China Law Blog

I'm the author of the Atlantic piece and a regular reader of this blog. A couple observations:

1) You should be able to link from the map to short descriptions of each region. Obviously the descriptions had to be brief, and only offer a flavor of the history and economics that characterize each region. I hope to elaborate on these aspects in the future, but I had to introduce the framework to do so.

2) This is certainly not the "only" way to look at China, nor do regional differences embrace all the things one needs to know about China. You're absolutely correct in that respect. But my hope is that it can offer a "mental map" of China for people have only heard it talked about as one big place.

3) You're also correct that the observation that China is not a monolith, and is made up of many distinct regions, is not a new one, in fact it is commonplace at conferences and talks about China. I actually mentioned this is my original version of the article, which had to be cut for space. But once that point is mentioned, I have not heard anyone take the next step and say what ARE those regions, how are they different, and why do they matter. It was to answer this question that I started thinking about this framework.

Hope this helps. In no way do I mean the "Nine Nations" piece in the Atlantic to be the "end" of the discussion, but rather the beginning.

I think the problem is that even something as complex as "China's Nine Nations" isn't complex enough. Depending on what you're looking at, China goes from nearly monolithic (nationalist sentiments, for instance) to painfully, incomprehensibly complex (i.e., language variation), with most aspects of the country somewhere in between. I would agree that, for business, the distinctions are more about level of development and stewardship by the central government -- Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, etc. have a lot more in common than any of them do with their geographically close but far less developed neighboring cities.

I agree with Dan's objection, although the point of view of the author is also understandable: there is no perfect way to split China in 9 regions.

Of the weak points one could point out in this map, in my opinion the "Metropolis" one is the most obvious. When the author speaks of the Yangtze Delta, it might make sense to group it all in one block, the problem is that this Delta does not correspond at all with the provinces of JS and ZJ, which go much further up and down.

Economically, politically and in almost any other sense large parts of Zhejiang/Jiangsu are completely different from Shanghai. "Miracles" like Wenzhou, for example, have little to do with Shanghai, and for many economists they are precisely examples of a totally different development model.

If something can be reviewed in that map, I would do this: Redraw the regions not according to Full provinces, but according to meaningful lines that sometimes will follow provinces and sometimes not.

I think it's an important point, but not easy to analyze.

It is something I try to explain to people.

Talking about China is not like talking about a single country. It's more like talking about a region, say America - the whole of America, North and South. There are some distinct aspects driven by geography- coast vs non-coast or north vs south. But even within these it is not completely clear. Maybe in this sense it is like a advanced version of the EU.

Yet, combined with urbanisation and industrialisation of at least 300+ million people in the last 30 years it is just not fair to draw comparisons.

I think the fact that Beijing and Shanghai have something in common doesn't take anything away from the notion of 'the nine nations of China." Even though the concept isn't new, this piece is a nice, concrete understand of it. The next time I visit Guangzhou and someone asks me why I didn't see the Great Wall, I'll have to bust this out.

Maps of countries attempting to convey a political or social reality are at the very most a bit an aid. People move and maps don't. I read the Nine Nations of North America [the title if memory serves] when it came out. It was more of a book for tourists than a description of a society. The Nine Nations of China, at least the slide version with pop-ups suffers from "power-pointism." A term I am just now coining which was triggered by a quote I heard: "Power corrupts and powerpoint corrupts absolutely."

np

This map is based upon the 'macroregions' of China as determined by social scientist G. William Skinner in a landmark work on urban economic systems in China. Skinner argues that these regions formed discrete economic zones based on marketing patterns...where people went to buy items on an increasing level of economic complexity and commodity scarcity.

The article originally appeared in the book The City in Late Imperial China (1977) but a Cliff notes version can be found here http://tinyurl.com/yzarx7d

The map is extremely inaccurate. Zhejiang and Jiangsu are not Shanghai, Yunnan and Guizhou share dialect and culture with Sichuan, the big rivers don't start in Yunnan but in Qinghai; there's no railroad boom in Xinjiang, just one line to T1bet; Taiwan investment is not at all concentrated in Fujian, etc. etc. etc.
If that guy is working in Tsinghua, I guess he just rushed the article in half an hour to please a friend in the Atlantic. It's just too lame.

