Pivot of China: Spatial Politics and Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou
Mark Baker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2024. 366 pp. £47.95 (hbk). ISBN 9780674293816
Picture the scene: in the name of safety and fire prevention, a significant number of informal settlements are cleared, in parallel to the creation of urban parks intended to provide green spaces predominantly for the elite and individuals formally recognized as citizens. In response to the spatial limitations of the existing urban area and growing concerns about increasing disorder, an ambitious urban plan is formulated with functional zones clearly identified in the new urban area, drawing inspiration from model plans implemented in cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Ottawa. In this spatiopolitical mechanism of urban change, the removal of “undesirable people” and the imagination of a certain kind of spatial order and control are foregrounded in the municipal agenda, inducing in turn profound impacts on urban life, urban–rural relations and regional development in both short and long terms.
This scenario, described in Pivot of China, does not depict contemporary Beijing – although many of us have observed similar phenomena there over the last decade – but rather Zhengzhou in the late 1920s under Feng Yuxiang. Such a consistent and recurring pattern of spatial inequality is the key concern of Mark Baker in this book, which focuses on Zhengzhou and its hinterland. Baker critically investigates Zhengzhou’s modern history from the perspective of “spatial politics,” a term he develops by drawing on geographers such as Doreen Massey and Edward Soja, and which he refers to as “a politics that exacerbated spatial inequality, backing ‘winners’ for economic growth and concentrating rather than dispersing resources” (p. 4). The role of the state looms large here, since “spatial strategies of the state can markedly worsen or improve these inequalities” (p. 4), through which we can further decode the gap between its ambitions and the capabilities.
Baker adopts a rigid historical-geographical structure to develop the historical analysis of the urban-spatial conditions, aiming to contribute to “historicizing China’s urban transformation” (p. 207). Specifically, he looks into three geographies – the urban edge, rural hinterland and the wider region – in seven historical periods since the 1900s: the arrival of railroads (1900s–1927), Feng Yuxiang and Nationalist control (1927–1937), war years (1937–1945), post-war reconstructions and revolutions (1945–1958), the era of planned economy (1958–1978), the reform era (1978–2003) and the current moment of going global (2003–2020s). Focusing on the consistent tensions between urban–rural connections and the patterns of disconnection and inequality, Baker presents a clear and detailed account of Zhengzhou’s urban-regional history, a city growing from the “scratch” since the early 20th century whilst being situated in and reshaped by national and regional flows.
This historical-geographical account highlights the continuity and undercurrents of urban change, which are also closely linked to the geographically wider and often overlooked areas beyond the urban boundary. It calls into question our conceptualization of the “city”: moving beyond the walled area or “old city,” the urban area and its centre have always expanded and shifted, subject to social, political and economic conditions. These conditions induce intra-city inequality, as evidenced by the rise of the shangbu area in the early 20th century and industrial and administrative districts in the 1950s. Beyond the city, urban centrism dominated scalar and territorial politics, with municipal control over rural hinterland gradually consolidated, preconditioning Zhengzhou’s further expansion into the region from the 1980s. This account paves the way for reflections on connections and similarities among different modes of governing Zhengzhou in terms of the urban-centred agenda of modernization, population control, and rural extraction and exploitation. Juxtaposing Feng Yuxiang’s “New Zhengzhou” plan of the 1920s together with the rise of Zhengdong Xinqu in the 2000s, for instance, Baker reminds us through their affinities to see how different moments of Zhengzhou’s modern history have been haunted by a similar lure (p. 253). This consistency also implies that ambitious state agendas of rural–urban unity were often underlined by the realpolitik of extracting from agriculture for urban-industrial sectors, intensifying rather than reducing the ruralurban and regional inequalities, evidenced particularly by the high Maoism (p. 165) and the ensuing famine.
As a geographer, I think this book could have offered further clarifications on “space” and “spatial politics” to consolidate its analysis. While it is helpful to recognize a spatial genealogy of inequality, this approach is perhaps limited to provide explanations mainly through (fixed) locations. Baker concludes that “differences across space have determined as well as reflected unequal outcomes” (p. 288), which seemingly concerns mainly absolute space, recognized as an a priori, independent and even immutable entity. This spatial approach is helpful in formulating a clear structure, but its efficacy and validity have been challenged by the spatial realities of urban transformation. Specifically, this approach tends to impose a homogeneous pattern across distinct historical periods, rather than engaging in a more dynamic, incremental investigation that elucidates contextual nuances and traces the temporal evolution of the spatial configurations. Adopting this approach proves particularly challenging when examining socio-spatial dynamics at the urbanizing frontier. What was once a rural hinterland could later become the urban edge, a new urban area, or even an urban centre. Instead of resorting to increasingly complicated vocabulary – such as “diurnal hinterland,” “nearby rural hinterland” and “intermediate zone” (pp. 9, 228) – the focus could have shifted to the actually-existing socio-spatial and political dynamics.
Calling for openness and anti-essentialism in understanding space, Doreen Massey highlights that space is always in a process of becoming – it is unfinished, with loose ends and is the product of practices and relations. She also reminds us that “it is the power relations in the construction of the spatiality, rather than the spatiality alone, which must be addressed” (Doreen Massey, “Spaces of Politics,” in Human Geography Today, 1999, Cambridge: Polity, p. 291). Space is neither given nor independent in the rise of “spatial inequality”; it is imbued with relations as social and political practices through the “spatialized social power.” With a more relational approach of space, we can better recognize urban and spatial conditions that are evolving and further investigate the power dynamics and state effects that underlie the consistent “spatial inequality.” In this way, Zhengzhou’s urban–regional history can also become a promising entry point to decode modern Chinese states – in terms of how they have been shaped and transformed spatially, rather than the other way around.
That said, I concur with Baker’s recognition of Zhengzhou’s ordinariness, which also partly endorses the title of this book (p. 5). A city brought into being by the railway, Zhengzhou remained medium-sized for a considerable period in its modern history. It is representative of inland cities in “middle China,” which have been less covered in recent urban-historical (and social sciences) research. While these cities and their hinterlands have accommodated hundreds of millions of people and played pivotal roles in national agendas, projects and sufferings, their significance is yet to be properly acknowledged, and their archival and other types of materials are harder to collect. Baker has made admirable efforts in writing this history, consulting a vast array of archives, memoirs, newspapers, magazines and official documents when available, and making good use of secondary literature, statistical data and other related evidence to bridge empirical gaps where necessary. Different sources are integrated into a coherent and powerful historical account that sheds new light on urban history, human geography, urban and rural sociology, development studies and urban studies, among other lines of inquiries in understanding China’s urban and spatial change.
To conclude, I want to follow Baker and revisit Li Zhi’s “Memories of Zhengzhou.” While he uses Li Zhi to showcase Zhengzhou’s ordinariness, I want to shift the focus to the consistency of uncertainties we have been experiencing in and with the urban, which is clearly reflected in the final lines of the lyrics:
Things that seem true often aren’t – maybe it’s just the way the world unsettles us.
There’s love, there’s loyalty, but it still feels like having rice with no fire to cook it.
Time has changed so much, and yet, somehow, nothing has really changed at all.
Let me hold you again, Zhengzhou.
For citation: Zhao, Y. (2025). Book review – Pivot of China: Spatial Politics and Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou. China Quarterly. DOI:10.1017/S0305741025101082
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