Zhou Muzhi, professor of Tokyo Keizai University

It was a bitterly cold winter in 2020. Renowned U.S. scholar Ezra F. Vogel, also my close friend, passed away on Dec. 20, 2020. I had frequent contacts with him when I was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2007 to 2009. At his invitation, I served as a visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research of Harvard University for a year.

 ‘Japan as Number Three’

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I had two long conversations with Mr. Vogel in 2009 before I returned to Tokyo. The conversations were first serialized on Xinhua News Agency’s Globe magazine in three parts. On Feb. 10, 2010, the Japanese edition of American weekly news magazine Newsweek published them as a cover story with the title Japan as “Number Three” (hereinafter referred to as “the conversations”). Back then, China had just overtaken Japan in terms of GDP. The conversations aroused great responses worldwide, as we not only discussed the similarities and differences between the development patterns of the two countries, but also reviewed the past, deliberated the present, and predicted the future of the relations among China, the U.S., and Japan.

Newsweek published a special issue Newsweek Ga Mita “Heisei” in 2019 to celebrate the transition of eras from Heisei to Reiwa. The conversations, published as a cover story of the magazine 10 years ago, were included in it, when only three articles in the last 10 years of Heisei (2008-2019) won the honor. Mr. Vogel was very glad to see the conversations become “Heisei’s historical memory.”

It has now been more than a month since he passed away. Many commemorations have been held in China, the U.S. and Japan, and many commemorative articles have been published. I would like to write down a few points here in remembrance of Mr. Vogel’s charisma in my mind.

Looking into social changes through individuals’ destinies

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Although Mr. Vogel and I had many years apart, we had many common friends in both China and Japan, and often shared our old friends’ stories together. For example, famous economist Yu Guangyuan was a bosom friend and supporter of his when Mr. Vogel came to China for research in the early years of the country’s reform and opening up. Mr. Yu was also my guide in economics, who had been cultivating and caring for me since I was a college student. Mr. Ren Zhongyi, a senior official of Guangdong province during the early years of reform and opening up, also had a long-lasting friendship with Mr. Vogel. When I held the “China Urbanization Forum — Megalopolis Development Strategy” international seminar in Guangzhou in September 2001, Mr. Ren not only invited many senior officials from all over the province to the seminar, but also stationed in the hotel serving as the seminar venue for a week together with his wife. I spent lots of happy time during seminar intervals talking with old friends including the Ren couple, Mr. Yu, and Ms. Tao Siliang.

For another example, Mr. Koichi Kato, former secretary-general of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, was also an intimate friend of Mr. Vogel. They had been acquainted long ago, and Mr. Vogel always had high expectations of Mr. Kato, thinking that he could be a prime minister of no equal of his time. Pitifully, Mr. Kato’s revolt against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in 2000 failed, and his dream to become the prime minister was shattered. I also had a deep friendship with Mr. Kato. When I was preparing for the Beijing-Tokyo Forum in 2005, Mr. Kato not only accepted my invitation with pleasure to attend it, but also offered me lots of hands-on support.

It brought Mr. Vogel and me even closer in sharing the stories of our old friends and those on people and things of interest to both of us. I also saw in those experiences Mr. Vogel’s unique academic style — integrating the joys and sorrows of his close friends into his research. He liked to have cordial talks with others, and had many bosom friends in both China and Japan. He perceived the pulse of the ever-changing times in East Asia through the friends’ destinies. It was a research method that only Mr. Vogel could put into effective use.

My grandfather and father, who were both novelists, also liked to detect and grasp social changes through individuals’ destinies. In my eyes, Mr. Vogel’s affections for people were part of his charisma.

Mr. Vogel’s book “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” is exactly a masterpiece reflecting an interplay between individuals’ destinies and radical changes in society.

Seeing world based on experiences of prolonged turmoil

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During the conversations, what impressed me most was his insight gained from his personal experiences. Drawing on those experiences, Mr. Vogel, a Jewish man, considered the changes of the environment Jews faced in the U.S. as an evolution of the country’s inclusiveness, and then he used it to measure the U.S.-Japan relationship and the U.S.-China relationship. That was a very significant perspective.

His life spanned years before and after World War II. Propped up by his time-crossing experiences, his thinking was totally different from knowledge from books and full of sensibility and sensitivity.

After World War II, China and Japan stood at a different starting line of modernization. Despite being a defeated country, Japan had social and industrial levels higher than China. Moreover, the two countries faced very different international climate. China had to grapple with more complicated and acute issues. Mr. Vogel said that just because of this, Chinese leaders had extraordinary charisma tempered by severe difficulties.

Instead of thinking with simple concepts and data, Mr. Vogel valued personality that rose beyond ideology, which was supposed to be a testament to his insight from his life experiences.

Focusing on China, the U.S. and Japan, as well as their constantly changing relationships

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Mr. Vogel kept doing comparative studies on China, the U.S., and Japan, endowing him with a hallmark – building researches on multiple comparative axes. It was because of this trait that he could see views many others failed to see.

His book “Japan as Number One,” which generated much buzz in Japan, carries a subtitle “Lessons for America.” The book not only analyzes the reasons behind Japan’s rapid economic growth after the war, but also aims to stimulate the U.S. society. It was his unique perspective that enabled him to complete this masterpiece.

Besides doing comparatives studies, he paid more attention to the constantly evolving relationship among those three countries. The dynamic change among them created and is continuing to create history. Aware of this, he was very concerned about the research and analysis of reasons leading to the changes in the relationships among the three countries. This was also an important topic in our conversation.

Since our conversations 10 years ago, we have witnessed tremendous changes. Many friends of us have passed away, and he passed away too. For me, his passing away marked an end to the age, which made me very sad. I wrote the article to commemorate him and other friends.

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ジャパン・アズ・ナンバースリー

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日本語版『Newsweek』誌2010年2月10日号　カバーストーリー

対談：中国が世界第2位の経済大国に
―環太平洋のパワーシフトは3国の関係とアジアの未来をどう変えるのか

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  中国13億人市場の躍進はアジアの覇権を競い合ってきた日本、アメリカ、中国の関係を劇的に変化させつつある。『ジャパン・アズ・ナンバーワン』の著者エズラ・ボーゲルが語る「日米中トライアングル」の将来像とは。

  今年、中国はGDP(国内総生産)で日本を抜いて世界第2位の経済大国となる。複雑な国内矛盾を抱える中国は金融危機後も成長軌道を変えず、一方で高い技術力と生産性で「奇跡」を起こした日本経済にかつての活力はない。

　多極化が進む世界でアメリカ、日本、中国の関係はどう変わるのか。アジア太平洋地域の命運を握る3国の未来について、『ジャパン・アズ・ナンバーワン』の著者で日本研究の第一人者であるエズラ・ボーゲル・ハーバード大学名誉教授と気鋭の中国人経済学者、周牧之・東京経済大学教授が対談した。

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周　第二次大戦後、東アジアでは時間のズレはあるにせよ、日本も中国も高度経済成長を実現してきた。両国の発展には、アメリカ市場依存という共通点がある。09年の金融危機直後にはどこかアメリカの災難を喜ぶような空気もアジアにあったが、今では中国、日本、アメリカ経済が一体であるという意識が共有されている。

ボーゲル　同感だ。99年のNATO軍の旧ユーゴスラビア中国大使館誤爆事件、01年の南シナ海の米中軍用機衝突事故の際には米中関係は緊張した。今はあのときのような緊張感はない。中国の指導者はアメリカ経済がうまくいかなくなることは自分たちにとっても不利だと理解している。

周　中国と日本の発展には農村から都市への急速な人口移動があった点で共通している。ただ、日本では農村人口が比較的スムーズに都市に溶け込んだのに対し、中国では出稼ぎ労働者がいまだに都市住民になれず、大きな犠牲を強いられている。金融危機直後、数千万人の出稼ぎ労働者が職を失って農村に戻らざるを得なかった。

ボーゲル　出稼ぎ農民は農村に帰っても構わないと思う。沿海地区のような生活レベルではないが、暮らせないわけではない。沿海地区での経験や学んだ積極性を生かせば新しい仕事を探せるはずだ。

周　その後中国では景気が急速に回復し、大半の出稼ぎ労働者が都市部へ戻ることができている。

■日本が活力を失った訳

周　中国と日本は社会的活力の沸騰によって経済発展が支えられた点も共通する。しかし日本では90年代にバブル経済が崩壊するとその活力が失われた。なぜか。

ボーゲル　成長が突然止まったことが理由だ。当時の日本人には経済は一貫して成長を続けるものだという認識があった。終身雇用制や年功序列といった高度成長期の組織ルールがその後の時代に合わなくなったこともある。

周　日本の社会や企業は経済が右肩上がりで成長する前提でつくられている。

ボーゲル　日本は70年代も毎年10%増の成長をしていくと思われていたが、成長率は実際には5%前後に落ちていた。当時の日本人はそれを受け入れることができた。しかしここ最近、日本経済はあまりにも停滞している。

周　日本では従業員利益が重視され、社会保障も充実している。しかしこれに頼る社会的風潮が人々の意欲不足を招いている面も否めない。他方、中国はセーフティーネットの不備によって社会の緊張感が高まり、多くの問題をもたらしている。と同時に、それが経済の活力を刺激している部分もある。

ボーゲル　日本と中国の発展を比較する上で異なるのはその「起点」だ。50年代の日本の技術・教育レベルは既にかなり高かった。(経済開放が始まった)78年の中国の技術レベルは50年代の日本に及んでいなかったと思う。
　対外開放の面でも両国は大きく異なる。日本には島国思想があり、外国人が国内で働くのを好まない。外国企業にも極力進出させないから、本当の意味の「開国」はしたがらない。外国人が果たした役割の大きさという点で、中国は日本をはるかにしのいでいる。

■中国の発展は30年続く

周　日本は市場こそ国外にあるが、その発展を担ってきたのは主に国内企業だ。

ボーゲル　帰属意識も違う。日本人は1つの企業で働き続けることを望むが、そう考える中国人は少ない。中国では80年代から転職が一般化し、今では学校を卒業して退職するまで同じ企業に勤める人は少ない。

周　日本は中央政府が財政の再分配で地方の公共サービスや義務教育、社会保障を支えてきた。中国はそうした発想に乏しかった。

ボーゲル　中国は沿海地区が発展しているとはいえ、まだ貧しい国だ。日本は50年代に社会保障や医療体制も確立されていた。
　中国が勝っているのは、発展がより長く続くという点。日本の50年代から80年代の発展はスピードこそ速かったが労働力のコストも右肩上がりで、最後は製造業の国際競争力が失われた。
　中国は人口が多く、高度成長が30年続いてなお都市に出稼ぎに行く農民がいる。まだ労働力集約型産業が通用する。中国はあと20年から30年は発展の余地があると思う。