I think this Atlantic article is great. Yes, there's much that can be said about, most of which is indisputable: Geography does force unlike areas together, while separating like areas. Some "nations" are weak: regarding "The Metropolis", as Spandrell distinctly puts it, "Zhejiang and Jiangsu are not Shanghai," while despite their shared history, grouping Taiwan and Fujian is arbitrary. "The Yellow Land" basically ignores Beijing and Tianjin. And so on with minor points.

Still, this is a great introduction for someone who knows nothing about regions of China--which is to say, a vast audience that needs to be reached. Any analytic frame is going to distort as it shoehorns reality to fit its organizing principle. If Beijing, Shanghai and the PRD were analyzed together, that would capture some elements but in turn distort; listing all the different cities and sub-areas would soon expand to overwhelm the reader.

This article is great because it is short and vivid. Despite the things that could be changed, I will recommend this and hope it is widely read and linked to.

I'm with Mike. I thought it was ridiculous to put Taiwan in with any part of China, but apart from that, it's a helpful way for the large majority of readers almost totally unfamiliar with China. This is not to rule out other approaches, particularly urban/rural.

How long before it is picked up by the fenqing as just another example of the nefarious Western plot to split the motherland?

Very nice try, Dr. Chovanec. Although the map is not very accurate, I complement you for a such good job. China is very complex, and very hard to summarize well--one can even argue for >30 nations of China, given the regional differences.

I think Dr. Chovanec did a great job in making such a map for average Americans. This will definitely help them to understand China better.

A valuable map for the uninitiated Mr. Chovanec. However, I would quibble with some of your classifications. Culturally and economically speaking, Inner Mongolia is, I would argue, much closer attuned to the Northeast than it is with any frontier. The province has a sizable heavy industrial sector centered around major cities such as Baotou and Hohhot. It is also a major center of China's military-industrial complex, it is home to China's primary armor production facilities. The demographics reveal that the population is over 80% Han and the Mongolian population (twice as large as the population of Mongolia itself) are relatively acculturated to this fact. Yes there are vast rolling plains and tourists can spend time living in yurts/gers and riding ponies, but it is altogether not that different compared to her neighboring provinces to the east. Further, inner Mongolia doesn't have any of the mystique that the Chinese themselves attach to the frontiers. Traveling to Hohhot isn't nearly the same as traveling to Lhasa.

It's good to see the discussion has begun!

Two points I ought to respond to:

1) Don't call me Dr.! I'm a business practitioner who is teaching at Tsinghua's MBA program, not a career academic.

2) On a more serious note, the Nine Nations framework I proposed is NOT based on the work of William Skinner, nor is it a mere copy of his research. It is a work of independent research and analysis, and differs in ways that may not be obvious from a quick glance at the map. However, if my article leads more people to become aware of Skinner's own work, that's a very good thing. I'm concerned about comments like the one above, however, because it leaps to a conclusion and touches on a question of integrity.

For those who are interested in learning more about the intellectual antecedents of the Nine Nations, not just Skinner but others who deserve credit for thinking seriously about this topic before me, I urge you to check out my blog post at bit.ly/1H1jhq

It also addresses the question of why the map was drawn to provincial boundaries.

Jing raises a really interesting point about Inner Mongolia that I'd like to address, because it really gets to the core of what defines "The Frontier". Jing notes that Inner Mongolia today is at least 80% Han (I think it's actually more) and heavily industrialized. But that was not true until the 1950s, when the railroad was built from Datong to Lanzhou. It was the coming of the railroad that brought the Han settlers en masse. The same took place in Gansu, where in the 1930s most of the population was Han but Muslim. This is the process that is underway now in Xinjiang and just beginning in T1bet. I beg to differ with one comment, there has been significant railroad construction in Xinj1ang, and it was the arrival of the railroad in Kashgar in the late 1990s that really tipped the demographics of that city in favor of the Han, with results that are being seen in the destruction of the old city this year. The reason I put Inner Mongolia in The Frontier is that it is the image of X1njiang's and T1bet's future -- whether one likes it or not.