Retailing in China has become an important engine driving the nation's economy. Along with the rapid expansion in scale, the retail industry has also experienced profound structural changes in cities. The transformation of the retail sector in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai is characterized by a realignment of ownership structure, diversification of retail functions, the emergence of new retail formats, the increasing concentration of retail capital and rapid expansion of retail chains, and spatial restructuring and retail suburbanization. The transformation not only reflects the changing supply and demand relations and the interaction between retailing and consumption but also is intrinsically connected to the shift in government policies. We present a political-economy perspective to explain the dramatic retail changes that have occurred in Chinese cities. In particular, we discuss the role of the state in retail transformation and in urban and economic development in general. We argue that the concept of ‘developmental state’ and its alternate variants such as ‘local state corporatism’ and ‘entrepreneurial state’ provide valuable and illuminating insights to the understanding of how the Chinese state (and especially the local states) acts in developing the economy in the reform era. Nevertheless, these notions need to be revisited to better recognize the complex and dynamic nature of the Chinese state. Instead, we propose that the Chinese state is better understood as a ‘fragmented developmental state’, which displays a strong progrowth orientation but which also suffers from a fragmented administrative structure, an inconsistent regulatory system, and market-distorting activities in the transformation from a socialist state to a developmental state of its own kind.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BachDNewmanAWeberS, 2006, “The international implications of China's fledging regulatory state: From product maker to rule maker”New Political Economy11499–518
2.
BakerR G, 1994, “The impact of trading hour deregulation on the retail sector and the Australia experience”Urban Policy and Research12104–117
3.
BakerR G, 1995, “What hours will we trade Mr Superstore? A review of the 1994 Australian experience”Urban Policy and Research1328–36
4.
BaumRShevchenkoA, 1999, “The state of the State”, in The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reform Eds GoldmanMMacfarquharR, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 333–360
5.
BBC/BCDR, 2004, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2004” [Classified guide to the development of Beijing's distribution sector 2004]Beijing Bureau of Commerce/Beijing Commission of Development and Reform, 23 March, http://www.bjmbc.gov.cn/web2/dlvmyglc_znjs.jsp?article_id=10897091940001
6.
BCC, Beijing Commerce Commission2001, “Beijing shi ‘shiwu’ shiqi shangye fazhan guihua ji shinian yuanjing guihua [Plan for commercial development during the tenth ‘Five-Year’ period and in next ten years] 2 April, http://www.bjmbc.gov.cn/web2/
7.
BCC, Beijing Commerce Commission. 2002a, “Beijing shi shangye liyong waizi guihua 2002–2010” [The plan for utilizing foreign investment in the commerce sector in Beijing 2002–10] MarchfcsArticleDetail.jsp?articl_id=10942028130001&colum_id=10880777900001
BCC/BCDP, Beijing Commerce Commission/Beijing Commission of Development and Planning. 2001, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2001” [Classified guide to the development of Beijing's distribution sector 2001]
11.
BCC/BCDP, Beijing Commerce Commission/Beijing Commission of Development and Planning2003, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2003” [Classified guide to the development of Beijing's distribution sector 2003]
12.
BCC/BCDR, 2005, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2005” [Classified guide to the development of Beijing's distribution sector 2005]Beijing Commerce Commission/Beijing Commission of Development and Reform
13.
BCC/BCDR/BCUP/BAIC, Beijing Commerce Commission/Beijing Commission of Development and Reform/Beijing Commission of Urban Planning/Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce, 2006, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2006” [Classified guide to the development of the Beijing's distribution sector 2006]
14.
BCC/BCDR/BCUP/BAIC, 2007, “Beijing shi liutong ye fazhan fenlei zhidao mulu 2007” [Classifed guide to the development of Beijing's distribution sector 2007]
15.
Beijing Municipal Government1991Beijing shi zhuzhai peitao shangye fuwu ye yongfang guihua jianshe shiyong guanli banfa [Regulations on planning, construction, and use of building space for commercial services in residential areas] 5 September, http://www.law-lib.com/lawhtm/1991/53603.htm
BlecherM, 1991, “The contradictions of grassroots participation and undemocratic statism in Maoist China and their fate”, in Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective Ed. WomackB, (Cambridge University Press, New York) pp 129–152
18.
