State Rescaling and the Making of City-Regions in the Pearl River Delta, China

Abstract

This study empirically tests the theory of state rescaling with a study of recent city-region making in China. The implementation of two interjurisdictional projects, the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway and the Guangzhou–Foshan Metro, are critically investigated to probe the restructuring states in the transitional Pearl River Delta. We argue that the principle of scale theory is relevant to China, where scalar reconfiguration of states has been identified in the process of city-region making. To implement the projects, governments at various geographical scales engage in numerous activities of flexible competition, cooperation, and negotiation. The paper draws on a detailed empirical observation of the actual process, to broaden the theoretical framework of state rescaling, showing four dimensions of state-rescaling categories of restructuring: upscaling, downscaling, statization, and destatization. The paper also highlights the creation of the city-region—that is, state space—as both a de jure and de facto political instrument to rearticulate state power. With an emphasis on the concomitant trend of centralization or upscaling, it also contributes to the existing literature on state rescaling in China by denaturalizing the trend of decentralization, or downscaling.