■「小聡明」なエリート

周　経済発展の過程で政府の果たす役割が非常に大きかったことも、日本と中国に共通している。ただし日本と比べて中国は、中央による地方政府へのコントロールがそれほど徹底していない。他方、地方の自主性が少ない日本では、地方政府が積極性に欠けることが、地方経済の衰退を招いた。

ボーゲル　中国のように大きい国で、中央政府が省から鎮、村レベルまで完全にコントロールするのは難しい。鄧小平は地方政府に権力を分け与え、その積極性を高めた。

周　(経済開放の必要性を訴えた) 92年の鄧小平の南巡講話以降、地方同士の競争が激しくなった。地域間の競争は経済発展の一大原動力になっている。
　ただ財政の再分配システムが不十分なため地方の格差が広がっている。特に農村の教育が深刻だ。

ボーゲル　50年代には日本の教育は既に高いレベルにあった。50年代から60年代は懸命に外国に学んでいたが、その後内向きになり90年代には外国に注意を払わないようになった。
　日本のもう1つの特徴は国内に文化的な差異がないこと。関東と関西といってもその差は小さい。一方、中国は文化が多様で少数民族も多い。
　私は、毎月1回自宅に日本人を招いている。彼らは日本人同士での意思疎通は非常にスムーズだが、アメリカ人との交流はそれほど得意でない。文化的背景が異なる人と交流する経験が少ないからだ。中国人はその経験がある。文化の多様性の長所だ。
　中国政府が現在行っている高級幹部の留学制度は素晴らしい。外国といかにコミュニケーションするかを学ぶ上で有利だ。

周　その多くはハーバード大学に来ている。

ボーゲル　日本人ももちろん来ている。しかし彼らは帰国した後、企業や政府機関に「籠もって」しまう。日本人は聡明は聡明だが中国人が言うところの「小聡明(小才)」。一定の範囲内の聡明さに限られる。中国人のほうが大局的だ。

周　社会背景の複雑さが違う。中国に比べて日本のエリート層は対処する問題の複雑さや深刻度が異なり、もまれる機会も相対的に少ない。

ボーゲル　国内問題が複雑でないことが、外国との交渉や国連の場でコミュニケーション力のある日本のリーダーがなかなか生まれない事態を招いている。

■日本を避ける留学生

周　中国は今年GDPで日本を抜くだろうが、日本はまだ多くの分野で中国の前を走っている。

ボーゲル　中国向けの技術移転に際して、日本企業は核心技術の「ブラックボックス化」を進めている。

周　技術移転に関して日本企業は欧米企業よりずっと保守的だ。

ボーゲル　アメリカ企業の経営者が利益を重視するのに対し、日本企業のリーダーは未来を重視する。核心技術部門は国内にとどめようとする。必ずしも数字の上だけで経営判断をしない。

周　グローバル化時代のビジネスモデルが勝敗を決める。金融危機後、巨額赤字を計上したパナソニックが世界で230にも上る製造拠点を抱えるのに対し、アップルは自前の工場を持たず、iPodもiPhoneもほとんどは中国で委託生産している。身軽なため、非常に高い利益率を達成している。
　80年代には優秀な中国人が日本に留学に来たが、今は皆アメリカに行きたがる。これは日本社会が外国人にあまりチャンスを与えないことと関係している。

ボーゲル　アメリカは開放されている。われわれユダヤ人がいい例だ。昔は企業でも大学でも職を得ることが難しかった。しかし第二次大戦後は大企業や大学で職を得るだけでなく、指導的地位に就く人も増えた。

周　日本の貿易総額に占める中国との貿易のウエートは既に20%に達した。対してアメリカは14%に低下した。日本企業が中国で雇用する中国人労働者は1000万人を超え、両国経済がますます密接になっている。当然摩擦も増える。

ボーゲル　日本では、企業は従業員の待遇を重視している。中国でも日本企業の中国人労働者に対する待遇は一般に悪くないはずだ。

周　ただし、大半の日系企業が日本人と中国人の境界をなくしていない。中国に進出した欧米企業の現地法人トップには中国人が多いが、日系企業にはまだ少ない。こうした傾向は、アメリカに進出する日系企業にも見られる。

■米中の新しい関係

周　米中は第二次大戦で共に日本と戦い、冷戦期にも共同でソ連に立ち向かった。オバマ大統領は、米中関係を「21世紀で最も重要な2国間関係」と評しているが、これは「3度目の協力関係」を意味するのだろうか。

ボーゲル　アメリカ政府は中国との信頼関係を築くことを目指している。ジェームズ・スタインバーグ国務副長官の言う「戦略的再確認」だ。そのためには相互の誠実な交流、とりわけ双方が軍事分野の透明性を拡大することが欠かせない。われわれは両国が排外的なパートナーシップを結ぶことは望んでいない。

周　アメリカに明確なアジア政策はあるのか。

ボーゲル　アメリカ大統領は基本的なアジア政策を有しているが、必ずしも統一された、連続性がある長期的なものではない。人権問題は(89年の)天安門事件直後こそ重要だったが、今ではかなりトーンダウンしている。

周　中国はいわばアメリカ中心の世界システムの「外」で発展した。中国の台頭をアメリカはどうみているのか。

ボーゲル　私は中国がアメリカの「外」にいるとは思わない。中国の発展は米中関係が正常化した後に始まった。われわれが中国への支援を開始した78年当時は冷戦期で米中関係は同盟に近かった。天安門事件以後、関係に変化があったが、それはソ連が崩壊し冷戦が終結したからだ。
　米中関係が最も緊張したのは、李登輝がアメリカを訪れた95年からの数年間だと思う。台湾の独立宣言をアメリカが止めることができるか中国は懸念していた。

周　馬英九政権の誕生で両岸関係は完全に変化し、台湾が独立を持ち出すことはなくなった。このような状態はアメリカにとって想定内か?

ボーゲル　想定内だ。だがそのスピードはアメリカの想定を超えている。馬は大陸との良好な関係を望んでおり、これは大陸にとっても台湾にとってもいいことだ。
　台湾と特別な関係を維持してきたと思う日本だけが面白くないだろうが、反対するすべはない。アメリカにとって両岸関係の改善は歓迎すべきものだ。アメリカの対中問題のなかで最も解決困難なのが台湾問題だったからだ。

■日米同盟はどこへ行く

周　中国の発展に対する日米の態度の違いはどこにある？

ボーゲル　アメリカ人は単に金を稼ぎたいだけ。金を稼げるなら場所や方法は問わない。現在多くのアメリカ人が上海や北京でビジネスをしているが、彼らは中国を1つのチャンスと捉えている。金を稼げればいいから国家などのことはあまり考えない。
　日本は違う。資源のない島国で工業分野の国際競争力があるだけで、金融分野ではアメリカ、イギリスはもちろん香港にさえ及ばない。アメリカは、何でもうまくやれると楽観的だ。中国の発展を恐れてはいない。

周　第二次大戦中、中国人はアメリカ人を偉大な友人と思っていた。だからその後、アメリカが日本と同盟を結んで中国に向かい合っていることを理解し難い。

ボーゲル　第二次大戦後、日本人が謙虚に変わったことが1つの原因だ。戦争が間違いだったと知り、平和を求めるようになった。58年に初めて日本に行って以来日本人と付き合っているが、日本人は礼儀正しく面倒見も良く頼りになる。もう1つの原因はソ連だ。

周　冷戦が終わって20年たった今、日米同盟はアメリカにとって何を意味するのか。

ボーゲル　日米同盟はもともとソ連に対抗するものだったが、冷戦後、その意味はアジアでのプレゼンス維持に変わった。われわれには頼れるパートナーが必要だ。
　2つ目の理由は、世界のGDPにおけるアメリカの占める割合の減少が関係している。第3の理由は、日本が協力的なこと。ヨーロッパは日本より大きいが、国の数が多く事情が複雑だ。日本は1人の首相で事が定まる。日本ほど協力的で力量があり、態度が好ましい国はない。

周　万一、釣魚島(尖閣諸島)で中国と日本が衝突したらアメリカはどうするか。

ボーゲル　政府内でこの問題を討議したことがある。日本を支持するという者もいたが、大多数は国際法上の結論が出ない以上、日本を支持できないという意見だった。ただし、もし他国が日本を攻撃した場合は別だ。われわれは当然日本を支持する。

■日中接近の「根拠」

周　日中関係は微妙な状態が長く続いている。今後、米中関係にどのような影響を与えるだろうか。

ボーゲル　ホワイトハウス関係者に「日中関係が良くなることは脅威でないのか」と聞いたことがある。彼が言うには、(日中関係は) それほど良くはならない、恐れているのはそのことではない、と。

周　おそらく彼はむしろ日中関係が険悪になることを恐れている。

ボーゲル　日中関係が悪くなれば、いろいろ面倒が起きる。ただ20〜30年後は状況が変わるだろう。19世紀末の世界の最強国家はイギリスだった。当時日本とイギリスの関係は非常に良かった。1930年代にはドイツが世界最強国の1つだったが、やはり日本はドイツと関係が良かった。第二次大戦後、日本はアメリカと緊密な関係を築いている。日本の近代史から分かるように、日本は最強国と良い関係を結ぶということだ。

周　かつて中国が強かった時代には中国と関係が良かった。

ボーゲル　当然、中国側がどう出るかという問題がある。目指しているのは真の友人関係でなく、「まあまあの友人関係」というところだろう。

周　日米関係も最近微妙に変化している。 民主党代表だったときの小沢一郎が「極東の米軍は第7艦隊で十分」と発言した。

ボーゲル　英語には「ヘッジ(リスク回避)」という言葉がある。万一の問題が起きたときの逃げ道を用意するという意味だが、多くの日本人はこのような考え方をしている。万一アメリカとの関係に問題が生じた場合に備えて、中国やほかの国との関係を良くしておかねばならない。

■東アジア構想の狙い

周　鳩山政権は対等な日米関係と同時に東アジア共同体構想を提唱している。アメリカが含まれるかについて鳩山由紀夫首相と岡田克也外相の意見は必ずしも一致していないようだ。

ボーゲル　過去50年間で初めて日本に全面的な政権交代が起きた。民主党は与党の経験がなく、内部でそのビジョンも統一されていない。もし夏の参院選で勝って政権基盤が固まれば、きちんとした政策が出てくるだろう。

