The Chinese city in the planned economy
One assumption of those interested in Chinese cities is that between the end of the Chinese Civil War and the the Reform and Opening up period (from 1949 to about 1979), Chinese cities were essentially stagnant. But this is not really accurate. In the 1950s as part of the first Five Year plans, state-led heavy industrialization of cities was promoted, influenced strongly by Soviet advisors. Under some of Mao’s more extreme policies like the Great Leap Forward and then Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Chinese cities stagnated in the face of policies designed to move production to rural areas, or send educated youth to the countryside. Professional city planning virtually ceased and universities shuttered. But this was also regionally dependent—during this period, some areas of the “third front” 三线 like Chengdu, Guizhou, and Xi’an saw increased investment in new factories.
Another misconception is that the legacy of the planned economy has been entirely jettisoned during the reform period. However, this too is not entirely accurate. While many factories shut down during SOE reforms of the 1990s, significant entities have survived and persisted to the present. For example, Chengdu Aircraft Factory is now part of AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group 成飞, one of China’s major defense contractors that produces some of its most advanced fighter jets.1 Shougang Group 首钢集团 is the successor to Beijing’s Capital Iron and Steel Factory, and has evolved into a diversified holding and investment company owned by the Beijing government.2 The “fixed” nature of urban land use has meant that much of the land allocated to SOEs during the planned economy period persists in some form 60 years later. Many of the entities involved diversified, leveraging their land holdings to go into property development. Many old factories did shut down, and some of them have been preserved as revived cultural districts, like 798 in Beijing or Chengdu’s Eastern Suburb Memory 东郊记忆.
When I was working on a previous post on Chengdu, I happened upon a map of Chengdu from 1989 produced by the CIA. I was struck by the level of detail. The map provided a clear snapshot of major factories, educational institutions, and government agencies in the city. From these maps one can get a pretty good picture of a particular cities’ industrial mix, its key factories and sectors. I then discovered similar maps of other Chinese cities. The maps show the results of urban industrial expansion in the post 1949 period. The form of the post 1949 Chinese city followed general patterns. The pre-1949 historic cores of Chinese cities dating to Qing periods were maintained but adapted—previous Qing-era government sites were often adapted for government buildings or educational institutes. Some factories were located in the inner cities. But many cities expanded, with railways and new factories forming industrial areas ringing the old historic cities.
The maps also reveal divergence between cities. Historic coastal cities like Guangzhou and Shanghai are little changed from their pre-1949 extents but cities like Chengdu, Zhengzhou, and Beijing saw significant expansion through new industrial areas on their peripheries. Indeed, coastal cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou were generally less favored in the early decades of PRC rule, as they were seen to be former strongholds of the capitalist class that had supported the KMT. Foreign trade slowed significantly, rendering previously open ports less relevant. The maps thus reveal spatial inequalities between Chinese cities—inland hubs were favored for new industrial production under the First Five Year Plan (1953-1957). Of course, the fates of these cities would again diverge in another direction in the 1980s, as investment flowed into coastal economic zones.
Why were these maps produced? The CIA maintains accurate maps of many foreign cities. During the 1980s, the U.S. and China undertook rapprochement, with trade and investment flowing after decades of closure. Nevertheless, the CIA still maintained accurate maps of Chinese cities, particularly defense-related industries. Most likely, these maps helped develop lists of useful targets in the event of war, and may have assisted with other intelligence gathering efforts. The maps generally do not highlight residential areas, but these are assumed to be the grey urban areas in between everything else. This may have overlooked the fact that some areas of factory sites were indeed devoted to housing, as part of a system of “iron rice bowl” or provision of all social and living services by the employer, sometimes also referred to as the “Danwei” or work unit system.3
Beijing
Mao favored an industrialization of the Chinese capital. "Looking out from Tian'anmen, I should see chimneys everywhere,” he is alleged to have said.4 A core idea of Communist ideology was that in capitalist systems, cities are mostly “parasitic” on the countryside—they drain resources from farmers and don’t produce anything useful. Under Mao, Beijing was to be transformed to an industrial city. In the 1960s, the old walls of Beijing were gradually torn down, a symbol of feudalism. However, these maps of Beijing reveal that for the most part, the inner core of Beijing (within what is now the second ring) was not the location of new industrial production. Large industrial complexes were built to the West—the Capital Iron and Steel Corporation 首钢 in present-day Shijingshan, No 2 Chemical Works in the southeast, and a factory complex in the northeast comprising Wire Communication Equipment Plant 738, Electron Tube Plant 774, radio equipment plants, and the 798 military plant, which has been redeveloped into an arts and cultural district. Meanwhile, the inner core of Beijing was maintained as a residential area, with schools, government buildings, and hospitals dotted throughout.
