Featuring everything from sports stadiums to shopping malls, hundreds of new cities in China stand empty, with hundreds more set to be built by 2030. Between now and then, the country's urban population will leap to over one billion, as the central government kicks its urbanization initiative into overdrive. In the process, traditional social structures are being torn apart, and a rootless, semi-displaced, consumption orientated culture rapidly taking their place. Ghost Cities of China is an enthralling dialogue driven, on-location search for an understanding of China's new cities and the reasons why many currently stand empty.

A stunning inside look at how and why the foundations upon which China has built the world’s second largest economy, have started to crumble. Over the course of a decade spent reporting in China as a financial journalist, Dinny McMahon came to the conclusion that the widely held belief in China’s inevitable economic ascent is dangerously wrong. In this unprecedented deep dive, McMahon shows how, lurking behind the illusion of prosperity, China’s economic growth has been built on a staggering mountain of debt. While stories of newly built but empty cities, white elephant state projects, and a byzantine shadow banking system have all become a regular fixture in the press, McMahon goes beyond the headlines to explain how such waste has been allowed to flourish, and why one of the most powerful governments in the world has been at a loss to stop it. Through the stories of ordinary Chinese citizens, McMahon tries to make sense of the unique—and often bizarre—mechanics of the nation’s economy, whether it be the state’s addiction to appropriating land from poor farmers; or why a Chinese entrepreneur decided it was cheaper to move his yarn factory to South Carolina; or why ambitious Chinese mayors build ghost cities; or why the Chinese bureaucracy was able to stare down Beijing’s attempts to break up the state’s pointless monopoly over table salt distribution. Debt, entrenched vested interests, a frenzy of speculation, and an aging population are all pushing China toward an economic reckoning. China’s Great Wall of Debt unravels an incredibly complex and opaque economy, one whose fortunes—for better or worse—will shape the globe like never before.

Featuring everything from sports stadiums to shopping malls, hundreds of new cities in China stand empty, with hundreds more set to be built by 2030. Between now and then, the country's urban population will leap to over one billion, as the central government kicks its urbanization initiative into overdrive. In the process, traditional social structures are being torn apart, and a rootless, semi-displaced, consumption orientated culture rapidly taking their place. Ghost Cities of China is an enthralling dialogue driven, on-location search for an understanding of China's new cities and the reasons why many currently stand empty.

This text is anchored in the spatial sciences to offer a comprehensive survey of the evolving urban landscape in China. It is divided into four parts with 13 chapters that can be read together or as stand alone material.

This book aims to investigate how cities in China's rust belt restructure their urban industries and economies. Over the years, China's “economic miracle” has been mainly attributed to rapid development in its coastal region, where the majority of research into the country's development has originated from. Development in the rest of China seems to be attracting relatively scant research attention, especially in China's rust belt. In fact, the urban industrial restructuring process is an ongoing process in inland China, notably in the recent decade in terms of the scope, scale and speed of restructuring.The old industrial cities in northeast China (Manchuria) were the cradle of China's industrialization and had significantly contributed to the industrialization of the nation during the Mao era. Deng's open door policy and economic reform disadvantaged the region and left it behind others. In the context of market economy and competition from rapidly growing coastal areas, northeast China became the burden to China's overall economic development. With a high concentration of state-owned heavy industries, cities in this region suffered from heavy losses in revenue and massive layoffs of millions of former state-owned enterprise workers, known as the “Northeast Phenomenon” or “Neo-Northeast Phenomenon”. The once towering economic giant was down. Such a “phenomenon” is not uncommon in other “rust belt” regions in industrialized economies.However, since the implementation of the Chinese Government's “Revitalisation Strategy of Northeast China” in 2003, cities in northeast China have gone through various transformations. Their recent economic performance has made many Chinese economists predict that northeast China will become China's new growth engine and catch up with the economic performance of other prosperous regional economies such as the Pearl River Delta, Lower Yangtze River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin region.This book investigates how cities in northeast China are shaking off their economic disadvantages and implementing various forms of restructuring in their industries. The authors identify six different reindustrialization models, namely Shenyang Tiexi Model — repacking old industries; Dalian Model — beyond the China's coast development model; Daqing Model — extension of industrial chain; Fuxin Model — modern agro-processing saved the coal mining city from “ghost town”; Jilin city — low carbon-oriented model; and Central Liaoning Urban Cluster Model — negotiated/agreed industrial division. All these models will be explained through analysis of their approaches, key actors, and mechanisms.

Even as China is central to the contemporary global economy, its socialist past continues to shape its capitalist present. This volume's contributors see contemporary China as haunted by the promises of capitalism, the institutional legacy of the Maoist regime, and the spirit of Marxist resistance. China's development does not result from historical imperatives or deliberate economic strategies, but from the effects of discrete practices the contributors call protocols, which stem from an overlapping mix of socialist and capitalist institutional strategies, political procedures, legal regulations, religious rituals, and everyday practices. Analyzing the process of urbanization and the ways marginalized communities and migrant workers are positioned in relation to the transforming social landscape, the contributors show how these protocols constitute the Chinese national imaginary while opening spaces for new emancipatory possibilities. Offering a nuanced theory of contemporary China's hybrid political economy, Ghost Protocol situates China's development at the juncture between the world as experienced and the world as imagined. Contributors. Yomi Braester, Alexander Des Forges, Kabzung, Rachel Leng, Ralph A. Litzinger, Lisa Rofel, Carlos Rojas, Bryan Tilt, Robin Visser, Biao Xiang, Emily T. Yeh

Now a Netflix Mandarin original drama! From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger, a Reese’s Book Club pick Yangsze Choo’s stunning debut, The Ghost Bride, is a startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists. Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price? Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family. Reminiscent of Lisa See’s Peony in Love and Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Ghost Bride is a wondrous coming-of-age story and from a remarkable new voice in fiction.