State rescaling and national new area development in China: The case of Chongqing Liangjiang

In recent years, national new areas (Guojia Xinqu) have become prosperous strategies across China, but this emerging phenomenon, so far, has received little attention in academia. Applying the theoretical perspective of state rescaling, this paper interrogates the panorama of China's national new areas in general and examines the modalities of microscopic rescaling, which is relatively under-researched, in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area (LJNA) in particular. Arguably, the ongoing new area strategies are state rescaling practices that mark a balanced mentality of central state. Inserted with state-directed visions, the individual new area, with re-regulation from provincial or municipal government, induces sophisticated microscopic rescaling in the locale where de/recentralization of government powers concurs. This illustrates that not only the terrain but also the localities become highly contested in which multiple levels of state actors are contending. The case study reveals such conflict-ridden spatiality: the Chongqing Municipal Government zoned great Liangjiang by encompassing varied economic functions but the intra-administrative contradictions lead to the rezoning of small Liangjiang. Although the new area governance becomes resilient to cope with the economic restructuring under the personnel (renshi) approach, the division of responsibilities barely synchronizes administrative restructuring with economic development. This raises a larger set of issues on China's administrative reform which remains centralized and is 'lock-in' to path-dependence.