Shanghai
Shanghai had been China’s most prosperous and cosmopolitan city from the end of the Qing into the 1930s, the “Pearl of the Orient.” Under the PRC, the city stagnated. Long a hub for foreign trade and capitalist production, Shanghai was not favored in early PRC industrialization plans. The maps of Shanghai reveal this. The urban extent (dark grey) of Shanghai as shown in the CIA’s 1982 map is roughly what it was in 1949. A map of 1927 when the city was still administered as a foreign treaty port, split up into concessions, is roughly what the urban area is in 1982. The area to the north of the city has expanded somewhat, with a few large-scale factories, with the exception of Steel Plant No 3 on the south bank of the Huangpu River (the site for the 2010 expo), and the Shanghai Iron and Steel Plants 1 and 5, located in the north of the city. Small textile factories are scattered around Suzhou creek in the city’s northwest, and in the Hongkou District, which had been under Japanese control.
Guangzhou, 1984
A 1984 map of Guangzhou suggests that like Shanghai, this southern coastal trading hub was similar in urban extent from around 1949. However, there are numerous universities found in the northeast—what is mislabeled as Hunan Polytechnic should be South China Institute of Technology (华南工学院) now South China University of Technology 华南理工大学.5 Zhongshan University 中山大学 is just south of the river.
Chengdu, 1989
The southwestern city of Chengdu was a much smaller version compared to its current sprawling extent. But already in 1989, a large industrial zone stretched to the Northeast of the old city. The old imperial-era city, long the administrative hub of Sichuan, was mostly residential but with numerous colleges and government buildings. According to Julie Miao, the most important factories located in the Northeast of the city due to favorable winds, and higher elevation.6 Factories such as the state-run Hongguang Electronic Tube Factory 成都国营红光电子管厂 that made cathode ray tubes for TVs and other electronic devices were some of the city’s important industrial anchors. Chengdu Aircraft Factory (now AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group / 成飞) was founded in 1958 (the location in Shuangliu District is SW of the below map’s extent). Today, one of these factories was turned into a new cultural space: Eastern Suburb Memory 东郊记忆—Chengdu’s version of Beijing’s 798. During the Third Front (三线建设) campaign (1964–1980) heavy defense-critical industries were relocated to China’s interior under the assumption they would be secured in the event of an invasion by either the Soviet Union or the U.S.6 In this process, aviation, electronics, machinery, and heavy equipment plants backed by Beijing ministries were brought to Chengdu.
Wuhan, 1974
Wuhan, comprised of three cities located in central China, is an important inland port and industrial center. China’s first North-South railway line crossed the Yangtze River here, making the city a critical node in China’s railway network. The city’s largest factory was the Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant, inaugurated in 1958, employed tens of thousands of workers. In the 1980s and 1990s, the workforce was typically around 80,000 to 100,000 employees. It’s visible in the inset of the map below, located northeast of the city center on the Wuchang side. The factory is still running today, under the control of the Wugang Group 武钢集团有限公司, but in 2016 merged with Shanghai-based Baosteel to form Baowu Group宝武集团, the world’s largest steel producer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_Aircraft_Corporation
https://www.shougang.com.cn/p1/index.html
Bray, David. Social Space and Governance in Urban China: The Danwei System from Origins to Reform. 1 edition. Stanford University Press, 2005.
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201708/30/WS59bb6d9da310d4d9ab7e77b0_2.html
This appears to be an inaccuracy, although South China University of Technology was formed in 1952 as a merger of several departments including some from Hunan University relocated to Guangzhou, and other departments from Guangxi, Sun yat Sen and Lingnan Universities.
Meyskens, Covell F. Mao’s Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Fascinating, thank you!
Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for this.