KAS Peking

The German-Chinese symposium about urbanization was initiated and conducted by the KAS/Beijing and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). It took place on the 5th of November 2013 in the city of Xuzhou, which is located half way between Shanghai and Beijing.

The symposium was opened with a short welcome by Mr. Li Jianping, Vice-director of CPAFFC, Mr. Wang Hao, Constitutive Member of the Committee of the CCP of the city of Xuzhou and Mr. Thomas Awe, Director of the KAS/Beijing. Peter Götz, President of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat, emphasized in his talk the global importance of sustainable city development. Such a development should be approached as a community project actively involving the city’s population. The focus of urban development and planning should be climate change, energy policy and sustainable energy production; energy efficiency would be key for this. Furthermore, solutions will have to be found for the preservation of cultural heritage, for traffic and for supplying drinking water, energy and sanitation.

Luo Songshan, Director of the Research Institute for Investment of the National Committee for Development and Reform (NDRC), spoke of several primary problems, which accompany the process of urbanization, and made further demands. He emphasised the identity of the cities as important aspect of urban development and pointed out that an urbanization process that lags behind the industrialization process is problematic. Resource allocation and distribution would be asymmetric. For instance, Province capitals would consume so many resources that not enough money is left for other cities in the provinces. This resource distribution deficiency could be alleviated by simplifying administration hierarchies and re-institutionalizing of direct-controlled municipalities. Mr. Luo demanded in his talk clearly to abolish the discriminating system of the household registration (Hukou), which severely compromises the freedom of movement. Also the sensitive issue of transfer and utilization of land was raised open and critically by Mr. Luo. Prof. Dieter Hassenpflug, Bauhaus-University of Weimar, painted in his talk a picture of Chinese cities from the sociological viewpoint. He postulated a hypothesis of two general concepts of modernization: the open (European) and the closed (Chinese) city. In the latter one the ideas of community and hierarchy are particularly eminent. Characteristic features would be closed and introverted living areas that are constantly aligned towards the south.

Jörn Beißert, embassy counsellor of the economic department of the German embassy in Beijing, made in his talk a connection between the Chinese urbanization and the potential of the German-Chinese cooperation, which would be strengthened. As examples for the successful bilateral cooperation Mr. Beißert named the German-Chinese climate partnership, as well as the cooperation in the areas of e-mobility and energy efficiency of buildings. The Chinese urbanization would have great potential for investments of German companies in China. Thus, this process would be observed closely by German businesses.

Ding Yifan, Vice-director of the Research Institute for Global Development of the Research and Development Centre of the State Council, emphasised the development of the human being as most important aspect of urbanization. Shaping this process in a clever way, thus, would be essential. The goal of the Chinese central government is to have approximately 70 % of the population living in cities until 2030. Preservation of the environment, urban planning and the integration of newcomers would be of central importance.

Li Gang, director of the Office of Land Resources of the city of Xuzhou, spoke of a new form of urbanization, where there should be a balance between small and middle sized cities, instead of the rapid growth of mega cities. Particularly promoting smaller cities should be considered more frequently. One problem would be that the area of cities grows proportionally with their population size. An efficient utilization of space would be a large challenge. Regarding the pollution of the environment many cities are about to cross the red line. In Xuzhou much work is directed at improving the pollution situation. In a cooperation project with the German federal state Nordrhein-Westfalen shut down mines were renatured.

After the talk a lively discussion took place, with German and Chinese Experts exchanging their experiences and thoughts on future urban development openly and pluralistically.

In the afternoon the lecture and discussion part of the symposium was followed by a podium discussion. Thomas Awe was chairing the discussion of three German and three Chinese speakers, who debated the concept of a city with character. Peter Götz pointed out as particularly important that each city should preserve its own cultural heritage. In this context Prof. Hassenpflug added that each city should keep its individual characteristics. This view was shared by Ding Yifan. An increasing amount of people would call for more variety and conservation of local features. Also Luo Songshan agreed on the notion that every city should preserve its own unique character. Unfortunately China would be in a phase, where many historic quarters in the cities would be destructed, meaning that the heart of the place would be removed. But slowly there would be growing awareness in China of the value of local characteristics. Li Gang reminded the audience, that conservation of characteristics of small cities should be considered.

The contributions of the experts and the discussion with the audience clearly showed that there is a great interest for cooperation between Germany and China in the area of urbanization, which will certainly intensify in the near future.