Is China Creating the World's Biggest Megacity?

Emerging Super Megacity, or Urban Legend?

On January 24 of 2011, a story that originated with The Telegraph and repeated in a number of Western news sources, declared that China is planning to merge nine cities in the Pearl River Delta into the world's most humongous megacity with 42 million people: "The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales."

On Jan. 28, 2011, however, Guo Yuewen (郭跃文), spokesman for the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (广东省委外宣办), categorically denied the truthfulness of this story at a news conference. Ma Xiangming (马向明), the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and the principal source for The Telegraph news story, explained that the misunderstanding came from the foreign journalists' misinterpretation of the term "integration" (一体化). When he talked about the integration of the nine Pearl River Delta cities (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing), he meant functional integration, not political integration [ch]. One purpose for functional integration is to avoid duplication of services and wasting resources given the closeness of the nine cities; for example, if Guangzhou already has a tumor hospital, then there is no need for Shenzhen to build one. Building on the foundation of the rapid expansion of transportation infrastructure in the Delta, the region will in the near future be highly integrated in terms of medical services, environmental protection, and social services. Each of the cities will preserve its special characteristics and share in a division of labor, Ma added.

Nine in One?

Was it just a semantic misunderstanding, or was there more beneath the surface? If government services were to be highly integrated among the nine cities, will there not be a need for some higher level political unit to coordinate this division of labor, or will the Guangdong provincial government act in this capacity? It is also puzzling that The Telegraph story directly quoted Ma as saying: "It will not be [named] like Greater London or Greater Tokyo because there is no one city at the heart of this megalopolis ... We cannot just name it after one of the existing cities." Why is there a need for a new name (wouldn't Pearl River Delta do just fine?), if there were no megalopolis envisioned? Perhaps Ma was just expressing a personal opinion that the nine cities need to be merged for better coordination? Or perhaps this was yet another instance of linguistic confusion?

Regardless, there is no denial that this region of nine large cities is moving in the direction of greater functional integration, as already sketched in "Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta [en] (珠江三角洲地区改革发展规划纲要) [ch]" released by the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展和改革委员会) in December of 2008. Aside from the question of whether political integration was mentioned by Ma during his interview with The Telegraph, the newspaper's account of what he told the British reporters is consistent with Ma's later interview with the Chinese media denying the urban merger story and with the PRD development plan outline. According to The Telegraph:

Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong ...

Twenty-nine rail lines, totalling 3,100 miles, will be added, cutting rail journeys around the urban area to a maximum of one hour between different city centres. According to planners, phone bills could also fall by 85 per cent and hospitals and schools will be improved.

"Residents will be able to choose where to get their services and will use the internet to find out which hospital, for example, is less busy," said Mr Ma.

Pollution, a key problem in the Pearl River Delta because of its industrialisation, will also be addressed with a united policy, and the price of petrol and electricity could also be unified.

Moreover, even if the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta will not be merging politically, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are already megacities. At a government conference for the Pearl River Delta Reform and Development Plan on June 17, 2010, it was announced that Guangzhou's population had exceeded 14 million. According to Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University, "Government data indicate that Shenzhen's population, 12 million in 2006, now stands at 14 million [in 2010], though a more detailed analysis argued that in 2004, Shenzhen already had a population of some 18 million."

Huang Huahua

 

 

Despite growing competition from other regions and rising labor costs, the Pearl River Delta remains a major manufacturing hub, "account[ing] for about 10 percent of China's gross domestic product." Guangdong Province, with the Pearl River Delta as its core, is China's richest province. On January 21, 2010, Governor Huang Huahua (黄华华) reported to the Guangdong People's Congress that Guangdong's GDP in 2010 is an estimated 4.5636 trillion yuan (about US$695 billion), doubling over the last five years. Guangdong has now surpassed in GDP three of the Four Little Dragons of East Asia: Singapore in 1998; Hong Kong in 2003; Taiwan in 2007. Guangdong's per capita income is now about $7,000 US. Imports and exports grew at an annual rate of 12.9% over the past five years, with total trade at 784.7 billion yuan in 2010 (about US$120 billion). Exports grew at 13.7% per annum over the same period, reaching a level of 453.2 billion yuan in 2010 (about US$69 billion). The province attracted US$90.6 billion in direct foreign investment during the five year period.

Nevertheless, Huang Huahua admitted that Guangdong still has a long way to go before it can fulfill the mission Deng Xiaoping charged it with: catching up with the Four Little Dragons. Even though Guangdong has surpassed Singapore in GDP back in 1998, it remains far behind Singapore in per capita income, social management, social order, and social morality.

Note on per capita GDP: Guangdong is no exception to gross regional income inequalities in China. Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with per capita GDP of US$13,754 and US$13,015 respectively in 2009 as estimated by the Korean trade and investment firm Kotra, are the two richest cities in China, and much above Guangdong's provincial average of $7,000.