Introduction

Is there a distinctive model of urban development in China? How are Chinese cities governed? What are the features of China’s urban governance? These are empirical questions, but they also have significant theoretical implications. Beyond these empirical questions, this book offers a Chinese perspective on the understanding of governing urban development in the 21st century. It investigates new practices of governing Chinese cities. The book is not a reference for specialists in China. Rather, it is an intersection between urban studies and China studies. Situated in the conversations of critical urban studies, the book does not apply existing concepts to China. It uniquely combines interrogations of Chinese practices and reflections on the theories and concepts of critical urban studies. It reveals variegated approaches to urban development and governance. The book rethinks the exact meaning of these key concepts developed in Western economies and questions how they might be deployed to explain the phenomena in wider global urban studies (Robinson 2022).