Thinking Shanghai: A Foucauldian Interrogation of the Postsocialist Metropolis

This work is an investigation into Shanghai’s role in the twenty-first century as it attempts to rejoin the global city network. It also examines the effects this move is having on the city, its people, and its public spaces. Shanghai’s intention to turn itself into the New York of Asia is not succeeding, in fact the city might be better trying...

Balancing water rights in metropolitan water conservation areas: The case of Chengdu, China

Water justice can be a delicate balancing act. Conservation regulations ensure urban areas’ water demands are met, but these may conflict with the water rights of local people living in catchment areas. No metropolis wants to face water shortages, yet prioritising municipalities’ rights over those of local people can result in water injustice....

The Chinese Courtyard: An Encomium

Xing Ruan’s 'Confucius’ Courtyard: Architecture, Philosophy and the Good Life in China' is authoritative, erudite, and enjoyable. And it is about so much more than architecture, encompassing as it does culture, gardens, literature, and calligraphy in its exploration of this most significant of Chinese spaces: the courtyard. Divided into three...

Asian Cities: Armature, Enclave, Heterotopia

Asian cities are undergoing massive transformation in the face of globalization. Urbanization is not only part and parcel of these transformations; it is often the most visible expression of them. Three recent books explore some of these urban transformations: Marie Gibert-Flutre and Heidi Imai examine Asian alleyways as an urban vernacular...

Treaty Ports in China: Their Genesis, Development, and Influence

Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China’s Consumer Revolution, by Tim Simpson

Macau was founded by the Portuguese in 1557 and was the West’s gateway to China before becoming a colonial backwater in the nineteenth century. It became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China in 1999, something that, according to Tim Simpson, augured ‘the embryonic stirring of a world-historical geopolitical realignment [with] the...

William Nelson Lovatt in Late Qing China: War, Maritime Customs, and Treaty Ports, 1860-1904

China was forced to open its first treaty ports in 1842. This was one of the conditions of the Treaty of Nanking (now Nanjing), which ended the First Opium War (1839–42). The country was forced to make further concessions with the Treaty of Tientsin, which ended the Second Opium War (1856–60). China saw an ever-increasing number of treaty ports...