Urban China talks: Sarah Chang, Miami University

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From Xiagang (layoffs) to the New Silk Road: SOE Reform and Urban Renewal
in Southwestern China from the 1990s to the Present

By Sarah Chang, Miami University

This presentation examines the relationship between urban renewal projects and SOE closures from the late 1990s to today. It uses published government and factory documents, oral history, and ethnography to explore how Chengdu’s urbanizing projects after the 2000s redefined the purpose of urban space, ejected industrial communities from the urban core, and imagined new zones of development in response to the Belt and Road Initiative. The talk analyzes how the Party engaged in adaptive strategies of governance and borrowed from Mao-era political sentiments to induce industrial communities’ compliance with changing urban and industrial policies. Connecting Mao-era urban and industrial drives with the present, the presentation observes how Chengdu is transforming a socialist-era industrial district into a free trade zone and international hub for transportation and logistics, part of China’s New Silk Road.

Sarah Chang is an Assistant Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio. She holds a PhD in History from UC Santa Cruz and a BA from Stanford University. Her research focuses on Chinese SOEs (state-owned enterprises) and urbanization from the 1950s to today. Her current book project examines how the rise and fall of two state-owned steel mills in Chengdu marked China’s changing urban regimes from socialism to capitalism. Chang has published works in Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China and The PRC History Review.