ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on port cities that have played a pivotal role in China's coastal development. It discusses the center of evolution and the influences of multi-layered port-city relationships. The chapter introduces the changes in coastal Chinese cities under the influence of globalization in three layers. Geographically, in the past 30 years, the rapid development brought about by globalization is largely different from the development of the coastal cities of ruling nations in the period of colonization after the industrial revolution and the coastal cities of the colonies. Therefore, the competition between China's coastal cities has been changing China's entire coastal area into a global market-driven economic zone with multi-gateways, multi-hubs, and multi-port clusters. These three layers of coastal city development as a whole do not only show a geographic trend but also reflect the connection of coastal Chinese cities to the global economic network in a special urban spatial structure.
