ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a broad framework for thinking about how planning history might capture some of China's salient developmental peculiarities, and how it might relate to a larger global history of planning practice. The interplay of three themes in particular distinguishes China as a context for planning that any historical overview must address. They are: the ancientness of planning in China, planning as importation or adaptation of an essentially foreign modernity and planning as an expression and instrument of alternative development. A thematic view of planning history over the longue duree should help not only to distinguish endogenous from exogenous factors in the development of planning in China. But also to highlight what aspects of planning are more or less persistent and reinforce a sense of continuity and to help explain some of the contradictions that characterize planning practices and their justification in China.
