IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0288001.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distinctive transnational city-to-city partnerships, decentralization, and local governance of China as a Global East Country

Author

Listed:
  • Jili Xu
  • Huaikuan Liu
  • Gengzhi Huang

Abstract

Against the background of globalisation and state rescaling, promoting decentralisation and enhancing local governance capacity have become prioritised objectives of transnational city-to-city partnerships mainly between developed and developing countries. However, considering the critical debates on Global East’s uniqueness, two questions emerge when studying the transnational partnerships of Chinese cities. (1) Are Chinese cities’ partnership establishments and objectives remarkably different from the existing international body of knowledge? (2) In China, whether decentralisation and local governance are promoted by city-to-city transnational partnerships as well? To cope with the questions, this paper examines 28 Chinese world cities’ partnership establishments and objectives and reaches two conclusions. (1) With the objective of economic development, Chinese cities have consistently maintained strong connections with cities in both the developed and developing countries. (2) Chinese cities’ transnational partnerships do not observably promote decentralisation, and China’s political decentralisation is much more unstable than its economic decentralisation. Overall, both the binary partnership establishments and the dual-track decentralisation in political and economic aspects are highly embedded in China’s interstitial and transitional position as a Global East country.

Suggested Citation

  • Jili Xu & Huaikuan Liu & Gengzhi Huang, 2023. "Distinctive transnational city-to-city partnerships, decentralization, and local governance of China as a Global East Country," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-16, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0288001
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288001
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288001&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0288001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Abdella Oumer, 2016. "Town Twinning and German City Growth," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1420-1432, August.
    2. Manuel Mejido Costoya, 2022. "South–South Cooperation and the Promise of Experimentalist Governance: The ASEAN Smart Cities Network," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(2), pages 116-127.
    3. repec:ces:ifodic:v:13:y:2016:i:4:p:19191589 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Manuel Mejido Costoya, 2022. "South–South Cooperation and the Promise of Experimentalist Governance: The ASEAN Smart Cities Network," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(2), pages 116-127.
    5. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Abdella Oumer, 2016. "Town Twinning and German City Growth," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(04), pages 48-54, February.
    6. Peter J. Taylor & Ben Derudder & James Faulconbridge & Michael Hoyler & Pengfei Ni, 2014. "Advanced Producer Service Firms as Strategic Networks, Global Cities as Strategic Places," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 90(3), pages 267-291, July.
    7. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Abdella Oumer, 2016. "Town Twinning and German City Growth," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(4), pages 48-54, 02.
    8. Ben Derudder & Peter J. Taylor, 2018. "Central flow theory: comparative connectivities in the world-city network," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1029-1040, August.
    9. Peter J. Taylor & Ben Derudder & James Faulconbridge & Michael Hoyler & Pengfei Ni, 2014. "Advanced Producer Service Firms as Strategic Networks, Global Cities as Strategic Places," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 90(3), pages 267-291, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tianyou Hu & Siddharth Natarajan & Andrew Delios, 2021. "Sister cities, cross-national FDI, and the subnational FDI location decision," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(7), pages 1279-1301, September.
    2. He, Bei & Tang, Mingyue & Wei, Aodi, 2025. "The impact of city diplomacy on foreign direct investment: Evidence from international sister city diplomacy agreements," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Xingjian Liu & Xiaohui Hu, 2018. "Are ‘Sister Cities’ from ‘Sister Provinces’? An Exploratory Study of Sister City Relations (SCRs) in China," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 473-491, September.
    4. Youxing Huang & Meixia Dong & Yanping Zhao, 2024. "Sister‐city Ties and Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Spatial Econometric Analysis," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 32(1), pages 231-258, January.
    5. Lian, Zeng & Ma, Yunfeng & Chen, Li & He, Rong, 2024. "The role of cities in cross-border mergers and acquisitions — Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1482-1498.
    6. Zhang, Yameng & Zhan, Wu & Xu, Yekun & Kumar, Vikas, 2020. "International friendship cities, regional government leaders, and outward foreign direct investment from China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 105-118.
    7. Jiaming Li & Jessie Poon & Yuheng Li & Hu Yu, 2024. "How manufacturing and service industries affect regional inequality? Evidence from China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-59, June.
    8. Zachary P Neal, 2017. "Well connected compared to what? Rethinking frames of reference in world city network research," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2859-2877, December.
    9. Xu Zhang, 2018. "Multiple creators of knowledge-intensive service networks: A case study of the Pearl River Delta city-region," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(9), pages 2000-2019, July.
    10. Peng Gao & Dan He & Zhijing Sun & Yuemin Ning, 2020. "Characterizing functionally integrated regions in the Central Yangtze River Megaregion from a city‐network perspective," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 1357-1379, September.
    11. van den Buuse, Daniel & Kolk, Ans, 2019. "An exploration of smart city approaches by international ICT firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 220-234.
    12. Kirsten Martinus & Matthew Tonts, 2015. "Powering the world city system: energy industry networks and interurban connectivity," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(7), pages 1502-1520, July.
    13. Liena Kano & Eric W. K. Tsang & Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 2020. "Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(4), pages 577-622, June.
    14. Zhang, Songlin & Miao, Xuaner & Zheng, Haoqing & Chen, Weihong & Wang, Huafeng, 2024. "Spatial functional division in urban agglomerations and carbon emission intensity: New evidence from 19 urban agglomerations in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    15. repec:osf:socarx:j2w8v_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Tianling Zhang & Panda Su & Hongbing Deng, 2021. "Does the Agglomeration of Producer Services and the Market Entry of Enterprises Promote Carbon Reduction? An Empirical Analysis of the Yangtze River Economic Belt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Senhua Huang & Wenzhong Ye & Feng Han, 2023. "Does the Digital Economy Promote Industrial Collaboration and Agglomeration? Evidence from 286 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-24, October.
    18. Wang, Hongzheng & Lu, Xinhai & Feng, Lianyue & Yuan, Zhihang & Tang, Yifeng & Jiang, Xu, 2023. "Dynamic change and evolutionary mechanism of city land leasing network—Taking the Yangtze River Delta region in China as an example," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    19. Christoph Stich & Emmanouil Tranos & Max Nathan, 2023. "Modeling clusters from the ground up: A web data approach," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(1), pages 244-267, January.
    20. Xu Zhang & Yajuan Li, 2019. "Serving the culture: Spatial interactions between cultural industries and advanced producer services in mainland China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(2), pages 374-392, March.
    21. Tuochen Li & Dongri Han & Shaosong Feng & Lei Liang, 2019. "Can Industrial Co-Agglomeration between Producer Services and Manufacturing Reduce Carbon Intensity in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-15, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0288001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.