周　中国政府は一貫してASEAN(東南アジア諸国連合)プラス日中韓の東アジア共同体構想を提唱しているが、鳩山政権が示した東アジア共同体構想にはインド、オーストラリア、ニュージーランドも新たに加わっている。その真意はどこにあるのか。

ボーゲル　日本がアジアでさらに重要な役割を果たしたいと思っていることは理解できる。オバマ政権は現在、アメリカがアジアで果たすべき役割を強化しようとし、 そこには当然、アジアにおける重要な議論に参加することが含まれる。アメリカは日本の新政権が新しい政策を固めるのに時間が必要なことは理解しているし、待つこともできる。

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周牧之（Zhou Muzhi）
1963年中国湖南省生まれ。湖南大学卒。中国国務院機械工業部勤務を経て88年に日本留学。07年から東京経済大学教授。07〜09年、マサチューセッツ工科大学客員教授。著書に『中国経済論―高度成長のメカニズムと課題』(日本経済評論社)がある。

エズラ・ボーゲル（Ezra F. Vogel）
1930年オハイオ州生まれ。67年から00年までハーバード大学教授。58〜60年と75〜76年に日本に滞在し社会構造を研究。79年に『ジャパン・アズ・ナンバーワン』を出版した。93〜95年にはクリントン政権の東アジア担当国家情報分析官を務めた。

（※敬称略。所属・役職等は『対談』当時のもの）

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[Reference] Article from “Dialogue” in China’s Xinhua Huanqiu magazine

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周牧之与傅高义对谈：中日经济崛起奇迹的异同 【漫说风云第一季 】

周牧之与傅高义对谈：回顾从老布什到奥巴马时代 中美关系会陷“新冷战 ”吗？【漫说风云第二季 】

周牧之与傅高义对谈：回望中美日三国恩怨纠缠，展望亚洲未来 【漫说风云第三季】

Compiled by Cloud River Urban Research Institute, a high-level think tank, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 was recently released. In the comprehensive ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen occupy the top three positions, followed by Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Nanjing.

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Compiled by Cloud River Urban Research Institute, a high-level think tank, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 was recently released. In the comprehensive ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen occupy the top three positions, followed by Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Nanjing.

All the top nine cities for the 2019 ranking are the same as the year before, while the 10th, formerly Wuhan, have been replaced by a non-core city Suzhou. Several cities like Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Fuzhou, Guiyang, Shijiazhuang, Nanning, and Yinchuan have all climbed higher in the ranking.

Shenyang, Changchun, and Harbin, the three provincial capitals in northeastern China, have moved down in the 2019 ranking by two, one and three places to the 21st, 26th and 29th, respectively. Due to the economic slowdown, these once-booming heavy industry bases are now in an awkward position in competition with other Chinese core cities.

A key feature of the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is that it is an analysis of 36 core cities, including four municipalities, 22 provincial capitals, five capitals of autonomous regions, and five cities with independent planning status, against the evaluation of growth performance of 297 cities at prefecture level or above across the country. According to the analysis, the 36 core cities account for 40.5% of China’s total GDP, 51.3% of the export of goods, 48.6% of the total number of authorized patents, 24% of the permanent resident population, 42% of the DID (Densely Inhabited Districts) population, 67.5% of the total number of listed companies on the main board, 94.8% of the prestigious universities under the Project 985 and Project 211, 57.8% of the five-star hotels, and 48.1% of the top hospitals.

The China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 mainly measures 10 major items, namely the city status, metropolitan area power, radiation ability, wide-area hub, opening and communications, business environment, innovation and entrepreneurship, ecological resources and environment, life quality, as well as culture and education. It is also supported by 30 sub-items and 114 sets of index data to comprehensively evaluate the high-quality development of core cities in a science-based, systematic and detailed manner.

The China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is supported by a selection of 438 data sets closely related with its theme, including statistical data, satellite remote sensing data and internet data, from the 878 data sets which support the China Integrated City Index. Therefore, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is a Multimodal Index that uses the “five senses” to analyze and measure a city’s development through statistical resources of different fields. For example, through satellite remote sensing data, we can analyse the relationship of population scale, distribution and density in DIDs with other factors like economic development, infrastructures, social development and ecological and environmental protection, elevating the research of metropolitan areas to a higher level.

It is worth noting that CO2 emissions data is included in the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019. Through years of efforts, Cloud River Urban Research Institute has finally been able to calculate CO2 emissions of each city through satellite data analysis and GIS analysis, which increased the accuracy and depth of its evaluations on the cities’ performance.

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1.City status

Beijing and Shanghai top the city status ranking with overwhelming leads. Following them, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan round out the top 10. Compared with the 2018 index, Beijing and Shanghai have maintained their top two positions, while Tianjin, Chongqing and Shenzhen have climbed higher in the ranking. It is worth noting that Shenzhen has moved from ninth to sixth in the 2019 ranking.

The city status dimension not only looks at a city’s administrative levels, but also evaluates its status and performance in some key indexes like the Belt and Road initiative, and some National Strategies like the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Integrated Development.

Therefore, we have established three sub-dimensions including administrative function, megalopolis & metropolitan area, and the Belt and Road, which are supported by eight major indicating data sets namely administrative level, embassy & consulate, international organizations, megalopolis levels, core cities levels, metropolitan area levels, geological indexes under the Belt and Road, and historical status.

(1) Administrative function

The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu and Wuhan, demonstrating the advantage of national capital, municipalities, and provincial cities in this ranking.

(2) Megalopolis & metropolitan area

The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Hefei, illustrating the advantage of major megalopolises like the Yangtze River Delta Megalopolis, the Pearl River Delta Megalopolis, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megalopolis, and Chengdu-Chongqing Megalopolis.

(3) The Belt and Road

The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Urumqi, Kunming, Nanjing, Lhasa, Xi’an and Tianjin. Compared with the 2018 figures, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nanjing have remained their places, while Guangzhou, Urumqi, Kunming, Lhasa and Xi’an have climbed higher in the ranking. Cities along the Belt and Road and those with frequent trade and investment and people’s movement tend to score higher in this sub-dimension.

2.Metropolitan area power

The top three cities in this dimension are Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen with overwhelming leads. Following them, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan round out the top 10. Compared with the 2018 figures, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou have secured their places, while Chongqing and Hangzhou have moved up by one and two places in the 2019 ranking. Other cities that fare well in the new ranking are Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Guiyang, Shijiazhuang, Xining, Yinchuan, Hohhot and Lhasa.

The metropolitan area power is a basic indicator for the growth performance of a core city. This dimension not only focuses on a city’s economic and population scales, but also the population density, demographic structures and its capacity as an economic hub.

Therefore, we have established three sub-dimensions, namely the economic scale, metropolitan area quality and enterprise agglomeration, which are supported by 14 major indicators including the GDP, taxation, fixed assets investment, power consumption, permanent resident population, DID population, growth index of the permanent resident population, people’s movement, DID area index, population density of metropolitan area, structures of the metropolitan area, Fortune Global 500, Fortune China 500, and listed companies on the main board.

(1) Economic scale

Shanghai, Beijing, and Chongqing top the economic scale ranking with overwhelming leads. Following them, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Hangzhou round out the top 10. Shenzhen and Guangzhou have overtaken Tianjin in terms of economic scale with even better performance than the municipality. The top 10 cities in the 2019 ranking remain the same with the 2018 ranking. Cities including Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Changsha, Xi’an, Hefei, Fuzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Taiyuan, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Hohhot, Yinchuan, Xining and Lhasa all fair well compared to their ranking in the previous year.

(2) Metropolitan area quality

The top 10 core cities in this sub-dimension are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu and Hangzhou. Among the 297 cities at prefecture level or above, Chongqing has moved from 43rd to 31st in terms of metropolitan area quality, which contributes to its higher ranking in terms of metropolitan area power. Similarly, Hangzhou also moves from 13th to the 10th in terms of metropolitan area quality, contributing to its higher position in the metropolitan area power ranking.

(3) Enterprise agglomeration

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen top the ranking with overwhelming leads with a huge concentration of business headquarters. Following them, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chongqing, and Fuzhou round out the top 10. Among the 36 core cities, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Jinan, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Yinchuan and Hohhot have moved higher in the ranking compared with the previous year.

3.Radiation ability

Beijing tops the radiation ability ranking with an overwhelming lead, and occupies the first place in all the sub-dimensions. It is followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Xi’an in the top 10 ranking. Compared with the 2018 ranking, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Nanjing have secured their places, Guangzhou and Wuhan have moved higher, Chengdu and Xi’an have slightly moved down, and Tianjin dropped out of the top 10 list.

What makes core cities unique is their radiation ability on their neighboring regions. Therefore, radiation ability is key to the definition of a core city, and an indicator for a city’s influence on its neighboring regions and even the whole country. This dimension evaluates a city’s radiation ability in terms of industry, technology, higher education, as well as life services.

So we have established three sub-dimensions, namely industry radiation, sci-tech and higher education radiation, as well as life services radiation, which are supported by 9 major indicators including manufacturing radiation, IT industry radiation, finance radiation, sci-tech radiation, higher education radiation, culture, sports and entertainment radiation, healthcare radiation, wholesale and retail service radiation, and catering and hotel radiation. 

(1) Industry radiation

The top 10 cities in this ranking are Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Xiamen. Among the 36 core cities, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Ningbo have secured their places in 2018, while Guangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hefei, Haikou, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Xining, Urumqi, Nanning and Hohhot have moved higher in the ranking compared with the previous year.

(2) Sci-tech and higher education radiation

Beijing tops this ranking with a huge lead, and is followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Xi’an. Compared with 2018, Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Dalian, Hefei, Shenyang, and Taiyuan have maintained their places, while Shenzhen, Nanjing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Jinan, Qingdao, Ningbo, Changchun, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shijiazhuang and Yinchuan have moved higher.

(3) Life services radiation

Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu top this ranking, with Beijing having an overwhelming lead. Following them, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Xi’an round out the top 10. The top 6 cities in the 2018 ranking have secured their places in the new ranking. Nanjing moves from 10th to 7th, while Shenzhen drops from 7th to 8th.

4. Wide-area hub

Shanghai, which has advantages in waterway, air and road transportation, ranks first in the wide-area hub category with a much higher deviation than other cities. The cities ranking second to 10th are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Ningbo, Xiamen, Chongqing, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, the top five cities remain unchanged. The rankings of Qingdao and Xiamen have climbed slightly. The ranking of Chongqing has increased from 11th in 2018 to ninth in 2019, with land transportation contributing a lot.

