China’s Urban Champions: The Politics of Spatial Development
(Princeton University Press, 2019)
My first book explores the politics of urban and regional development in an era of booming growth. The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and social tensions. Wary of these dangers, China’s national leaders have long attempted to disperse urban and industrial development. In many provinces, however, government policies have targeted investment and public goods to what are already far and away the largest, wealthiest cities.
To clarify how state actors intervene in urban and regional development, and why government policies often reinforce spatial inequalities instead of reducing them, the book analyzes varying subnational outcomes in China during the 1990s and 2000s. A tour through China’s policy debates and institutional structures highlights the rising importance of spatially selective development policies and the important but underappreciated governance role of provinces. Detailed case studies of Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Shaanxi provinces, based on over a year of fieldwork, trace how economic conditions and political variables have combined to shape the development models of different subnational units. The book then tests how well the case-study findings generalize across China and travel to other national settings.
In contrast with past work that sees developmental bias toward big cities as a second-order effect of industrialization or authoritarian politics, China’s Urban Champions calls attention to proactive efforts by China’s provinces to groom their major cities as globally competitive urban champions, and it explores the political conflicts that ensue. The study reveals that metropolitan-oriented development strategies go furthest when lagging economic performance causes policymakers to worry more about provinces’ external competitiveness than their internal disparities, and when provinces have the political strength to advance their own priorities in a multilevel policy process. The book as a whole offers broader insights into how political factors shape spatial development and how spatial questions pervade development politics.
Subnational Statecraft: How States and Cities Make (and Break) US-China Relations
(with Sara A. Newland, book manuscript in-progress)
My second book manuscript, co-authored with Sara A. Newland, examines the dynamics and drivers of subnational US-China relations during a period of rising tensions. As US-China relations have veered from an era of engagement toward a “New Cold War” over the past decade, American states and cities have emerged as increasingly pivotal places—and players—in the bilateral relationship. Some, such as California, have maintained economic, educational, and environmental cooperation with China despite rising tensions. Others, such as Florida, have embraced policies that go further even than the US federal government in confronting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and curtailing China links—often in the name of national security. Still others have pursued both cooperation and confrontation, or neither.
How are subnational US-China relations contributing to—or counteracting—an intensifying great power rivalry? What explains dramatic shifts over time and variation across US states and localities in patterns of interaction with China? Who are the key actors vying to reshape subnational US-China ties and the larger bilateral relationship, and what results have their efforts yielded? To address these questions and develop broader insights into the causes and consequences of subnational foreign affairs, we undertake the first systematic study of US state and local relations with China during a new geopolitical era. We draw on over 120 elite interviews, detailed case studies of four US states, and an original dataset tracking state-level interactions with and actions toward China across the US between 2012-2024.
We argue that the scale at which the economic and security dimensions of the US-China relationship operate is shifting amid great power competition, and that what we call subnational statecraft has grown more important than ever. Subnational governments are now at the forefront of both cooperation and confrontation with China, while national actors in Beijing and Washington are attempting to enlist subnational partners in service of their geopolitical agendas. As US-China relations have deteriorated, the Chinese party-state has searched for subnational allies across the US, and a subset of American states and localities have worked to protect key areas of engagement with China. While the federal government has strengthened its oversight of economic, educational, and environmental cooperation with China (once the purview of subnational governments), many US states are asserting their ability to address questions of national security through state-level executive orders, legislation, and actions by state attorneys general. Indeed, many states now outpace Congress in their hawkishness toward China.
With more political actors entering the fray of subnational statecraft, US-China relations are growing more volatile, and China policy has emerged in many states as a new site of inter- and intraparty competition. Subnational relations with China have served in some cases as bridges of dialogue and cooperation, but they also have emerged as new battlegrounds of geopolitical competition. Efforts by some states to decouple from China have affected their economies, communities, and broader foreign relations, triggering local pushback. Where others see a “bipartisan consensus” on China, then, we highlight diverging approaches across states and growing coordination challenges across levels of government.