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Abstract
Under the Belt and Road Initiative, a new city-regionalism has replaced the independent county system in western China to form a new accumulation regime. Drawing on empirical materials related to the annexation of Guanghan to Deyang, this study delves into three research questions: (1) how a new accumulation regime is enabled by a new state spatial selectivity in western China; (2) how the changing opportunity structure as a result of the upscaling of state power from county to city induced opposition from the local society; and (3) how the local state tactically dissolved the dissents to facilitate the state rescaling process. Methodologically, we present a multiscalar and interscalar analytical framework that links scholarly inquiries at multiple scales. Theoretically, through bringing together the territory–place–scale–network approach and the poststructural theory of state power, we reconceptualize state rescaling as a multidimensional process of (re)organizing and manipulating sociospatial relations to enable crisis management and as a power-laden process that relies on state power exercised to construct compliance or consensus and address dissensus. Empirically, this study substantiates the explanatory power of rescaling theories in both temporal and spatial dimensions by presenting a vivid vignette of crisis-driven state rescaling in western China. It also adds to the proliferating debates on the Belt and Road Initiative through offering a new perspective and updated evidence on the reorientation of China’s interior political, economic, and social systems via a rescaling fix.
在一带一路倡议下, 新的城市-区域主义取代了中国西部的独立县级体系, 形成了一个新的合并机制。根据广汉与德阳合并的经验性材料, 本文探讨了三个问题：（1）在中国西部, 新的政府空间选择性如何带来了新的合并机制；（2）从县级到市级政府权力的扩大所带来的机遇体系变化, 如何引起地方社会的反对；（3）地方政府如何策略性地化解不同意见、促进行政区划重组。方法上, 本文展现一个多尺度、多方面的分析框架, 融合了多尺度的学术研究。理论上, 通过结合地域-位置-尺度-网络、政府权力的后结构理论等方法, 本文认为, 区划重组是一个（重新）组织和处理能解决危机的社会空间关系的多维过程、一个依靠政府权力去实现遵从或共识、处理不同意见的权力过程。本文展示了危机驱动下中国西部行政区划重组的鲜活片段, 证实了区划重组理论在时间和空间上的解释能力。针对一带一路倡议带来的争论, 本文提供了新的观点, 也提供了通过区划重组对中国政治、经济和社会体系进行重新定位的最新证据。
Bajo la Iniciativa del Cinturón y la Carretera [o Nueva Ruta de la Seda], un regionalismo renovado de ciudad ha remplazado el sistema del condado independiente en el occidente de China para formar un nuevo régimen de acumulación. Con base en materiales empíricos relacionados con la anexión de Guanghan a Deyang, este estudio trata de ahondar al respecto con tres preguntas de investigación: (1) cómo se habilita un nuevo régimen de acumulación por un nuevo estado de selectividad espacial en China occidental; (2) cómo pudo la cambiante estructura de oportunidad que resulta de la elevación del poder estatal de condado a ciudad inducir oposición desde la sociedad local; y (3) cómo disolvió tácticamente el estado local los desacuerdos para facilitar el proceso para realzar la importancia del estado. Metodológicamente, introducimos un marco analítico multiescalar e interescalar que enlaza las indagaciones eruditas a escalas múltiples. Teóricamente, juntando el enfoque territorio–lugar–escala–red y la teoría posestructural del poder del estado, reconceptualizamos el realce del estado como proceso multidimensional de (re)organizar y manipular las relaciones socioespaciales para habilitar el manejo de las crisis como un proceso cargado de poder que descansa en el propio poder ejercido por el estado para edificar conformidad o consenso y enfrentar disenso. Empíricamente, este estudio corrobora el poder explicativo de las teorías del remozamiento tanto en dimensiones temporales como espaciales presentando una estampa vívida del realce del estado orientada por crisis en China occidental. Contribuye también a la proliferación de debates sobre la Iniciativa del Cinturón y la Carretera al ofrecer una perspectiva nueva y evidencia actualizada de la reorientación interior de los sistemas políticos, económicos y sociales de China a través de una prescripción de realce.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the valuable comments from Professor Kevin Cox, the editor, and anonymous reviewers.
Notes
1 For instance, Atlantic Fordism took territory and place as restructuring principles, whereas transnational post-Fordist flexible accumulation regimes preferred scale and network. Jessop (Citation2016) highlighted that the selection of a new accumulation strategy (e.g., land-based empire, maritime empire, establishing virtual regions, and restructuring global city networks) and the exact way of implementation (that decides which sociospatial dimension should be the restructuring principle) are contingent on the historical-specific geopolitics and internal social, political, and economic conditions. In this article, we do not intend to deploy the strategic–relational approach to unpack why China selected the BRI as a new accumulation strategy; instead, we are interested in how the BRI-induced state rescaling unfolds in western China.
2 Jessop’s conceptualization of state power is influenced by Gramsci (the state = “political society + civil society”) and Foucault (governmentality). Central to his reinterpretation is that state power “extends beyond coercion, imperative coordination and positive law to include other ways in which the state can mobilize active consent or passive compliance from forces situated and/or operating beyond the state in its narrow juridico-political sense” (Jessop Citation2016, 11). Aligning to the Foucauldian theorization of state power, Jessop (Citation1990, Citation2001, Citation2010, Citation2016) urged shifting the attention from viewing the state as a juridico-political apparatus at the heart of the polity to various modalities of state power considered in broader, integral terms that enable the new TPSN combination.
3 This is not to say that contentions in other dimensions are irrelevant. We focus on place because it is a meeting point of functional operations for crisis management and the conduct of personal life, thus offering a vantage point to examine how state power is exercised to enable the (re)production of capitalism (e.g., a new TPSN combination) by reorganizing local institutional orders and socioeconomic life (Jessop Citation2016).
4 The transformation from entrusted manufacturers to original brand manufacturers was not achieved overnight. It was made possible by China’s shift to an inward-oriented, consumption-based accumulation regime as a mean of coping with the post-2008 global recession. Accompanying the Four Trillion stimulus package were financial reregulations that offer Chinese citizens easy access to credit, enabling a massive consumption of national products between 2009 and 2016. The growing home market has enabled the fast development of Chinese enterprises.
5 Attracting migrant workers back to their hometowns and encouraging them to employ the skills and capital accumulated from their working experiences in the east to start their own businesses was a national strategy promoted around 2010. It was primarily a response to the sudden decrease in overseas orders from the costal factories and potential unemployment surge as a result of the post-2008 global recession and, second, a strategy accompanying the ICS for reviving local development and poverty alleviation.
6 In Sichuan, Chengdu, Deyang, and Mianyang are the three most developed cities and they are contiguous, forming the most competitive industrial belt of Sichuan. Provincial governments usually allocate more resources to certain cities to foster a regional growth pole to cope with the fierce interprovince competition.
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Mengzhu Zhang
MENGZHU ZHANG is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests lie in transport equity, transport-based exclusion, and the political economy of China’s evolving urban governance.
Shenjing He
SHENJING HE is Professor of Urban Studies in the Department of Urban Planning and Design and Director of the Social Infrastructure for Equity and Wellbeing (SIEW) Lab at The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests focus on urban redevelopment and gentrification, urban governance, informal housing, rural–urban interface, and health geography.