BlecherMShueV, 1996Tethered Deer: Government and Economy in a Chinese County (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)
19.
BlecherMShueV, 2001, “Into leather: State-led development and the private sector in Xinji”China Quarterly166368–393
20.
BlomleyN K, 1986, “Regulatory legislation and the legitimation crisis of the state: The enforcement of the Shops Act (1950)”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space4183–200
21.
BroudehouxA, 2004The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing (Routledge, New York)
22.
BSB, Beijing Statistical Bureau (China Statistical Press, Beijing), 1999The First Census of Basis Working Unit
23.
BSB, 2001Beijing Statistical Yearbook
24.
BSB, 2003The Second Census of Basis Working Unit
25.
BSB, Beijing Statistical Bureau (China Statistical Press, Beijing)
26.
BSB, 2006Beijing Statistical Yearbook
27.
BSB, 2007Beijing Statistical Yearbook
28.
ChanK W, 1992, “Economic-growth strategy and urbanization policies in China, 1949–1982”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research16275–305
29.
ChanK W, 1994Cities with Invisible Walls: Reinterpreting Urbanization in Post-1949 China (Oxford University Press, Hong Kong)
30.
ChaoLMyersR, 1998, “China's consumer revolution: The 1990s and beyond”Journal of Contemporary China7351–368
31.
ChenC, 2005, “Institutional legitimacy of an authoritarian state: China in the mirror of Eastern Europe”Problems of Post-Communism523–13
32.
DavisD, (Ed.), 2000The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
DawsonJ A, 1980, “Retail activity and public policy”, in Retail Geography Ed. DawsonJ A, (Croom Helm, London) pp 193–235
35.
DirlikA, 2001, “Markets, culture, power: The making of a second Cultural Revolution in China”Asian Studies Review251–33
36.
DuckettJ, 1996, “The emergence of the entrepreneurial state in China”The Pacific Review9180–198
37.
DuckettJ, 1998The Entrepreneurial State in China: Real Estate and Commerce Departments in Reform Era Tianjin (Routledge, New York)
38.
DuckettJ, 2001, “Bureaucracts in business, Chinese style: The lessons of market reform and state entrepreneurialism in the People's Republic of China”World Development2923–37
39.
Editorial Committee of Beijing Chorography, 1998Beijing Almanac (China City Press, Beijing)
40.
Editorial Committee of Beijing Chorography, 2004Beijing Almanac (China City Press, Beijing)
41.
EvansP, 1989“Predatory, developmental and other apparatuses: A comparative political economy perspective on the Third World state”Sociological Forum4561–587
42.
EvansP, 1995Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
43.
FosterK W, 2001, “Associations in the embrace of an authoritarian state: State domination of society?”Studies in Comparative International Development3584–109
44.
GoreL L P, 1998Market Communism: The Institutional Foundation of China's Post-Mao Hyper-growth (Oxford University Press, Hong Kong)
45.
GuEZhangJ, 2006, “Health care regime change in urban China: Unmanaged marketization and reluctant privatization”Pacific Affairs7949–71
46.
GunnarssonCLundahlM, 1996“The good, the bad and the wobbly: State forms and Third World economic performance”, in New Directions in Development Economics Eds LundahlMNduluB J, (Routledge, London) pp 257–281
47.
HanserA, 2005, “Made in PRC: China's consumer revolution”Current History104272–277
48.
HarrisonMFlynnAMarsdenT, 1997, “Contested regulatory practice and the implementation of food policy: Exploring the local and national interface”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series22473–487
49.
HowellJ, 2006, “Reflections on the Chinese state”Development and Change37273–297
50.
JohnsonC, 1982MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)
51.
LiC, 1998China: The Consumer Revolution (John Wiley, New York)
52.
LiL C, 2006, “‘The state’ in change: Processes and contestations in local China: An introduction”Pacific Review191–12
53.
