Suchergebnisse

This article examines how zoning – awarding exceptional status to selected sites – has been used as a governance tool to regulate access to land made available through land-use changes on the outskirts of Chengdu between 2007 and 2018. By studying these claims to exceptional status and the implementation of associated policies at the local level, the article seeks to demonstrate how zoning reconfigures power locally. The article argues that zoning delivers fast, socially controllable urbanization. The boundaries enforced through zoning offer less-privileged areas unique political and economic opportunities. Since zoning carries many advantages and is ultimately governed by the state, its implementation enforces state authority.

Western governments frequently perceive Chinese investors in natural resources as driven by strategic state interests to a much larger extent than investors from Western countries, who supposedly operate according to market economic norms without states pulling them in particular directions. This article studies a potential Chinese investment in mining minerals which are strategically important to China in a region that is widely argued to be of strategic importance to China. By making a content analysis of Chinese language articles on mining, and through interviews with some of those involved in organizing Chinese investment in the rare earth elements (REE) and uranium mining project at Kvanefjeld near Narsaq, Southern Greenland, the article studies how country specific Chinese priorities and a sector specific political economy affect a Chinese enterprise investing in the Kvanefjeld project. The article seeks to 1) add substance to the many speculations on Chinese intentions in Greenland that have dominated discussion in the Danish media, and to some extent also politics and academia, and to 2) add understanding to how state and market interact in Chinese REE mining projects overseas. The article shows that while much Chinese state attention is clearly directed towards the supposedly strategically important investments in Greenland, and state incentives play a large role, the amount of coordination and strategic focus is very limited. ; Western governments frequently perceive Chinese investors in natural resources as driven by strategic state interests to a much larger extent than investors from Western countries, who supposedly operate according to market economic norms without states pulling them in particular directions. This article studies a potential Chinese investment in mining minerals which are strategically important to China in a region that is widely argued to be of strategic importance to China. By making a content analysis of Chinese language articles on mining, and through interviews with some of those involved in organizing Chinese investment in the rare earth elements (REE) and uranium mining project at Kvanefjeld near Narsaq, Southern Greenland, the article studies how country specific Chinese priorities and a sector specific political economy affect a Chinese enterprise investing in the Kvanefjeld project. The article seeks to 1) add substance to the many speculations on Chinese intentions in Greenland that have dominated discussion in the Danish media, and to some extent also politics and academia, and to 2) add understanding to how state and market interact in Chinese REE mining projects overseas. The article shows that while much Chinese state attention is clearly directed towards the supposedly strategically important investments in Greenland, and state incentives play a large role, the amount of coordination and strategic focus is very limited.

China's state driven urbanization and the revenues earned through conversion of land from rural (legally noncommodified) to urban (legally commodified) status have been studied intensively. What makes this new urban land valuable is less discussed in the context of financializaton. Through a study of bond financing in one of China's "national level new areas", Tianfu New Area, on the outskirts of Chengdu, south-western China, this paper argues that financialization is not only created through conversion of land, but also through the capitalization of perceived political favour. The link between state and market is frequently conceptualized as consisting of non-transparent vested semi-corrupt networks between the state and well-connected state owned or private enterprises. We argue that an additional link exists between state and market through financialized political capitalism. This is a system where certain narratives and interpretations of policy suggest an implicit guarantee of bailouts of those debtors who are perceived to be politically important. These narratives and perceptions of political ranking become factors in determining credit ratings and issuing bonds both on the Chinese and the global market and thus the creation of capital based on real estate in China.

This article studies the making of a small fragment of China's social credit system by focusing on the evolution of digital mediation in the market for domestic service. We study the ongoing development and reconfiguration of various forms of digital mediation in the domestic service labour market from early local digital blacklisting attempts to the making of a nationwide app linked to the social credit system. We find that digital mediation so far mainly contributes to controlling domestic workers through the indicators included in the app. These indicators to a large extent reinforce existing categorisations of domestic workers. While the early blacklists were primarily market-driven, thereby resembling the platform economy outside China, the later nationwide system is closely linked to the central state and strengthens central state control over the market for domestic services.