The transportation hub is an extremely important function of a core city, and it is also the basis for strengthening and amplifying other core functions. The wide-area hub is a major item that measures the conditions and transportation volumes of waterway, air and road transportation facilities.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, waterway transportation, air transportation, and road transportation. They are gauged by 10 sets of indexes and data, including convenience at container ports, container throughput of ports, waterway transportation volume, convenience at airports, air transportation volume, convenience of railways, railway density, highway density, national and provincial highway density, and highway transportation volume.

(1) Waterway transportation

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Ningbo are the top three in this sub-item, and the other top 10 core cities include Guangzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Xiamen, and Dalian. Those ranking high in this sub-item are mostly coastal cities.

(2) Air transportation

Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, which are China’s largest air transportation hub cities, are the top three in this sub-item. They have significant advantages in this regard as shown by their deviation values. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, Xi’an, Hangzhou, and Zhengzhou. The dependence on air transportation in China’s southwest and northwest regions has made Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, and Xi’an air transportation hubs.

(3) Land transportation

Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Guiyang are the top three in this sub-item, and the other top 10 core cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Guiyang stands out in this sub-item.

5. Opening and communications

The top 10 core cities in opening and communications are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Chengdu, Ningbo, and Hangzhou. Among them, compared with 2018, Shanghai has maintained its top position, while the rankings of Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Ningbo have increased.

Opening and communications is a major item that measures the degree of exchanges and transaction involving people, finance, and goods in cities in the context of globalization. It includes three sub-items, international trade, international investment, and communications performance. They are gauged by 11 sets of indexes and data, including exports of goods, imports of goods, actual use of foreign capital, foreign direct investment, inbound tourists, domestic tourists, foreign exchange earnings from international tourism, revenue of domestic tourism, world tourism cities, international conferences, and exhibition industry development.

(1) International trade

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Ningbo, Tianjin and Xiamen. Compared with 2018, the rankings of Ningbo, Chengdu, Hefei, Changsha, Jinan, Kunming, Nanning, and Haikou have increased.

(2) International investment

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Tianjin, Chongqing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Chengdu, Dalian, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Chengdu, Dalian, and Wuhan have increased.

(3) Communications performance

Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou are the top three in this sub-item. Their deviation values score much higher than those of other cities. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Xiamen. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Xiamen have increased.

6. Business environment

The top three cities in the business environment category are Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Hangzhou have increased.

The business environment is a major item that measures a city’s capability in supporting communication economy and transaction economy. It evaluates not only business support, but also a city’s policy support. It is particularly worth mentioning that the major item also takes into consideration urban transportation as an important part of it.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, industrial park support, business support, and urban transportation. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including national industrial parks, free trade areas, average salary of employees, the number of employees in company-oriented service sector, starred hotels, top international restaurants, passenger transport volume per 10,000 people, mileage of urban rail transit, urban sidewalk and bicycle path density, and urban public transit.

(1) Industrial park support

Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Xiamen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Haikou, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Xi’an. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Haikou, and Tianjin have increased.

(2) Business support

Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen and Nanjing have increased.

(3) Urban transportation

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are the top three in this sub-item. The cities ranking fourth to 10th also include Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing, Lanzhou, Hangzhou, and Urumqi. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, Beijing has replaced Shanghai in the top spot, and the rankings of Chengdu, Lanzhou, and Hangzhou have increased.

7. Innovation and entrepreneurship

In this major item, Shenzhen has replaced Beijing in the top spot. Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou claim the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.

Innovation and entrepreneurship, as a platform for communication economy and transaction economy to integrate, reorganize, and boom, serves as the main driving force for a core city to develop. Therefore, this major item values not only the resources and investment in research and development (R&D), but also the results and especially achievements. It also evaluates the policy support in this field.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, R&D agglomeration, innovation and entrepreneurship vitality, and policy support. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including internal R&D expenditures, local government expenditures for science and technology, R&D personnel, index of academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, companies listed on Growth Enterprise Market and National Equities Exchange and Quotations, patent application and authorization volume, national reform pilot zones, national innovation demonstration zones, information and knowledge industries, and national key laboratories and engineering research centers.

(1) R&D agglomeration

Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. Their deviation values are much higher than those of other cities, indicating that they lead other cities by a large margin in terms of R&D expenditures and R&D personnel reserves. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Chengdu. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.

(2) Innovation and entrepreneurship vitality

Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. The deviation values of Shenzhen and Beijing are much higher than those of other cities. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, none of the top 10 core cities has moved up in rankings.

(3) Policy support

Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are the top three cities in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, Qingdao, Xi’an, and Shenzhen. Municipalities directly under the central government stand out in this aspect. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Chengdu, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Shenzhen have increased.

8. Ecological resources and environment

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in the ecological resources and environment category. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xiamen, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Nanjing, Changsha, Guiyang, Kunming, Lhasa, and Xining have more or less increased.

Ecology and environment quality as well as resource efficiency become increasingly more important for urban development. This major item, ecological resources and environment, pays attention to environmental quality and resource efficiency, and also takes into account the evaluation of environmental efforts. It is particularly worth emphasizing that it also introduces the evaluation of CO2 emissions this year.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, resource and environment qualities, environmental efforts, and resource efficiency. They are gauged by 15 sets of index data, including comfortable degree of weather, air quality, water resources per 10,000 people, forest area, direct losses caused by natural disasters, direct losses caused by geological disasters, disaster warnings, area of green space in parks, environmental efforts, projects of designing, evaluating, and identifying environment-friendly buildings, national environmental protection city, population in densely inhabited districts, CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, per capita CO2emissions, and urban land output rate.

(1) Resource and environment qualities

Among the 36 core cities, only Haikou, Lhasa, and Kunming rank among the top 30 in the country in this sub-item, ranking 15th, 17th and 27th, respectively. Environment quality seems to be common shortcomings of core cities. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Chongqing, Ningbo, Nanning, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Lanzhou, Xining, Hefei, Changsha, and Wuhan have risen significantly.

(2) Environmental efforts

Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Chongqing, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Chengdu. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xiamen, Jinan, Ningbo, Xi’an, Guiyang, Changchun, Yinchuan, Taiyuan, Urumqi, Hohhot, Haikou, and Xining have increased.

(3) Resource efficiency

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Changsha, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Changsha, Chongqing, Guiyang, and Lhasa have increased.

9. Life quality 

In the ranking of life quality, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou take the first three spots, followed by Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Tianjin and Shenzhen. Compared with the 2018 ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have remained the top three, while Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Wuhan have moved up slightly.

The quality of life is one of a city’s attractions for high-end professionals, and the service industry for sustaining the quality of life is a pillar of a city’s development. The major item of life quality puts safety and livability first, and also assesses living consumption level, as well availability of medical resources.

Therefore, the major item is divided into three indexes, namely safety and livability, living consumption, and medical welfare. The sub-indexes are made up of 14 data sets, including livable cities, clean cities, safe cities, happy cities, transportation safety, retail sales of social consumer goods per 10,000 people, international top brands, revenue of accommodation and catering per 10,000 people, telecommunication consumption per 10,000 people, water consumption per 10,000 residents, average life expectancy, the number of licensed (assistant) doctors, top hospitals, and the number of nursing homes at the end of the year. 

(1) Safety and livability.

Shanghai top the ranking and Chengdu come in at No. 2. Other cities in the top 10 are Hangzhou, Beijing, Ningbo, Nanjing, Xi’an, and Changsha. Compared with the 2018 ranking, the top four cities have remained the same, while many cities among the 36 core cities have improved their rankings, especially Xi’an, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Kunming, Jinan, Fuzhou, Lhasa, Guiyang, Harbin, Nanchang, Hohhot, Lanzhou, Taiyuan, and Xining. 

(2) Living consumption

Beijing and Shanghai take the top two spots, followed by Guangzhou, Haikou, Lhasa, Xiamen, Shenzhen and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, Beijing and Shanghai have remained their places, while Haikou, Lhasa and Xiamen have moved up slightly. 

(3) Medical welfare

Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing rank top three, followed by Guangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Jinan and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, Chongqing, Chengdu and Jinan have better performance. 

10. Culture and education

Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou top the ranking of culture and education, as the top two cities’ deviation values are well above other cities, showing the two cities’ leading positions in culture and education. Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing and Shenzhen rank fourth to 10th. Compared with 2018, the top six cities retain their positions, while Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Fuzhou, Kunming, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan and Lhasa climb up slightly in the ranking. 

Culture and education reflect the spiritual side of the city. Culture and education not only focus on venues and consumption of culture and entertainment in the city, but also measure cultural performance at the national and international levels, and pay extra attention to the input of education and fostering of talents.

Thus, the major item includes three sub-items—culture and entertainment, culture and humanity, and talent training. They are gauged by 13 sets of index data, including theater consumption, museums and galleries, stadiums, zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums, collection of public libraries, top universities, cultural leaders, Olympic medalists, local fiscal spending on education, the number of kids admitted to kindergartens per 10,000 kids, international schools, higher education, and training of outstanding professionals. 

(1) Culture and entertainment

Beijing and Shanghai rank first and second in the ranking, as they score much higher deviation values than other cities, showing their dominance in the culture and entertainment sector. Cities ranking second to 10th are Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Tianjin. Compared with 2018, Beijing and Shanghai retain their positions, while Chongqing, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Jinan, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Lhasa move up in the ranking. 

(2) Culture and humanity

Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing take the first three spots, with Beijing scoring a higher deviation value than other cities, demonstrating Beijing’s dominance in the sub-index. Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, Changsha, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Chengdu take the fourth to 10th places. Compared with 2018, some cities among the 36 central cities, such as Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Kunming, and Ningbo, have improved their rankings remarkably. 

(3) Talent training

Beijing and Shanghai rank first and second, respectively, with their deviation values much higher than other cities, showing that China’s education resources concentrate in those two cities. Guangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenzhen round out the top 10. Compared with 2018, the top five cities maintain their positions, while Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Shijiazhuang, Lhasa, Changchun, Dalian and Taiyuan, all among 36 core cities, fare better in the ranking. 

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The National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Guiding Opinions on Fostering the Development of Modern Metropolitan Areas” on Feb. 19, 2019, kick starting policies to promote metropolitan areas revolving around core cities.  

“In the new phase of China’s urbanization, it is urgent to put an emphasis on quality high-density population and the promotion of DID, which should come to the fore in formulating policies regarding metropolitan areas. The other focal point is to promote the interaction-based development of core cities and neighboring medium and small cities. The third focus should be placed on fostering and strengthening radiation of core functions,” said Zhou Muzhi, head of Cloud River Research Institute.

