China’s urban development is often regarded as exceptional in terms of both the pace of urbanisation and the size and territorial reach of the country’s constituent city-regions. This commentary examines the variegated role of city-regionalism in the internationalisation and domestic management of Chinese state territory, and considers how the rise of new city-regional urban forms inside China is transforming the politics of urban development. China urban development processes are neither exclusively unique nor are they resistant to general theorisation; instead they are essentially comparable and therefore amenable to further theoretical interpretation.
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