Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?

Meg  Rithmire

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Chapter | The China Questions | 2018

Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?

by Meg Rithmire

Abstract

The Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping has announced its intentions to transition the economy from one driven by investment and exports to one driven by domestic demand. The main strategy to achieve this transformation involves massive state-led urbanization. This essay explores whether the strategy will save the Chinese economy or generate social and political problems that imperil the country's growth and stability.

Keywords: China; urbanization; economic development; Urban Development; Economic Growth; China;

Format: Print

Find at Harvard Purchase

Citation:

Rithmire, Meg. "Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?" Chap. 16 in The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

About the Author

Meg Rithmire

F. Warren McFarlan Associate Professor of Business of Administration

Business, Government and the International Economy

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020

Political Legitimacy and Global Capital Markets: Malaysia’s 1MDB

Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han

Keywords: Malaysia;

Citation:
Rithmire, Meg, and Courtney Han. "Political Legitimacy and Global Capital Markets: Malaysia’s 1MDB." Harvard Business School Case 720-030, March 2020. View Details

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Chapter | Inside Countries: Subnational Research in Comparative Politics | 2019

Local States of Play: Land and Urban Politics in Reform-Era China

Meg Rithmire

Book Abstract: Although comparative politics is conventionally seen as the study of politics across countries, the field has a longstanding and increasingly prominent tradition in national contexts; focusing on subnational units, institutions, actors and processes. This book offers the first comprehensive assessment of the substantive, theoretical, and methodological contributions. With empirical chapters from across the contemporary Global South, including India, Mexico, and China, as well as Russia, the contributors show how subnational research provides useful insights about substantive themes in political science, from regimes and representation, to states and security, to social and economic development. In addition to methodological chapters with specific guidance about best practices for doing subnational research, this volume also proposes a set of strategies for subnational research, assesses their strengths and weaknesses, and offers illustrative empirical applications.

Citation:
Rithmire, Meg. "Local States of Play: Land and Urban Politics in Reform-Era China." In Inside Countries: Subnational Research in Comparative Politics, edited by Agustina Giraudy, Eduardo Moncada, and Richard Snyder, 318–350. Cambridge University Press, 2019. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Varieties of Outward Chinese Capital: Domestic Politics Status and Globalization of Chinese Firms

Meg Rithmire

Recent focus on China’s surging outward investment has overlooked a puzzling fact about China’s policy regime governing outward investment: rather than increasing liberalization and enhancing domestic “push” factors, China’s policy toward outward investment has been ambivalent and vacillating, pushing large-scale internationalization while also embracing strict capital controls. This paper accounts for China’s ambivalent policy moves by focusing on the domestic coalitions that sustain capital openness. I show how three types of domestic Chinese capital—state capital (SOEs), private capital (SMEs and large competitive firms), and crony capital (firms who enjoy access to profits based non-market rather than market advantages)—differ in political vulnerability and therefore pursue globalization in different ways. While all prefer capital openness, they do so for different reasons: state capital uses preferential access to domestic credit to expand internationally for political power and prestige in addition to profits; private capital, in keeping with the theoretical expectations of the international business literature, seeks markets and/or efficiency; and crony capital seeks to transform domestic access into international safety as quickly as possible. China’s policy ambivalence can largely be explained as the party-state’s attempts to discipline or empower these groups.

Keywords: outward investment; capital controls; Investment; Global Range; Capital; Globalization; Policy; Government and Politics; China;

Citation:
Rithmire, Meg. "Varieties of Outward Chinese Capital: Domestic Politics Status and Globalization of Chinese Firms." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-009, June 2019. View Details

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Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?

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