He added, what is worth noting is the core functions of core cities as international exchange platforms. In the age of globalization, international competitiveness and international exchanges are key to the future of a country. Thus the country’s international competitiveness and international exchanges should be reflected by the internationalism of metropolitan areas. 

China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index draws on the thinking of the above issues, as well as observation and assessment of the development of core cities, and thus provide academic backing for the development of metropolitan areas. 

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The article was published on China SCIO Online on Jan 21, 2021, and was republished by foreign media, including China Daily, Guangming Daily, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

Zhou Muzhi,   professor of Tokyo Keizai University

There had been 1.5 COVID-19 deaths among every 100,000 Japanese by Nov. 11, 2020. This was a “slight” death rate compared with Spain’s 58.8, the U.S.’ 74.6, the U.K.’s 74, Italy’s 71.1, France’s 65.1, and Germany’s 14.1. The question is raised that how Japan managed to control its COVID deaths at such a low level, while implementing the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” that European countries and the U.S. all deployed.

Among all speculations trying to explain Japan’s low death level, I think “cross-immunity” is the most compelling one. The theory opined that the immunity acquired by the Japanese people has played a role to some extent in preventing COVID-19 or mitigating its symptoms. 

The question here is how Japanese people acquired cross-immunity against the novel coronavirus.

U.S. expert Jared M. Diamond hypothesized in his “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” that during the long time of close contact with poultry, European people became immune to many pathogenic bacteria. On the contrary, as Americas had no domesticated poultry, native people there lacked immunity to bacteria. The European people brought bacteria to Americas in the age of great navigation. The bacteria wreaked havoc on natives who lacked immunity, wiping out population .

I agree with Jared M. Diamond’s hypothesis that Europeans obtained immunity from their long-time close contact with poultry. However, the hypothesis failed to explain why European countries were greatly eclipsed by Japan in terms of the number of COVID-19 deaths, despite of the fact they are all in Eurasia. What’s more, besides Japan, other East Asian countries, including China, all reported smaller numbers of COVID-19 deaths

By Nov. 11, China, South Korea, China’s Taiwan province and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Vietnam, and Thailand registered 0.3, 0.9, 0.03, 1.4, 0.04 and 0.09 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively, “very minor” compared with European countries rich in medical resources. Such relatively good performances, though largely due to the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy,” have also benefited from cross immunity.

I hereby put forward a hypothesis that the lifestyle centering on rice fields in humid regions of East Asia plays a determining role in people’s acquisition of cross immunity against the novel coronavirus. The “Zhou Muzhi Hypothesis” is detailed as follows: The humid rice-growing Satoyama boasts rich ecological diversity, and a new ecology formed upon a moderate intervention of human beings in nature, one with richer diversity than primitive natural ecology. The diversity is also reflected in microorganisms. In Satoyama, human beings, nature, and poultry are in close contact and influence each other, shaping a huge breeding spot for pathogens. This place is richer in microorganism diversity than Europe, though they both belong to Eurasia. Therefore, I infer that people living in rice-growing regions with a variety of pathogens have stronger cross immunity .

Studies on cross immunity against novel coronavirus are still in their infancy. The recent research findings published by Manish Sagar of Boston University confirmed that people who have been infected with seasonal coronaviruses can develop cross immunity against novel coronavirus, thus alleviating severe symptoms . Tatsuhiko Kodama from the Isotope Science Center at the University of Tokyo found through an analysis of the blood of 50 COVID-19 patients in Japan that 75% of the patients have cross immunity against the novel coronavirus .

In fact, seasonal coronaviruses have been frequently around in the humid regions of East Asia. If they can help people develop cross immunity against the novel coronavirus, it should be a grace of living in the rice-growing Satoyama.

From this perspective, it is important and worthwhile to think how to evaluate the life in Satoyama where people and nature influence each other, and how to draw on experience from Satoyama lifestyle in our modern life.

(The English version of this article is translated by Chen Linfeng.)

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The article was published on China Net on May 12, 2021, and was republished by foreign media, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

By Zhou Muzhi, professor of Tokyo Keizai University and president of Cloud River Urban Research Institute

Editor’s note:
How come the metropolises around the world with concentrated medical resources are so vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic? Why China has managed to control the outbreak so quickly? Why Western countries and Japan are seeing a resurgence in the coronavirus outbreak? Professor Zhou Muzhi, president of Cloud River Urban Research Institute, offers his interpretation by comparing the COVID-19 responses adopted by different countries around the world.

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On Jan. 23, 2020, Wuhan and its surrounding cities like Ezhou and Huanggang announced the suspension of all public transportation such as bus, subway and ferry, temporary cancellation of all flights and trains departing from Wuhan, and temporary closure of all highway entrances to slow the spread of the new virus. The announcement shocked the world. On Jan. 24, Hubei province launched the level I public health emergency response, with other parts of China following suit until all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities were in the highest level for a public health emergency by Jan. 29. At the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council held on Feb. 8, the new infectious disease was named as the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP). Later the World Health Organization (WHO) renamed the disease as COVID-19 on Feb. 11.

As the first big city to confront the COVID-19 outbreak, Wuhan saw a surge in coronavirus infections that crippled its medical system. As the virus continued to spread around the world, many cities saw a heavy blow to their medical services. On March 11, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

In a study of the medical system overwhelmed by the pandemic, I on April 20 published an article titled “COVID-19: Why is medical system in metropolises so vulnerable?” (Hereafter referred to as the April article)[1]. The article explains why metropolises are so vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic and how effective Wuhan was in response to the new disease. It was published on China.com.cn and reposted by over 100 media outlets like people.com.cn, xinhuanet.com and gmw.cn.

On April 21, the English version of the article was published on China.org.cn[2] and later reposted by English media outlets both at home and abroad including the websites of the State Council Information Office of China and China Daily.

On May 12, the Japanese version was published on japanese.china.org.cn[3].

The article analyzes the good practices and lessons learned from Wuhan’s COVID-19 response as well as major concerns and measures that should be taken by the medical system amid the pandemic. It serves as a reference for cities around the world in their battle against the novel coronavirus.

After six months, I write this article to explore different measures and effectiveness of the global COVID-19 responses based on the April article with some statistical updates, new diagrams and endnotes.

1. 2019 ranking on health care radiation of Chinese cities

As part of the China Integrated City Index, Cloud River Urban Research Institute has released the 2019 ranking on health care radiation based on a research of 297 cities at prefecture level and above across China. The top 10 are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Jinan, Zhengzhou, Nanjing and Taiyuan. The following 10 are Tianjin, Shenyang, Changsha, Xi’an, Kunming, Qingdao, Nanning, Changchun, Chongqing, and Shijiazhuang. And the next 10 are Urumqi, Shenzhen, Dalian, Fuzhou, Lanzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang, Suzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou. Please note that Wuhan, the first city to confront COVID-19, ranked sixth.

Jointly developed by Cloud River Urban Research Institute and the Development Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, China Integrated City Index is a system that evaluates growth performance of cities across the country. The institute has been publishing the city index annually since 2016.

The index measures urban development in three dimensions: the environment, society and economy. Under each dimension lies many indicators that support its three sub-dimensions at different layers. The health care radiation is among those indicators.

All of its indicators are supported by 785 data sets, which come from statistical data, satellite remote sensing data, and internet data. China Integrated City Index is a multi-modal index[4] to analyze and measure a city’s development through statistical resources of different fields.

The radiation index measures a city’s capacity in providing goods and services in certain areas. A high radiation score means the city has the capacity to sell its goods and services, while a low radiation score means that it needs to purchase certain goods and services from other places.

Evaluating a city’s health care radiation mainly focuses on the number of physicians and the 3A-grade hospitals. The top 30 cities account for 15% of the certified physicians, 30% of hospital beds and 45% of 3A-grade hospitals in the country. China’s medical resources, especially the best hospitals, are mainly concentrated in cities higher in the ranking, which serve local residents as well as people from all around China.

The questions raised in the April article are: Why cities like Wuhan, equipped with one of the top medical resources in China, could be so vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak and even overwhelmed by the influx of patients? What should cities do to prepare for future epidemics?

Chart 1: List of top 30 Chinese cities by health care radiation in 2019
Source: Cloud River Urban Research Institute

2. A test for the health care system

Wuhan was the first to confront the COVID-19 outbreak. The city climbed one place to the sixth in the 2019 health care radiation ranking, as it boasts 27 3A-grade hospitals, nearly 40,000 physicians, 54,000 nurses and 95,000 beds. It is hard to expect that a city with such strong health care capacity could be overwhelmed by the coronavirus epidemic.

Other metropolises like New York and Milan are equally vulnerable to the pandemic. Tokyo, which declared a state of emergency on April 7, was also facing a breakdown of its medical system. The novel coronavirus is indeed a test for the health care system in all global cities.

In the April article, I believe that three reasons are attributed to the breakdown of the cities’ medical system.

(1) Overloaded hospitals

One feature of the COVID-19 epidemic is the exponential growth of infections. Especially during the early stage of the outbreak, the surge in infections and social panic have driven a lot of people, whether they were infected or not, to seek testing and treatment in hospitals. This has caused disorder, leaving those who are critically ill unable to receive efficient and quality care. It is also a reason for its high fatality rate. Moreover, the overcrowded emergency rooms, with confirmed cases, suspected patients as well as their families, can also lead to many hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

Table 1: A comparison of medical resources in China, European countries, the U.S. and Japan in 2019
Sources: China City Statistical Yearbook by the National Bureau of Statistics, OECD.Stat, Kaiser Family Foundation, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan

As is seen from Table 1, the density of physicians in the U.S., Japan and China are only 2.6, 2.5 and 2 per 1,000 people respectively, much lower than that in Germany (4.3), Italy (4) and Spain (4).

Wuhan, with a large concentration of medical resources, has 4.9 physicians per 1,000 people, which is much higher than the national average. But the city’s medical system was still overstretched by the outbreak. By May 11, the day before the April article’s Japanese version was published, 83.3% of the COVID-19 deaths in China had happened in Wuhan[5], which is believed to be caused by the overloaded hospitals.

Just like in Wuhan, medical workers in the U.S. are also concentrated in big cities. The New York state has 4.6 physicians per 1,000 people, but it is still not enough to avoid a massive breakdown in its medical system.