LieberthalK, 1992, “The ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ model and its limitations”, in Bureaucracy, Politics and Decision Making in Post-Mao China Eds LieberthalKLamptonD M, (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA) pp 1–30
54.
LieberthalK, 1995Governing China: From Revolution Through Reform (W W Norton, New York)
55.
LinG C S, 2000, “State, capital, and space in China in an age of volatile globalization”Environment and Planning A32455–471
56.
LinL, 2003, “Wo er ma zai Beijing kai zhang” [Walmart opened businesses in Beijing]Beijing Qingnian Bao [Beijing Youth Daily] 8 July
57.
LiuY, 2004, “The situation, strategies and trend of foreign retailers in China”China Economic and Trade Herald200412–14
58.
LuX, 2000“Booty socialism, bureau-preneurs, and the state in transition”Comparative Politics32273–294
59.
MaL J C, 2002, “Urban transformation in China, 1949–2000: A review and research agenda”Environment and Planning A341545–1569
60.
MaSChanW, 2003, “The provision of public goods by a local entrepreneurial state: The case of preservation of the Nanyue relics in China”Journal of Development Studies40119–141
61.
McSherryJ P, 2005Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD)
62.
MOC, 2004, “Guanyu guanche shishi lingshou yetai fenlei guojia biaozhun de tongzhi” [The notice on implementing new national standard of classification for retail formats]Ministry of Commerce, 9 August, http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/PI-c/631405.htm
63.
NgaiP, 2003, “Subsumption or consumption? The phantom of consumer revolution in globalizing China”Cultural Anthropology18469–492
64.
NordhaugK, 2006, “The developmental state: The East Asian perspective”, in International Development Governance Eds HuqueA SZafarullahH, (Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL) pp 129–152
65.
OiJ C, 1992, “Fiscal reform and the economic foundations of local state corporatism”World Politics4599–126
66.
OiJ C, 1995, “The role of the local state in China's transitional economy”The China Quarterly1441132–1149
67.
OiJ C, 1999Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
68.
PearsonM M, 2005, “The business of governing business in China: Institutions and norms of the emerging regulatory state”World Politics57296–322
69.
PearsonM M, 2007, “Governing the Chinese economy: Regulatory reform in the service of the state”Public Administration Review67718–730
70.
PeiM, 2006China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
71.
SDTB, 1998, “Guojia guonei maoyi ju lingshou yetai feilei guifan yijian (shixing)” [Standard classification of retail formats (provisional)], State Domestic Trade Bureau, http://www.cnretail.com.cn/html/2004-5/200452694429.htm
72.
SETC, State Economic and Trade Commision2001, “Guanyu chengshi shangye wangdian guihua gongzuo de zhidao yijian” [The guidelines on urban commercial network planning]
73.
SETC, State Economic and Trade Commision2002, “Guanyu jinyibu zuohao dazhong chengshi shangye wangdian huihua gongzuo de tongzhi” [Notice on accelerating commercial network planning in large and medium cities]
74.
SETC, State Economic and Trade Commision2003, “Guanyu jianqiang chengshi shangye wangdian guihua gongzuo de tongzhi” [Notice on strengthening the planning of urban commercial network]
75.
ShevchenkoA, 2004, “Bringing the party back in: The CCP and the trajectory of market transition in China”Communist and Post-Communist Studies37161–185
76.
SimmonsJ MKamikiharaS, 2006Commercial Activity in Canada (Ryerson University, Toronto)
77.
SmithC J JHimmelfarbK M G, 2007“Restructuring Beijing's social space: Observations on the Olympic Games in 2008”Eurasian Geography and Economics48543–554
78.
SoA Y, 2007“Peasant conflict and the local predatory state in the Chinese countryside”Journal of Peasant Studies34560–581
SunP, 2007, “Is the state-led industrial restructuring effective in transition China? Evidence from the steel sector”Cambridge Journal of Economics31601–624
81.
SunY, 2000Urban Development and Retail Structure in Beijing PhD dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK
82.
TsuiKWangY, 2004, “Between separate stoves and a single menu: Fiscal decentralization in China”China Quarterly17771–90
83.
