalist logic—molecular interests in value in motion and the scaled-up dynamics of the growth machine. The literature on “new state capitalism,” which indicates not only capitalism’s geographical variegation but also its historical transition, is inspiring because it discovers such a capitalist-plus-state logic. Urban “state venturism” (Su and Lim, 2025) illustrates a concrete case in which the state functions as a venture capital firm. Indeed, as Su sharply noted, in the lineage of urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism, the territorial logic is insufficiently analyzed. The new state capitalism has not fully addressed this inadequacy. State entrepreneurialism was intended to address this shortage by emphasizing the territorial logic.
But, rather than arguing that China is exceptional, rereading the theoretical origins of urban entrepreneurialism, we can gain inspiration for addressing this gap. Inspired by Arrighi (2007), Harvey, in his later theories, paid more attention to the territorial logic—territorial imperatives and political interest. Thinking of the city as a territorial form of the state, urban entrepreneurialism presents a particular approach: neoliberalism in late capitalism. Through the lens of state entrepreneurialism, this approach is quite distinctive, forged in the historical geography of capitalism. In Harvey’s own words, this is an action of “class restoration,” though he does not use the term “statecraft.” Reading it in this way, Harvey’s urban entrepreneurialism perhaps is not entirely an outcome of the capitalist logic, because public–private partnership—a particular type of state action—can be seen as a skillful exertion of statecraft (see Pike, 2023).
At the frontier of capitalism, this statecraft can be quite variegated (Wu et al., 2024). Yi Jin, in his commentary, notes the reintroduction of managerialism in China to address intensifying crises (see also Jin and Shin, 2025). Judith Audin further provides a vivid example of statecraft in relation to concrete political actors: the city mayor demolishing urban neighborhoods and rebranding heritage, and the Chinese top leader deleveraging debt and deflating financialization. State entrepreneurialism represents an effort to extend, rather than discard, Harvey’s insights into his already identified territorial logic, although his attention focused on imperialism and inter-capitalist state strategies. It is, however, equally applicable at the regional, urban, and grassroots levels. Understanding urban development politics is urgently required in the face of the changing geopolitics of United States–China rivalry, the trade war, supply chain security, and the ecological crisis.
A deeper and actor-oriented study of the state
The need to understand the territorial logic further raises the methodological requirement to open the “black box” of the state. Kean Fan Lim and Judith Audin both raise this challenge. Lim suggests a way forward by investigating not only “successful” cases but also failures, which are the norm rather than the exception, and the deviation from the original state intention, as illustrated by Audin, who also suggests paying attention to political actors. Xiaobo Su points out that the state is not homogeneous, particularly in the relations between the central and local levels. Local cadres may not align with central policy and may have their own motivations. This requires less abstraction and the adoption of a middle-level, conjunctural approach—not only does the state embody concrete social relations but what specific statecraft can be adopted also depends upon particular historical moments and geographical relations.
Data accessibility
Despite the methodological challenge, data have become more accessible, precisely because of entrepreneurial governance. State entrepreneurialism—the need to deploy market and mobilize society—reveals that the state is no longer an enclosed entity. As the state now seeks to act more visibly, various materials become accessible. For example, Lim notes that officials in a small city made their cash-flow problems public. Various financial instruments, such as bonds, need to be raised in capital markets. Through a contextual and conjunctural understanding, and by seeing like the state, it is unlikely to uncover the “top secret” in development governance, given its fragmented, ad hoc nature. Hence, an isolated event is not sensitive. It is discoverable and discussable. But scrutinizing it in its context can lead to sensitive conclusions. For example, recognizing the party’s role in waterfront regeneration may be sensitive (Feng et al., 2025). On the other hand, insisting on its absence could be even more problematic, as it would imply ineffective leadership. For data accessibility, a readily made set of databases cannot be expected. The challenge is how to interpret various formal and informal information. It requires a slow, repetitive, and triangular approach. On the other hand, compared with access to the state, getting the story of society right is equally challenging. While ordinary people are more accessible, it is crucial to understand the totality when zooming into the details of everyday life.
Beyond the state, how social agency is possible
Shaun Teo notes that municipal statecraft engages with society, and Karita Kan further asks how we might address “agency from below,” not only elites but also everyday practices. To answer the question, we need to understand state entrepreneurialism—intricately focusing on the state and its relations with the market and society. Rather than turning away from it, we need to understand the limits of the state. Economic reform has been launched precisely because the state-centered plan has reached its limits. Because of limited resources and capacity (e.g. fiscal revenue), authoritarian control has to be implemented in a relatively flexible manner (Sun et al., 2024), thereby creating space for discrepancies and autonomy. Moreover, the state mandate—like ecological civilization—is quite vague, leaving room for local interpretation (Wu et al., 2022). The territorial logic is not confined within the state itself as an intra-state relation. It is also the state’s relation with society. The state is situated in a challenging environment, and, particularly at present, in a polycrisis. State entrepreneurialism is thus characterized by flexibility and pragmatism, seeking to harness social agency.
Such pragmatism is fundamentally territorial, and in China’s case it is the party’s survival and national rejuvenation, as Su describes convincingly. The potential and limits of social agencies need to be understood relationally between the state and society, without ignoring the state. The Chinese state, due to its long history of Confucianism, has a paternalistic root, claiming to uphold “benevolent governance” —a recent example is the People’s City—and promote a “socially progressive” vision (regardless of the actual outcome—see the justice issue). Distinctively different, it nevertheless resonates with municipalism in the tradition of the city-state and civil society. They are similarly driven by Polanyian experiments (Li, 2022; Wu and Zhang, 2026). The norm of sensibility for a Confucianist state is not exclusively market efficiency. For a “harmonious” society and “virtuous” statecraft, the authoritarian state can be negotiated. This explains why the demolition and resettlement processes are not strictly governed by property rights (Robinson et al., 2024; Wang et al., 2023). The outcome could also be diverse. This context gives an opportunity to professionals or social organizations to be entrepreneurs, raising funds for themselves and organizing socially beneficial activities such as “community gardens.”
State entrepreneurialism beyond China
All commentators recognize and commend the epistemological stance adopted in this book for going beyond China exceptionalism. While it is important to recognize Chinese distinctiveness (Hamnett, 2020), state entrepreneurialism is not read as a peculiar Chinese model but rather as a perspective that might resonate elsewhere (Woodworth, 2026). Some main features of state entrepreneurialism—the pursuit of extra-market objectives, the politics of scale, and the strategic deployment of market and financial instruments—are identified in other historically noted developmental states like Japan (Imaoka and Shen, 2025). We believe this is an under-researched direction that requires comparative analysis. We also thank Judith Audin for raising the potential for research on justice transitions. The contribution of the book to such an endeavor, we suspect, lies in its treatment of entangled dynamics, beyond simply blaming the state or market failure. It is an injustice embedded in both capitalist and territorial logics within an ever-expanding capitalist world.
ORCID iDs
Hyun Bang Shin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1103-9221
Judith Audin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1482-920X
Yi Jin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0067-5169
Karita Kan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2408-132X
Kean Fan Lim https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7979-2068
Xiaobo Su https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3697-9524
Shaun S.K. Teo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5850-3933
Fulong Wu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4938-6066
Fangzhu Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8975-5324
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