Italy, one of the hardest-hit countries in the pandemic, has a relatively high density of physicians, counting 4 per 1,000 people, but the country still suffers seriously overloaded hospitals and a breakdown in its health care system. In the Lombardy region where Milan is located, the number of infections has quickly risen from 1,000 on March 2, to over 10,000 on March 14, and to over 40,000 by the end of March. Many patients with critical conditions could not be treated in time due to overcrowded emergency rooms. By May 11, a total of 220,000 people in Italy had tested positive for COVID-19, and the death toll was 31,000, driving the fatality rate to 14%.

Japan’s Tokyo has 3.3 physicians per 1,000 people, lower than the level in Wuhan and the New York State. Therefore, the Japanese government has been trying to avoid overcrowded emergency rooms as a key part of its COVID-19 response. The government has established a pre-testing approval procedure to limit the number of testing and advised residents not to go to hospital during the pandemic to reduce hospitalization. [6]. Japan’s measures are so far effective to reduce the number of HAIs and lower the fatality rate as the medical resources are mostly given to those with critical conditions. By May 11, Tokyo’s fatality rate was 5.3%, compared to 7.9% in New York State.

Table 2: A comparison of numbers of COVID-19 confirmed cases, deaths, and death rates in China, European countries, the U.S. and Japan
Note: China’s number of COVID-19 infections in this table does not include those are asymptomatic.
Sources: Worldometer, Kaiser Family Foundation, stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp, website of the Health Commission of Hubei Province

Table 2 compares statistics between May 11 and Oct. 11, showing the COVID-19 infections, death toll, fatality rate and the number of deaths per 100,000 people in China, Japan, the U.S. and major European countries, as well as cities like Wuhan, Tokyo and New York.

By May 11, Spain had 56.9 deaths per 100,000 infections, Italy had 50.5, France 40.4, the U.S. 24.4, and Japan only 0.5. In this sense, Japan successfully controlled the number of deaths in the first outbreak after it avoided a breakdown in its medical system.

From the statistics by May 11, France’s COVID-19 fatality rate was up to 19.1%, and the U.K., Italy, and Spain also recorded double-digit fatality rate, while the rate in China and Japan were only 5.6% and 4%. At the same time, the global average COVID-19 fatality rate was up to 12.4%, which dealt a heavy blow to the human society.

However, from May 11 to Oct. 11, those countries and cities had seen a significant drop in COVID-19 fatality rate. During that period, China had zero COVID-19 death cases, while Japan controlled the rate at 1.4%. France and Spain which previously had very high fatality rate managed to lower it under 1%. Even the U.S. which had over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths also lowered the rate under 2.1%.

The reduction was attributable to less crowded emergency rooms compared to the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Though there is no specific medicine that can cure the disease, each country has, to some extent, found ways to treat their patients, which is also key to lowering the rate. Moreover, mass testing is another important reason.

In a period of five months, the global fatality rate lowered to 2.2%. It seems that the new virus is becoming less intimidating. Actually, the rate varies widely between different age groups. Chances of a relatively younger person dying from coronavirus is much lower than that of a relatively older person. For example, Japan’s fatality rate in August was 0.9%. By different age groups, the rate for people who are 69 or younger is only 0.2%, but the figure ghastly spiked to 8.1% for those who are 70 or older.

In his address to the Economic Club of New York on Oct. 14, the U.S. President Donald Trump said that 99.98% of the infected under the age of 50 can survive, but the seniors who had underlying conditions have higher risks. Therefore, protecting the high-risk groups through improving the prevention and control system is key to lowering the fatality rate.

(2) A drop in the number of health care workers

A drop in the number of medical staff caused by infections is another feature in this pandemic.

In the early stage of the outbreak, countries lacked knowledge of the coronavirus transmission, and medical staff faced a huge risk of infection due to the shortage of protective resources such as masks, protective clothing, and negative pressure wards. Those factors made testing, sampling, intubation, and other medical practices that are inherently at risk of exposure even more dangerous. As a result, countries have seen a significant decrease in the number of medical staff caused by infections, which also overstretched the medical system.

Infections not only happen in the treatment process. In this March, the extensive isolation and infection resulted from a dinner party attended by trainee doctors from Keio University Hospital also dealt a major blow to the already scarce medical workforce in Tokyo[7].

According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), data reported by 30 countries showed that at least 90,000 health care workers had been tested positive for COVID-19 as of May 6. By May 5, Spain had 43,956 health care workers infected (accounting for 18% of the country’s total infections) and Italy had 19,942 medical staff tested positive for coronavirus, among which 150 physicians and 35 nurses died of the disease.

By Sept. 16, ICN said nearly 3 million health care workers might have infected with the novel coronavirus[8].

From January to June, 48 hospitals in Tokyo have reported HAIs which caused 889 infections among physicians, nurses and patients, and 140 of them had died of the disease. Those infections accounted for 14% of the total number of people who had coronavirus in Tokyo at that time, and the number of deaths resulted from such infections accounted for 43% of the total COVID-19 death toll in the same period. HAIs could not only weaken the medical system, but also lead to new infections among those who have underlying conditions, resulting in a higher infection fatality rate.

Even until October, HAIs were still frequently reported in Tokyo. For example, a hospital in Adachi confirmed on Oct. 15 that 39 patients and 12 staff have infected with coronavirus. A hospital in Nerima also reported 58 new infections, in which 23 were patients.

The super-transmissible coronavirus has severely threatened the safety of medical staff and weakened medical capabilities, resulting in the collapse of the medical system. Therefore, it is critical to avoid HAIs during the fight against COVID-19.

(3) A serious shortage of hospital beds

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, countries have experienced a shortage of medical supplies such as face masks, protective clothing, disinfectant, test kits, ventilators, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines, and especially, hospital beds. COVID-19 patients are required to be treated under quarantine to curb the spread of the super-transmissible coronavirus, and severe cases should be treated in intensive care units (ICUs), but hospitals have been in serious shortage of beds in general.

There are up to 13.1 hospital beds per 1,000 people in Japan, the highest in the world. For Tokyo, a city with a total of 128,000 hospital beds, the figure is 9.3. Even so, it already saw a severe shortage of hospital beds during the first COVID-19 outbreak.

In contrast to Tokyo, for every 1,000 people, Italy has a high number of doctors but only 3.1 beds, the U.S. has only 2.9 beds, and New York has only 2.6, which is even lower than the national average. Obviously, inadequate hospital beds have become a bottleneck that restricts medical institutions from receiving patients and hinders timely treatment.

The figure in China is 4.3, a quarter of that of Japan but higher than that of the U.S. and Italy. Wuhan, in particular, has 95,000 beds, or 8.6 beds per 1,000 people, almost as high as that of Tokyo, but it still suffered from a serious shortage of hospital beds in the early stage of the outbreak.

Another problem is that not all hospital beds are qualified for receiving COVID-19 patients for isolation, and the scramble for medical resources has made the bed shortage even more prominent.

3. What are effective responses?

Wuhan, the first city to suffer a collapse of medical system, finally quelled the plague of COVID-19 after 77 days of the lockdown. By mid-June 2020, all parts of China had gradually resumed normal production and life.

How did China quickly cope with the situation? It is extremely valuable for the world reeling from the ravages of COVID-19 to check out China’s experience.

 (1) Lockdown policy

On Jan. 23, 2020, Wuhan in Hubei province suspended public transportation, closed airports, train stations and other routes leaving it, and asked people not to go outside the city, beginning the so-called lockdown[9]. On Jan. 24, the next day, the whole province activated the first-level response mechanism for major public health emergencies according to the Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies in Hubei province[10]. The response level specifies the degree of various measures to be taken in the identified infected area, and the first-level response requires to suspend work, classes and traffic to avoid any possible personnel flow and close contact[11].

As the upper-level regulation of the Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies of various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, the National Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies was formulated based on the experience of combating SARS, and was announced on February 26, 2006, as one of the nation’s responses to public health emergencies[12].

Subsequently, other provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions also activated the first-level response mechanism. As of Jan. 29, after the Tibet Autonomous Region activated it, all regions in the entire country had implemented the first-level response mechanism.

Chart 2: Numbers of daily new COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths during Wuhan’s lockdown
Note 1: There is no data for Jan. 23, the day when the city began the lockdown, as well as data for Feb. 11. The number of confirmed cases surged on Feb. 12, presumably because it was added up by the figures of the previous day.
Source: The official website of the Health Commission of Hubei province.

Chart 2 shows the numbers of new confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in Wuhan every day from Jan. 20, days before the lockdown, to Apr. 8, the day when the lockdown was lifted. On Feb. 13, 21 days after the lockdown, Wuhan finally began to see a decline in its daily number of new cases after overcoming various difficulties caused by an unknown virus outbreak, such as the collapse of medical system. On Mar. 18, 56 days after the lockdown, the figure was brought down to zero for the first time. Although a case was confirmed on Mar. 23, the figure remained to be zero for 16 consecutive days until the lockdown was lifted on Apr. 8.

It was undoubtedly a powerful move to lock down the city by cutting off traffic, suspending work, production and classes, and putting in place other measures strictly restricting personnel flow and close contact. Wuhan finally managed to fight back the novel coronavirus after 77 days of lockdown.

China saw the effects of its strict restriction measures throughout the country soon, and its new confirmed cases were quickly brought under control. On Feb. 21, Gansu province took the lead in lowering the response level from the first level to the third and resuming everyday production and life conditionally. Other regions also lowered their response levels from the first to the third since then. On June 13, as Hubei province lowered the level from the first to the third, the response levels across the country were brought down to the third. China has successfully addressed the first wave of COVID-19 thanks to the strict lockdown rules that brought the number of infected cases down to zero.

After that, various parts of China flexibly adjusted their response levels based on local epidemic situations. For example, Beijing raised its response level from the third to the second on June 16 due to a cluster of cases, and strengthened its epidemic prevention and control. As the epidemic was brought under control, Beijing lowered its response level back to the third on July 20.

 (2) Quick dispatch of medics

In response to the serious shortage of medical personnel in Wuhan and their drop in number, the Chinese government quickly mobilized a large number of medical staff from all over the country to assist Wuhan. On Jan. 24, 2020, the second day after the lockdown, the Shanghai medical team to assist Wuhan arrived in the city first. It was made up of 136 doctors and nurses from the respiratory departments, infectious disease departments, hospital infection management departments and intensive care medicine departments of 52 hospitals in Shanghai. Eventually, 346 medical teams involving 42,600 medical workers were dispatched to Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province.

The Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council introduced at a press conference on Mar. 8 that it usually takes no more than two hours from the time a medical institution receives an order to the time a medical team is set up, and takes no more than 24 hours from the assembly of medical team members to their arrival in Wuhan. The emergency assistance quickly alleviated the pressure on Wuhan in medical terms and effectively saved the city’s medical system from collapsing.

It is certain that whether a country can offer its affected area rapid and effective assistance or not is one of the keys to winning over the epidemic, but not all countries are equipped with such capabilities. Judging from the situation in New York and Tokyo, even developed countries with relatively abundant medical resources would find it difficult to mobilize a sufficient number of medical staff to offer assistance in time.

What is even more worrying are those developing countries with a severe shortage of medical resources. Leaving Africa aside, even the neighboring Asian developing countries with large populations, like India and Indonesia, have only 0.8 doctors and 0.3 doctors, and 0.5 beds and one bed in medical facilities, per thousand people, respectively. In such countries with scarce medical resources and insufficient capabilities to offer national assistance, the scramble for medical resources caused by epidemic outbreaks may be extremely severe. Therefore, it is extremely urgent to organize global assistance. The problem is that most developed countries are also suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and can spare no time to take care of others. At this moment, China’s medical assistance to other countries is particularly valuable.

(3) Rapid construction of makeshift hospitals

Wuhan rush-built the Huoshenshan Hospital and the Leishenshan Hospital for severe cases under national support. The two hospitals with high isolation levels are equipped with specialized treatment equipment, and 1,000 beds and 1,600 beds, respectively. The Huoshenshan Hospital opened on Feb. 3, 12 days after the lockdown, and the Leishenshan Hospital was put into use on Feb. 8.

The city also converted stadiums into 16 makeshift hospitals for treating mild cases, and quickly provided 13,000 beds with antibacterial and epidemic prevention levels up to those of first-class hospitals in China. The move channeled mild cases, helping to concentrate high-end medical resources on severe cases, and alleviated the scramble for medical resources.

The experience of Wuhan—building Huoshenshan, Leishenshan and temporary treatment centers to address bed shortage—is worthy of reference and learning for the world.

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan required some confirmed patients to stay at home for quarantine due to insufficient beds, which was actually an extremely dangerous practice. First, it put the family members of the patients at risk and might lead to infections in clusters within the families. Second, patients could not get effective and professional treatment, and without timely update on health conditions, they might not be able to receive swift referral for treatment when the conditions deteriorated. Fortunately, the practice was largely halted later, and Japan now has also transformed facilities like hotels into isolation wards for patients with mild symptoms, in an effort to channel mild cases and relieve the pressure on hospitals.

A more serious problem in Tokyo is the shortage of ICUs. By 2018, Japan had merely 4.3 ICU beds per 100,000 people, and there was a huge gap compared with the 35 in the U.S., 30 in Germany, 11.6 in France, 12.5 in Italy, and 9.7 in Spain.

Tokyo, which had the largest number of infected cases in Japan, had only 764 ICU beds, or only 5.5 per 100,000 people, when the first outbreak took place. Through various efforts, Tokyo addressed the serious shortage of ICU beds and survived the first wave. However, as the second wave arrives in autumn and winter, there will be a shortage again. A proper solution to it is a key to avoiding a potential collapse of its medical system amid an outbreak.

The countries have adopted a variety of measures to address bed shortage during the outbreaks, with the U.S. even sending naval hospital ships to assist[13] and South Korea taking the emergency importation of a “hospital” as a new option. Faced with a desperate shortage of beds amid the outbreak, South Korea imported an entire “Huoshenshan Hospital in slabs” from the Broad Group in China. The prefabricated stainless-steel slabs made up negative pressure isolation wards in South Korea. Equipped with fresh air systems and ozone technologies, the wards have the highest level of protection against cross infection. The project took only two days locally before the wards were put into use.

4. Is there a trade-off between protecting economy and protecting people’s lives?

In the responding policies taken by countries around the world to contain the pandemic, the focal point is how to strike a balance between public health and the economic impact. Through rigorous lockdown measures, China successfully contained COVID-19. China is currently trying hard to maintain the “zero COVID-19 case” situation. China’s COVID-19 response can be called the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy”.

On the contrary, most Western countries reopened economy when there were still infections, although they had placed various restrictions on people’s activities, such as imposing lockdowns or declaring a state of emergency. The measures taken by those countries can be called the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”.

The second part of the article will compare the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy” and the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” and verify an efficient route to fight against the disease.

(1) China: Prioritizing COVID-19 response

In the aftermath of 2002-2003 SARS, the Chinese government formulated the Regulation on the Urgent Handling of Public Health Emergencies, the National Response Plan for Public Emergencies, and the National Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies, on the basis of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases. In 2007, the Emergency Response Law of the People’s Republic of China was announced, further systemizing the above-mentioned law, regulation and response plans. On Jan. 20, before Wuhan was put into a lockdown, China’s National Health Commission released a statement to classify the novel coronavirus pneumonia as a category B infectious disease under the law on prevention and control of infectious diseases but take preventive and control measures of category A infectious diseases, meaning that the fight against COVID-19 had been launched.

It is exactly because the law, regulation and response plans mentioned above were put into place after the SARS epidemic that China could swiftly impose lockdowns, activate the top-level public health emergency response and take other mandatory measures to curb the novel coronavirus. With a priority placed on epidemic response, mitigation measures would not be altered willfully, regardless of the economic impact. In fact, despite cries for the resumption of production and schools as soon as possible across China, the Chinese government stuck to the requirements for reopening, such as only when there were no new cases.

According to Chart 3, China has done whatever it took in economic terms to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and then resumed normal economic activities soon. Seen in the longer span of time, lockdowns and level II public health emergency response were like strong medicine, but a good therapy to keep the situation under control. It is difficult to keep new case numbers at zero. Therefore, once a new infection case was spotted, China would implement strict restrictions and large-scale COVID-19 testing in the area to prevent the spread of the virus.

Chart 3 Numbers of daily new COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths in China
Note: The number of infection cases in China marked in the chart does not include numbers of asymptomatic cases and imported cases.
Source: China’s National Health Commission

(2) Report 9 and Western countries’ t responses

On March 16, 53 days after Wuhan’s lockdown, British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson and other scientists published “Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand”. The report predicted that the novel coronavirus would infect eight out of 10 people, with 510,000 deaths in the U.K. over the next four months, if measures were not in place. Even with mitigation measures, such as isolating infected people, home quarantining, and restricting senior people to their homes, there would be still 250,000 deaths in the country. With strict lockdown rules, the death toll could be limited to 20,000[14]. Ferguson told the Science and Technology Committee that the move to balance economy and COVID-19 response while tolerating the spread of the virus to some extent was wrong, noting that lockdown was the only option. On March 23, one week after the report was published, the British government announced a nationwide lockdown, prohibiting residents from going out if not necessary and closing schools and most businesses.

The report projected at most 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. In the light of the report, U.S. President Trump extended the federal social distancing guidelines, which originally expired on March 30, to April 30[15].

British journal Nature published a report titled “The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic” on June 8. The report analyzed the effect of policies rolled out by six countries—China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the U.S. The report estimated that in more than three months from January to April 6, those six countries protected hundreds of millions of people from getting infected, through (1) travel restrictions, (2) social distancing through the cancellations of events and suspensions of educational, commercial and religious activities, (3) quarantines and lockdowns, and (4) additional policies such as emergency declarations[16].

Despite obvious effect, lockdown measures have met a lot of resistance among many people who thought they limited human activities and wrought damage on social and economic activities. Many countries began to lift lockdowns prematurely, after the spread of COVID-19 slowed.

 (3) “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy” vs. “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”

Wuhan’s lockdown was lifted after it met very rigorous requirements. It was only after Wuhan had reported no new cases for the past 16 days that the lockdown was lifted. I think that is the radical “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy”.

The Chinese government issued risk-grading criteria on Feb. 17, classifying counties, cities and districts that report no cases or no new cases in the past 14 days as low-risk areas[17].

After successfully containing the first outbreak, China still went all out to maintain the “zero case” situation across the country. Once a new case was confirmed, strict restrictions and large-scale testing would be implemented immediately to block the spread of COVID-19. For example, after three asymptomatic cases were confirmed in Qingdao of Shandong province on Oct. 11, the city tested its entire population and traced people moving out of the city. By Oct. 16, more than 11 million people had been tested.

Contrary to China, European countries and the U.S. lifted lockdown restrictions very soon, because they were eager to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on their economy. A study by the Germany-based IFO Institute for Economic Research and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research was released on May 13[18]. The study said keeping the Rt (the effective reproduction number, refering to the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person) at 0.75 provides the safest balance between hammering out output and risking a new outburst of infections. In other words, keeping the Rt at 0.75 can minimize the economic costs without jeopardizing the medical objectives. The study is an endorsement of the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” in the academic circle. However, the report failed to come up with effective measures to keep the Rt at 0.75 in response to the highly contagious virus. Therefore, the golden balance put forward in the report is just a hallow theory. The report provides theoretical backing to the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” adopted by European countries and the U.S., which was the scourge of later resurgence in those countries.

In fact, new infected cases in Europe have risen sharply since autumn. On Oct. 14, daily new cases increased to 105,000 in Europe, outnumbering Asia’s 103,000. On Oct. 15, new cases of infections in Germany soared to 6,638 in the past 24 hours, reaching a daily level not seen since the start of the pandemic.

Report 9 received a chorus of criticism in the U.K., because people worried about the impact of lockdown restrictions on economy. The report predicted the novel coronavirus would kill 510,000 people in the U.K., if mitigation measures were not in place. As a result of measures like restrictions, deaths in the U.K. had been capped under 43,000 by Oct. 11. Despite obvious effect, U.K. lockdown rules were lifted when there were still cases for fear of an economic downturn. The “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” led to a surge in infections in the U.K. in autumn, prompting London to upgrade its COVID alert level from medium to high on Oct. 15.

By May 11, 31,000 deaths had been caused by COVID-19 in Italy. However, the country lifted the two-month lockdown in early May to reopen its economy. As Chart 2 shows, in the five months from May 11 to Oct. 11, death rates in Italy dropped from 14% to 4%, meaning that Italy had survived from its medical care system collapse. But the pandemic returned in autumn, after the country adopted the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”. On Oct. 14, the number of daily new cases climbed to 7,300, the highest since the start of the outbreak in March. In response, Italy had to once again ban dining together, and order restaurants to close before midnight.

On Oct. 25, Spain announced the state of emergency and implemented a curfew to rein in the second outbreak. On Oct. 29, Spain’s parliament voted to keep the country’s state of emergency in place until May 2021.