TuJ, 2003, “Chao Shi Fa renshi biandong” [Personnel changes in the executive board of Chao Shi Fa]Beijing Xiandai Shangbao [Beijing Business Daily] 13 November, page 4
84.
WangE, 2003, “Urban marketplace in China in the reform era”, paper presented at the 99th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, New Orleans, LA
85.
WangE, 2005Retail Restructuring in Urban China in the Reform Era: The Case of Beijing PhD dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
86.
WangEChanK W, 2007, “Store wars: Changing retail ownership in Beijing”Eurasian Geography and Economics48573–602
87.
WangSJonesK, 2002, “Retail structure of Beijing”Environment and Planning A341785–1808
88.
WangSZhangY, 2005, “The new retail economy of Shanghai”Growth and Change3641–73
89.
WangX, 2004, “Beijing wangjing shangye guihua hezai” [Where is Wangjing's retail planning?]Zhongguo luyou bao [China Tourism Daily] 25 February
90.
WedemanA H, 2003From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketisation in China (Cambridge University Press, New York)
91.
WhiteG, (Ed.), 1988Development States in East Asia (St Martin's Press, New York)
WongJ, 2004, “The adaptive developmental state in East Asia”Journal of East Asian Studies4345–362
94.
Woo-CumingsM, (Ed.), 1999The Developmental State (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY)
95.
WrigleyN, 1997, “Foreign retail capital on the battlefields of Connecticut: Competition regulation at the local scale and its implications”Environment and Planning A291141–1152
96.
WrigleyNLoweM, 2002Reading Retail: A Geographical Perspective on Retailing and Consumption Spaces (Arnold, London)
97.
WuF, 2002, “China's changing urban governance in the transition towards a more market-oriented economy”Urban Studies391071–1093
98.
WuF, 2003, “The (post-)socialist entrepreneurial city as a state project: Shanghai's reglobalisation in question”Urban Studies401673–1698
WuFXuJYehA G O, 2007Urban Development in Post-reform China: State, Market, and Space (Routledge, New York)
101.
WuY, 2004“Waizi shangye qunian fenshi Beijing baiyi xiaoshou” [Foreign retailers shared 10 billion in sales in Beijing in 2003]Beijing xiandai shangbao [Beijing Business Today] 16 January, page A06
102.
YangD, 2004Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)
103.
YuM, 2003, “Haidian qidong ba xiang zhongidan gongcheng” [Haidian initiates eight key development projects]Beijing Qingnian Bao [Beijing Youth Daily] 7 August, page C12
104.
ZhangY, 1996, “The entrepreneurial role of local bureaucracy in China: A case study of Shandong Province”Issues and Studies3289–110
105.
ZhaoJ, 2004, “Wumei jianbing jingbei dashijie” [Wu Mart acquires Jingbei Great World]Xin Jing Bao [The Beijing News] 5 August
106.
ZhaoJ, 2005, “Xiyou shoubian shoulian chonggou jingcheng shangye geju” [Xidan friendship restructures Beijing's commerce by acquiring Shoulian Group]Xin Jing Bao 22 April, page A13
107.
ZhengY, 2004Globalization and State Transformation in China (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY)
108.
ZhengY, 2007De Facto Federalism in China: Reforms and Dynamics of Central–Local Relations (World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ)
109.
ZhouY, 2004, “Chaoshi chongzu weihe yi nu er jia?” [Why did the supermarket ‘marry’ two in restructuring?]Zhonghua gongshang shibao [China Business Times] 24 August, page E3
110.
ZhouYXinT, 2003, “An innovative region in China: Interaction between multinational corporations and local firms in a high-tech cluster in Beijing”Economic Geography79129–152
111.
ZhuJ, 1999The Transition of China's Urban Development: From Plan-controlled to Market-led (Praeger, Westport, CT)
112.
ZhuJ, 2000, “The changing mode of housing provision in transitional China”Urban Affairs Review35502–519
113.
ZhuJ, 2004, “Local developmental state and order in China's urban development during transition”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research28424–427
114.
ZhuJ, 2005, “A transitional institution for the emerging land market in urban China”Urban Studies421369–1390
