The city is eating hungrily into the hillsides, swallowing up maize fields and rice terraces in loops of tarmac and towers of concrete and glass. But the pace of change is so rapid, the transition so sharp, that its citizens are increasingly bewildered by their surroundings. Some, like the migrant workers building the roads, are new to city life. Others no longer recognise their hometown as it sprawls across the land.

This is the year China finally became an urban nation. In April the census revealed that 49.7% of its 1.34bn population was living in cities, compared with around a fifth as economic reforms got off the ground in 1982. By now, China’s urbanites outnumber their country cousins. “The process they have been going through over three decades took four or five decades in Japan and [South] Korea and 100 years in the west,” says Edward Leman, whose Chreon consultancy has advised numerous Chinese cities on development.

It is not only the extraordinary speed that is “unprecedented and unparalleled”, says Prof Paul James of the Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne. “It represents the most managed process of urbanisation in human history. The state is involved in every way. It manages the building of new cities. It regulates the housing of internally displaced people. It responds actively and sometimes oppressively to new waves of squatters.”

The new five-year plan pushes urbanisation even further, as the government seeks to raise living standards and promote development in the poorer central and western regions. A hard landing for the economy could slow this process – local government debt is a particular worry – but will not stop it.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Guiyang, urban development, urbanization
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Cash, real estate and a golden book of traditional Chinese morals –literally made of gold – were just a few of the perks Fan Zhongqian received during 20 years as a government official in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province.

Fan apparently enjoyed the cash and property, but ignored the book. Authorities say he bypassed moral ways to wealth for a fast track by accepting bribes in exchange for government favors.

Fan, 52, has been awaiting a court verdict since March after standing trial in Guiyang Intermediate Court for accepting more than 10 million yuan bribes. The former mayoral assistant and chief of the city’s land resources and urban construction department has been in custody since spring 2008.

His wife, Tan Jin, a former official at Guizhou Normal University, has already been sentenced to a five-year prison term for taking bribes. She was convicted shortly before Fan went to court.

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Post tags: Guiyang, official corruption
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Ma Ningyu stood on the podium and spoke with confidence on his ideas about how to better serve the public in his district. He is speaking off the cuff to convince a panel of judges about his political ideas in a few minutes.

When challenged with a question his eight-year work experience would not be enough, he says, “Youth is a kind of fortune. Young men are more ready to face up to the situation and seek renovations.”

Ma is deputy head of Xiaohe District in Guiyang, capital of southwestern China’s Guizhou Province. He aims to compete for the district Party secretary’s post.

He is one of the 81 competitors running for the Party secretaries of four counties and districts in Guiyang.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CCP, Guiyang, political reform
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For the last seven years, commuters on their way to work in Guiyang have found it hard to buy a morning paper. As part of a campaign to clean up the city’s roadways, the capital of Guizhou Province cleared its sidewalks in 2001 and has kept them free of vendors’ stalls, including newsstands, ever since.

The decision was not without controversy: were the newsstands any worse than the roving newspaper sellers that sprang up in their place? The Beijing News examined the situation in a lengthy report on Saturday. [Full Text]

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Post tags: Guiyang, Guizhou
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Hundreds of Chinese attacked police and smashed up squad cars after a migrant was apparently beaten up for refusing to pay for a resident’s permit, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The riot in Guiyang, capital of the southwestern province of Guizhou, was the latest eruption of unrest the Communist Party fears could spin out of control and threaten its monopoly on power.

At least one police officer and a taxi driver were wounded and more than 10 police cars were overturned, the Guizhou Metropolitan News said. [Full text]

More coverage of this incident, via Google News. Read also CDT’s translation of the original Guiyang Metropolitan News report.

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Post tags: Guiyang, migrant workers, police violence, riots
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Hundreds of people smashed police cars in Guiyang at midnight of July 10, after para-policemen beat up a newly arrived migrant worker Mr. Guo, who refused to pay for a temporary residency book. The incident happened around 9pm July 10 near a bath house at Luchongguan Road in Guiyang.

The mob attacked arriving police who came to send the injured migrant worker to the hospital. Police cars were smashed and flipped. When reporters drove toward the police station for an interview, the car was stopped and smashed too. The reporters spared a beating only after identifying themselves as “reporters” and someone among the crowd said no violence on the reporters. But a taxi driver and his car were beaten up and many cabs nearby drove to escape.

Only when armed police came in dozens that the mob disbanded, about 3am. The police bureau is investigating the incident, including the para-policemen who beat the migrant worker. [Full Text in Chinese]

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2006. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Guiyang, migrant workers, police violence, social unrest
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