China’s urban governance at the historical conjuncture of (de-)globalisation. Shanghai, China. 01/11/2024.

Prof. Fulong Wu gave his talk with the title ‘China’s urban governance at the historical conjuncture of (de-)globalisation’. During the talk, he suggested that the governance mode of urban development in China follows a dual logic of maintaining stability and achieving growth. He proposed the concept of ‘state entrepreneurialism’ to explain the governance mode, which means the state acts through the market for multiple statecraft objectives. He explained the concept and the governance mode from the neighbourhood, local and regional scales. ALthough with different contexts, these three scales highlight that the state aims to achieve the balance between growth and other extra-economic objectives. The state is crucial in China’s urban development, while in the western context, it is usually the private market actors that lead the development, although re-municipalisation have been increasingly common across the world. This term means that the state buys back the key infrastructure from the private actors and operates it.

The talk led to active discussions.