Uncorking the neoliberal bottle: neoliberal critique and urban change in China

Neoliberalism’s theoretical ascendancy within urban geography coincided with the rapid growth of scholarly attention to Chinese cities. Therefore, it is unsurprising that neoliberal causality has been a widely used tool for interpreting China’s spatial transformation. This paper critically reviews some of the most prominent debates on neoliberalism in the Chinese context. China’s Leninist political hierarchy and Dual Structure, crucial institutions for the management and regulation of society and economy under Mao, are now reduced to the quirks of “actually existing neoliberalism.” Neoliberal critique applied to China, however, fails to adequately explain China’s spatial development because it assigns causality for social and economic inequality to globalized processes of capital accumulation while ignoring the continued importance of Maoist institutions in China’s present-day political economy. Uncritical acceptance of neoliberalism’s explanatory power for spatial change has led to flawed and inaccurate portrayals of the development and future trajectories of Chinese cities, and misrepresents the sources of social injustice in Chinese society.