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Barry Naughton Quoted on China's Economy

Crouching tiger, soaring cranes, rumbling doubts

01/28/2011
John Garnaut, The Sydney Morning Herald

IN Chongqing, the new frontier of Chinese urbanisation, clusters of high-rise buildings sprouting among rice paddies and elevated highways and railways are draped over the countryside, with barely a thought for the mountains they punch through and river canyons they span.

Everywhere, it seems, hills are being decapitated and valleys and canyons filled to make way for what officials say will be 2 million more apartment dwellers in the coming three years alone.

This is the China that McKinsey & Co envisions when it projects that the country could build a new Chicago every year for the next two decades, including more than 1500 new skyscrapers higher than 30 storeys.
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By 2025, it says in a new report, China is on track to have 219 cities of more than a million people and 24 cities larger than Sydney. In places such as Chongqing, in south-western China, the odyssey from peasant to city resident that comes with entering the international marketplace is only half-way complete.

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Barry Naughton is an authority on the Chinese economy, with an emphasis on issues relating to industry, trade, finance, and China's transition to a market economy. Recent research focuses on regional economic growth in the People's Republic of China and the relationship between foreign trade and investment and regional growth.

John Garnaut, China correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, will be speaking at an IR/PS event, "Is China Becoming a Mafia State?" Click the link to learn more about the event and how to RSVP.

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