ABSTRACT

The large Chinese cities, notably in eastern China, form territories with the most numerous and deepest demonstrations of globalization. Globalization sometimes takes particular forms in terms of urban landscape, such as skyscrapers or the omnipresence of multinationals in advertising and trade. But it also strongly appears in much more reduced and hidden territories through the golden ghettos on the outskirts of megacities like Beijing and Shanghai. Not only has the process of transition and openness since 1978 represented the change from communism to capitalism but it has also completely disrupted the whole of Chinese space and society. It entails a true ‘transition of civilization’ (Giroir 2004a), notably in the metropolises. Indeed, the globalization of Chinese space has an important cultural dimension.