Julie T Miao, University of Glasgow
I was delighted to be awarded an early career grant from the Regional
Studies Association (RSA) which enabled me to explore the potential disjuncture
between the centralised social-institutional arrangement and the decentralised
techno-economic system in China. I was inspired by the studies (such as Peck
& Zhang, 2013) on the emerging Sino-capitalism regime but disappointed by
the reductionist ‘neoliberalism’ label that broad-brush China’s distinctive
social and economic evolution. As a scholar who witnessed China’s reforms over
the past three decades, I am more than aware that the Central government retains
a firm hand over a wide range of social-institutional management and activities.
Ironically, the faster economic ‘neoliberalism’
has advanced, the more the state has asserted bureaucratic-authoritarian
control over its social affairs, because
of the fear for social disturbance.
Within this context I focused my attention on three science parks,
specifically the imbalance between housing provision and labour market within
and surrounding these science parks, to explore the disjuncture between China’s
social and economic subsystems. The three science parks chosen were: Beijing Zhongguancun
Science Park (Z-Park); Shanghai Zhangjiang Science Park (Z-SHIPs), and Wuhan
Optics Valley of China (OVC). They were selected because the housing-labour
imbalance is at its most acute around these industry agglomerations. Three
research aims were set for this project:
(1) To profile Chinese
policy evolutions and governance for labour markets and affordable
housing;
(2) To identify disjunctures
in the different mixes of state-market relations in different regions;
(3) To discuss civil
society and government responses to emerging problems.
This paper on ‘Housing the Knowledge Economy’ mainly addressed the
latter two questions, in particular the awareness of social housing providers
to the housing needs of knowledge workers. These issues were analysed mainly through
secondary data, complemented by interviews with local and national authority
and science parks’ managers. This method was chosen because the supply (rather
than demand) effect of social housing was the main concern of this paper. Based
on extensive documentary coding and analysis, it was found that for China as a
whole, its labour market has been liberalised to a similar extent as that in
the West, but Beijing is still the ‘central command centre’ in setting targets for
social housing construction, which has resulted in a substantial disjuncture
between where people work and where they live. Nonetheless, regional variations
were prominent.
In Z-Park, where the most acute work-home imbalance was identified,
the local authorities were least explicit in their social housing (or even
commercial housing) commitment. Along with spatial expansion of Z-Park outside
the central districts of Beijing, more social housing (financed by the
municipal government) for Z-Park employees was provided around it. In Z-SHIPs,
attention to the housing needs of science park employees was much more noticeable
than Z-Park. But what made Z-SHIPs stood out was its reliance on the private
rental sector, whereas the municipal government offers small subsidy to on-park
workers. In OVC, where the land constraint was not as severe as in the other
two cases, the real estate sector has long been identified as the pillar of
local development. Social housing was public financed and distributed, and
often located far from city centre, in a pattern similar to Z-Park. But the
much more aggressive real estate development in OVC might distract the public
resources, such as land and capital, from industrial development.
By distinguishing China’s social-institutional and techno-economic
domains, this research could uncover the multiple faces of the widely debated
Sino-capitalism. Another novel aspect of this research lies in identifying the
possible inconsistent pace towards neoliberalism both temporarily and regionally,
which in turn could hamper China’s overall system function. This draws
policy attention to a systematic approach in promoting knowledge economy. A
following paper from this project, which is based on questionnaire survey of
knowledge workers, will explore further such inconsistencies around the three
Science Parks from the demand side.
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