The Urban Spectre of Global China: Mechanisms, Consequences and Alternatives for Urban Futures

The overseas expansion of China’s economic influences has been foregrounded in media reports and policy debates in recent years. The term “Global China” has been widely adopted to depict the geopolitical dimension of this immense flow of capital. However, there is a lack of attention to the urban dimension of Global China, especially regarding its impacts on the (re)imaginings and manifestations of urban futures – within and beyond China. In this project, four large-scale Chinese capital-led property development projects will be examined to question the ways in which the urban has been reconfigured by China’s global expansion. Drawing on methods of comparative urbanism and multi-sited ethnography, the project team will conduct interviews and observations in London, Beijing, Foshan and Iskandar Malaysia, aiming to uncover the differentiated modes of speculative and spectacular urban production in the Global China era and generate new insights for inclusive approaches to urban space, nature and modernity.