Читать книгу Global Political Cities - Kent E. Calder - Страница 40

In November 1989, the Berlin Wall abruptly went down. And by the end of 1991—barely two years later—the Soviet Union was no more, and the Warsaw Pact had collapsed. Little more than a decade thereafter, three of the previous constituent republics of the Soviet Union itself had been absorbed into NATO, bringing the defense line of the Atlantic alliance within eighty-five miles of Vladimir Putin’s birthplace in St. Petersburg.³¹

Following the triumph of Western capitalism, the bipolar East-West nuclear standoff in its virulent Cold War incarnation was no more. The prospect of cataclysmic, worldwide warfare sharply decreased, and with it the primacy that public opinion, and to some extent public policy, had traditionally placed on national-security imperatives. This important global geopolitical shift allowed increasing scope for the varied socioeconomic forces, including dual revolutions in information and connectivity, that for more than a decade had been quietly undermining the nation-state and privileging subnational interests.

The relaxation at the end of the Cold War of national-security imperatives that had long underpinned nation-state centrality gave cities in general enhanced opportunity to set global agendas. This opportunity they rapidly embraced, with initiatives on the environment and other human-security questions. The post–Cold War geopolitical shifts did, however, benefit some cities in particular. Washington, DC, as the capital of the sole surviving superpower, drew greater attention. So did multilateral centers such as Brussels and Geneva, as well as capitals of rising Asian industrial powers, such as Beijing.

Within this new, increasingly open and global post–Cold War milieu, China was quietly yet steadily beginning to rise. Its purchasing power parity GDP increased from 2.3 percent of the global total in 1980 to 7.4 percent in 2000, 13.9 percent in 2010, and 18.7 percent by 2018.³² For many years this important global development appeared to enhance rather than erode broader global connectivity. It seemed to increase momentum toward an integrated global system as well as autonomy for its subnational elements, although recent U.S.-China trade tensions have marginally begun to alter that prospect.

The rise of China has thus generally supported the latest sea change in the global political economy, even as the transformation itself helped make China the “factory to the world” and fueled its emergence as a technology power. Yet the latest change in global connectivity and geopolitics has done little as yet for the global role of Chinese cities. Even though China has played a major role in facilitating the ongoing transformation of world affairs, its cities are paradoxically ill-prepared to exercise global political influence in the new era. Centralization of power in the Chinese political system, and Beijing’s ambivalence regarding the role of market forces, is constraining the global political role of China’s cities, in contrast to patterns elsewhere. Constraints on cross-border information flows are also limiting their understanding of key global problems and their ability to respond. Deepening U.S.-China political-economic tensions since 2018 may intensify this bifurcation in global patterns at the city level, with Chinese cities potentially becoming even less independent and poorly informed, even as powerful market forces are giving cities in the market-capitalist nations of the world greater autonomy from nation-states, as well as more comprehensive information.

China’s rise as a technology power began with Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu—mere start-ups in the late 1990s that have since grown into giants. Start-up investment in China soared from $4.2 billion in 2013 to $63.1 billion in 2017. During the first half of 2018, more money was raised for venture capital funds in China than in the United States, for the first time ever.³³

To create a favorable environment for this investment, China has now designated 156 state-level technology zones across the country. Chinese companies have also been aggressively filing patents to protect their innovations. In early 2019, for example, they held 34 percent of global 5G patents—the highest share in the world, followed by South Korea (25 percent), Finland (14 percent), and the United States (14 percent).³⁴

China has thus clearly played a major role in provoking a worldwide transformation in both its economic and geopolitical dimensions. The rise of China as a nation, however, has paradoxically not enhanced the autonomous role of China’s cities in international political-economic affairs, and only imperfectly in the information sector. China’s central government retains formidable controls over its cities, directing them toward developmentalist roles rather than the market-oriented patterns that tend to be more prominent elsewhere. And its media controls inhibit the growth of information-analytical sectors as well.

The limited role of Chinese cities in global agenda-setting—contrasting so strongly with the rise of both China and global cities in political-economic affairs—may leave room for potential proxies. Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo, for example, all share some common interests with Chinese counterparts, are connected through powerful human networks, and could potentially represent their interests. Hong Kong, as a Chinese city itself, but with special international status under the 1984 terms of its reversion to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), could also do so in theory, especially on technical questions such as maritime law. The increasing dominance of the Chinese state, however, makes autonomous action in most sectors effectively impossible.