A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway

Infrastructure Planning in China's Polycentric Region: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway CHEN, Yanyan A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Geography and Resource Management The Chinese University of Hong Kong September 2011 Thesis/Assessment Committee Professor Jianfa SHEN (Chair) Professor Jiang XU (Thesis Supervisor) Professor Yee LEUNG (Committee Member) Professor Roger CHAN (External Examiner) < II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Professor Xu Jiang for her kindly guidance, unconditional support and patience throughout my two-year MPhil sti—:. Professor Xu has given me so much her precious time in guiding my research and thesis writing. Without her frequent reviews and constructive comments, my thesis could not be finished on time. In addition, she has taught me how to conduct research as well as how to write an English paper academically. I really appreciated her patience with me in the past two years. Also, I would like to thank all interviewees and contactors in the Pearl River Delta region who kindly provided important information for my research. Also, I would like to thank Professor Wang Jixian from the University of Hong Kong, Professor Li Zhigang, Professor Li Lixun and Professor Yuan Qifeng from Sun Yat-sen University. They kindly helped me to contact many interviewees for my research during my field works. Special thanks should be given to Professor Li Zhigang for his constant support and assistance during the past many years. My thaiiks should also go to my supervisor, Professor Xu who offered me a research grant to conduct my research. The financial support of South China Program^ is essential for me to complete my filed works in the Pearl River Delta. I must thank all professors, staff members, my fellow students and friends in the Department of Geography and Resource Management of the university. It is such a great experience to spend the past two years with them. Special thanks should go to Yang Xiaolan and Li Yun who gave me a lot of support and encouragement in my course of research and thesis writing. Finally, I should give my sincere gratitude to my dear parents. They gave me their love, care and understanding during my MPhil study. Their constant support helped me to overcome many difficulties both in life and in the study. 1 South China Programme (project code: 6902649), Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies. Ill ABSTRACT of thesis entitled: Infrastructure Planning in China's Polycentric Region: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway by CHEN, Yanyan For the degree of Master of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, August 2010 This study aimed at exploring how different jurisdictions interacted with each other in regional railway planning in China. The research questions focused on the complex relationships between different jurisdictions in the planning process. More specific attention was spent on the institutional arrangement that relevant governments have set up, their roles in the planning process, and the way they coordinated plans to achieve demands on regional infrastructure. Although the cooperation regime between central and local governments has been considerably improved since the reform era, it still embodies constraints that intensify the bargaining between various tiers of governments. This in turn leads to a change of state power among different geopolitical scales. In this study, the theoretical basis of state re-organization adopts the state rescaling theory, which provides an alternative way to examine the changing roles of states. Instead of treating the regional institution as a pre-given form, its core lies in evaluating the dialectical ways in which regions are produced by interaction between different jurisdictional governments. The Pearl River Delta intercity railway was used as a case study. What concerned most was the ways in which multiple actors conducted the planning coordination. Since economic reform, the centrally-dominated system of railway planning gradually has changed to a multi-level partnership where the central government, provincial governments and municipal governments join together to form a partnership to maximize their economic interests. Coordination among multiple jurisdictions becomes necessary in planning railways in regions. Particularly, the coordinating process not only IV includes vertical negotiation among the multi-level governments, but also a horizontal and competitive relationship between municipal governments. It is found that the coordinating mechanism is not fixed, but rather, ad hoc during the planning process. The planning mechanisms varied case by case in planning the PRD intercity railway. There is no regular route in