ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the historical formation of China’s entrepreneurial statecraft and explains how ‘governance’ has become a toolkit through market-oriented reform. However, the specific form of governance evolves along with the changing political economy and consequent statecraft, from reducing state intervention to strengthening the state’s role in governing the world factory to deploying financial approaches. Financialized state entrepreneurialism currently faces profound financial challenges. The chapter introduces the defining features of this state entrepreneurialism—how the state and entrepreneurialism are combined into a governance form. These two features are the state acts through the market and maintains its centrality in governance. The chapter discusses its practices in governing urban development in urban regeneration, suburban development, and rural vitalization, with a further detailed case of mega urban projects. It illustrates state entrepreneurialism with examples of China’s large-scale development projects—new towns in the metropolitan peripheral areas. It discusses these examples with the notion of ‘neoliberal suburbanism’ and critically reflects on the role of the state in urban governance.