planning coordination. Once conflicts appear, relevant actors come together to solve the problems. On the other hand, no scale of government dominates the power in decision-making. All agreements are reached based on the bargaining between different jurisdictions in both scaling-up and scaling- down processes. Briefly, the planning process of the PRD intercity railway and the politics involved are a reflection of the ongoing process of state rescaling. The administrative form and configuration in planning railways are formed in relation to the trends and counter- trends of the state re-organization process. The regions in China are now witnessing a re-organization of states' regulatory scale, because certain functions of states are being scaled up and scaled down towards different institutional levels. The newly emergent planning institutions of infrastructure projects at the regional scale highlight the essential role of regions in an arena for the trends and counter-trends of state re-organization. Furthermore, the power reshuffling between the central and provincial governments in the case of PRD intercity railway planning has showed that the rescaling of planning authority intensifies the bargaining among different governments while the increasingly intensive bargaining leads to another round of rescaling activities. V 摘要本研究旨在探討不同的管轄政府如何在中國區域鐵路的規劃中互動。研究的問題主要集中在規劃過程中的不同政府之間的復雜關系，具體包括相關政府設立的體制安排，他們在規劃過程中的職能，以及他們為實現區域基礎設施的需求協調規劃的方式。雖然中央和地方政府之間的合作制度自改革開放以來得到了相當的改善，但其仍存在限制，這些限制加劇了政府之間的談判。這又進一步導致國家權力在不同地緣政治尺度上的變化。在這項研究中，對國家結構重整的分析選取國家權力尺度化作為理論基礎，它提供另外一種方法來研究不斷變化的國家職能。此理論並沒有將區域機構當作一個預先給定的形式，而著重強調區域是通過不同管轄政府的互動而形成的辯證方式。本研究選取珠三角城際鐵路作為案例研究，並主要關注多個參與者協調規劃的方式。自改革開放以來，中央主導的鐵路規劃體系逐步轉變成多層級合作關系。其中中央政府、省級政府和市級政府聯合起來形成合作關系，以用來最大限度地提髙他們的經濟利益。多個管轄政府之間的協調在規劃區域鐡路過程中很有必要。特別是，這個協調過程不僅包括縱向政府之間的談判，也包括市政府之間平行和競爭的關系。本研究發現，規劃協調機制並不是固定的。相反，它在不同的規劃過程有特定的表現。在珠三角城際鐵路規劃過程中，其規劃機制因不同的案例而有所不同。規劃協調中沒有遵循一個固定的路線。一旦出現衝突，有關參與者便聚集在一起來解決問題。另一方面，也沒有特定尺度上的政府主導規劃協調的決策。所有的協議都是在不同的管轄政府共同談判的基礎上達成的，談判的過程既包括尺度向上重組的過程，也包括尺度上下重組的過程。 VI 簡單地說，珠三角城際鐵路的規劃過程是國家功能尺度不斷重組過程的一個反映。鐡路規劃的管理組織及配置的形成是與國家結構重整過程中的兩種相反的趨勢相關。在中國的區域，我們正在見證新一輪的國家管治尺度的結構重整。某些國家職能的尺度同時被向上和向下重組到不同的機構層級上。這些在區域範圍内形成的規劃機構反過來強調了區域的一個關鍵職能，即作為國家結構重整下兩種不同趨勢發生的舞台。此外，在珠三角城際鐵路規劃案例中，中央和省級政府之間的權力改組說明了規劃權力的尺度重組會加劇不同政府間的談判，與此同時日益密集的談判反過來會導致另一輪尺度重組的活動。 VII CONTENTS Chapter 1 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Research Problem and Objective 2 1.3 Research Significance 3 1.4 Methodology 5 1.5 Organization of Thesis 14 Chapter 2 16 State Rescaling and Regional Planning: Concepts and Issues in the Western Countries and China 16 2.1 Introduction 16 2.2 The Reworking of State Power 16 2.3 The Rescaling Concept 2.4 The State Rescaling Concept, Regional Development and Rescaling Process in Regions 24 2.5 The Regional Scale of Politics: Expressions of State Rescaling 29 2.6 The State Restructuring and the Rise of Regions in China: A Review 32 2.7 Summary -56 Chapter 3 38 Conceptualizing Spatial Planning as a Process of State rescaling: towards an Analytical Framework 38 3.1 Conceptualizing the Spatial Planning as a Process of State Rescaling 38 3.2 Regional Planning in China 44 3.3 Towards a Theoretical Framework 53 3.4 Summary 58 Chapter 4 61 VIII The State in Transition: A Need for Planning Coordination in Cross-boundary Railways 61 4.1 Changing Political Economy 4.2 Institutional Structure in Planning Regional Railways 71 4.3 Pearl River Delta: the Railway Planning Context 82 4.4 General Propositions on Planning Coordination of Regional Railways in China 86 Chapter 5 90 Planning the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway: Institutional Form and the Planning Mechanisms 90 5.1 Introduction 90 5.2 Planning the PRD Intercity Railway: an Introduction of Three Planning Phases 90 5.3 The Planning Process of the PRD Intercity Railway: Interaction among Multiple Jurisdictions 96 5.4 The Scalar Changes of Central-provincial-local State: State Rescaling Process 122 Chapter 6 128 Conclusion 128 6.1 Major Findings 128 6.2 Suggestions for Further Studies 133 IX I ！ LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Study steps of this study 6 Figure 1.2: Map of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province 8 Figure 3.1 Geography of cities in the Pearl River Delta 47 Figure 4.1: The total investment in fixed assets in Guangzhou city (1952-2005). 69 Figure 4.2: The power distribution in planning railways. 73 Figure 4.3: The technical planning procedure of railway in China 77 Figure 4.4: The investment of highways and railways in China from 1993 to 2009. 80 Figure 4.5: The investment growth ratio of highways and railways in China from 1994 to 2009 81 Figure 5.1: The planning process of the PRD intercity railways 90 Figure 5.2: Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway Plans 2009, 2008

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