The outbreak also resurged in France. On Oct. 14, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew starting Oct. 17 in nine cities including Paris and Marseille. On Oct .15, French Prime Minister Jean Castex declared a national state of health emergency starting Oct. 17. On the same day, France reported the number of new daily infections jumped above 30,000, setting a one-day record. On Oct. 30, France began its second nationwide lockdown. On Nov. 6, France registered a record 60,000 plus new cases, triggering more stringent restrictions.

U.S. President Donald Trump said long-term nationwide lockdown is not a solution. In late May, the Trump administration decided to restart economy in all states, regardless of the spreading virus. As case numbers rose sharply, New York had to announce a partial lockdown starting Oct. 4. From Nov. 4, daily new infection numbers in the U.S. kept above 100,000 for many days in a row, repeatedly setting new highs. On Nov. 7, the tally of confirmed cases surpassed 10 million in the U.S., and total deaths reached 242,339.

Those European countries, the U.S. and Japan, which adopted the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”, had to resort to lockdown measures to stop the spread of the virus.

Table 3 A projection and comparison of real GDP growth rates among countries and regions.
Sources: the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the Cabinet Office of Japan, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the British Office for National Statistics, the Italian National Institute of Statistics, the Spanish National Statistics Institute, the Federal Statistics Office of Germany, the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, the Bank of Korea, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of China’s Taiwan, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The resurging virus in autumn and winter seasons posed daunting challenges to those countries that opted for the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”. Compared with them, China benefited from its “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy” as all localities across the country resumed economic activities and normal life based on their situations. After the postponed National People’s Congress concluded on May 28, China basically resumed normal economic activities. During the National Day holiday, domestic tourists made 640 million trips. China’s real GDP shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter from a year ago as the coronavirus outbreak seriously impacted its economy. China’s real GDP grew by 3.2% in the second quarter, rebounding from the first quarter’s contraction. The IMF projected that China’s real GDP will grow by 1.9% in 2020. 

The economy of Japan, European countries and the U.S., which adopted the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”, continued to shrink in the second quarter, widening their falls compared with the first quarter. Some countries even exhibited a negative double-digit growth. The IMF projected that those countries will all have a negative economic growth in 2020.

South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, which experienced the test of the SARS outbreak like China, deployed the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy”. As shown in Chart 3, Vietnam and China’s Taiwan have better economic performance. According to an IMF forecast, Vietnam’s real GDP will grow by 1.6% in 2020, and the real GDP growth of Taiwan province of China will stand at zero. South Korea may see a 1.9% GDP contraction for 2020, which is a smaller drop compared with other Western countries. Singapore’s economy, which is vulnerable to the world’s economic fluctuations due to its heavy reliance on global trade, suffered a great slump in the second quarter.

According to the analysis above, compared with the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy”, the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy”, which was intended to cushion the economic blow from a lockdown, turned out to be a failure that caused a long-term economic gloom.

By Nov. 8, there had been more than 50 million cases of infection globally. The winter outbreak would be worse, with the number of infections soaring. Europe and the U.S. have become the epicenter of the outbreak. I suggest that all countries around the world should take the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy” when wonder drugs and efficient vaccines are not available, to contain the spread of the virus.

(4) Japan: Swinging between economic growth and COVID-19 response

Japan reported the first confirmed COVID-19 case on Jan. 16, 2020. The first flight of the Japanese government taking 206 Japanese citizens took off in Wuhan and bound for Japan on Jan. 29. On Feb. 13, Japan reported the first COVID-19 death. On Feb. 28, Hokkaido released its announcement of emergency. On March 13, the Diet, or the Japanese Parliament, passed an amendment of a special law to combat COVID-19, including the virus to the list of infectious diseases suitable for the law. The special law stipulates that the government is granted enhanced authority to declare a state of emergency in condition that the COVID-19 epidemic may threaten people’s lives and inflict great losses on society, laying a legal basis for the government to declare a state of emergency.

The Japanese government declared a state of emergency on April 7 with respect to the seven prefectures: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka. On April 16, the state of emergency was expanded to the whole nation. That was a loose requirement aimed at reducing person-to-person contact by at least 70% to 80%, rather than a lockdown targeting at no new local cases. Even so, as shown in Chart 4, the daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan plumped immediately, and the declaration of a state of emergency achieved remarkable results in disease prevention and control. As the situation improved, the Japanese government lifted its nationwide state of emergency on May 25. Different from China, Japan reported 20 new cases on that day. The lifting was accompanied by new confirmed cases.

China required that a place must report no new COVID-19 cases for 14 consecutive days before it announced itself to be a low-risk area, but Japan lifted the state of emergency with new cases, which boded that the epidemic may come once again. It turned out that a week after lifting the state, Tokyo had to declare its state of emergency due to the rapid increase of infections, so as to raise the people’s awareness of disease prevention and control amid severe COVID-19 epidemic.

Since July 22, Japan started to carry out the “Go to Travel” campaign to revive tourism and stimulate economy in places except Tokyo. On that day, the new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan amounted to 792, 10% more than the peak number in the state of emergency, proving the move to be a temerity regardless of anything. Ten days later, the daily new cases surged to 1,575, a 120% increase over the peak number during the state of emergency.

On Oct. 1, Tokyo was involved into the “Go to Travel” campaign. The number of Tokyo’s new cases reached 284, a rising trend again.

As shown in Table 2, by the end of Oct.11, Japan’s death toll from COVID-19 of every 100,000 people is only 1.3, lower than 66.3 of the U.S., 63 of UK, 59.8 of Italy, 50.1 of France and 11.6 from Germany. In terms of fatality rate, Japan is the lowest among developed countries. It can be said that Japan suffered least of the countries adopting the “coexisting with COVID-19 policy”. However, the winter when influenza virus may rage is coming soon. The flu virus and the COVID-19 virus would pose more challenges to Japan. Meanwhile, Japan’s economy under the long period of “coexisting with COVID-19 policy” has been fettered and sluggish. As shown in Table 3, IMF estimated that the real GDP of Japan may decrease 5.3% in 2020.

Chart 4: Numbers of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in Japan
Sources: Database of positive cases of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, and NHK’s special website for COVID-19 deaths in Japan.

5. ‘Jared M. Diamond Hypothesis’ VS ‘Zhou Muzhi Hypothesis’

There had been 1.5 COVID-19 deaths among every 100,000 Japanese by Nov. 11, 2020. This was a “slight” death rate compared with Spain’s 58.8, the U.S.’ 74.6, the U.K.’s 74, Italy’s 71.1, France’s 65.1, and Germany’s 14.1. The question is raised that how Japan managed to control its COVID deaths at such a low level, while implementing the “Coexisting with COVID-19 Policy” that European countries and the U.S. all deployed.

Among all speculations trying to explain Japan’s low death level, I think “cross-immunity” is the most compelling one. The theory opined that the immunity acquired by the Japanese people has played a role to some extent in preventing COVID-19 or mitigating its symptoms. 

The question here is how Japanese people acquired cross-immunity against the novel coronavirus.

U.S. expert Jared M. Diamond hypothesized in his “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” that during the long time of close contact with poultry, European people became immune to many pathogenic bacteria. On the contrary, as Americas had no domesticated poultry, native people there lacked immunity to bacteria. The European people brought bacteria to Americas in the age of great navigation. The bacteria wreaked havoc on natives who lacked immunity, wiping out population .

I agree with Jared M. Diamond’s hypothesis that Europeans obtained immunity from their long-time close contact with poultry. However, the hypothesis failed to explain why European countries were greatly eclipsed by Japan in terms of the number of COVID-19 deaths, despite of the fact they are all in Eurasia. What’s more, besides Japan, other East Asian countries, including China, all reported smaller numbers of COVID-19 deaths

By Nov. 11, China, South Korea, China’s Taiwan province and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Vietnam, and Thailand registered 0.3, 0.9, 0.03, 1.4, 0.04 and 0.09 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively, “very minor” compared with European countries rich in medical resources. Such relatively good performances, though largely due to the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy,” have also benefited from cross immunity.

I hereby put forward a hypothesis that the lifestyle centering on rice fields in humid regions of East Asia plays a determining role in people’s acquisition of cross immunity against the novel coronavirus. The “Zhou Muzhi Hypothesis” is detailed as follows: The humid rice-growing Satoyama boasts rich ecological diversity, and a new ecology formed upon a moderate intervention of human beings in nature, one with richer diversity than primitive natural ecology. The diversity is also reflected in microorganisms. In Satoyama, human beings, nature, and poultry are in close contact and influence each other, shaping a huge breeding spot for pathogens. This place is richer in microorganism diversity than Europe, though they both belong to Eurasia. Therefore, I infer that people living in rice-growing regions with a variety of pathogens have stronger cross immunity .

Studies on cross immunity against novel coronavirus are still in their infancy. The recent research findings published by Manish Sagar of Boston University confirmed that people who have been infected with seasonal coronaviruses can develop cross immunity against novel coronavirus, thus alleviating severe symptoms . Tatsuhiko Kodama from the Isotope Science Center at the University of Tokyo found through an analysis of the blood of 50 COVID-19 patients in Japan that 75% of the patients have cross immunity against the novel coronavirus .

In fact, seasonal coronaviruses have been frequently around in the humid regions of East Asia. If they can help people develop cross immunity against the novel coronavirus, it should be a grace of living in the rice-growing Satoyama.

From this perspective, it is important and worthwhile to think how to evaluate the life in Satoyama where people and nature influence each other, and how to draw on experience from Satoyama lifestyle in our modern life.

6. From global failure to global fight

Infectious diseases were once the most vicious killer of human. For example, the Black Death broke out in 1347 in Sicily caused the death of 25 million people in 20 years. The Spanish flu that broke out in 1918 killed 25 to 40 million people worldwide.

In the past century or so, with the development and popularization of antibacterial drugs and vaccines, most of the infectious diseases once extremely harmful to human health and life such as smallpox, polio, measles, rubella, mumps, tetanus, whooping cough, and diphtheria, have been extinct or under control. After the 1950s, the death toll in developed countries caused by infectious diseases such as pneumonia, gastroenteritis, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and influenza,, dropped sharply, while chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes have become the main causes of death.

The achievements made in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases have increased the average life expectancy of human beings, but the alternation of the main death causes has also shifted the focus of the global medical systems, especially those in developed countries, from infectious diseases to chronic diseases. The consequences are that countries now invest little resources in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, and meanwhile, existing medical resources are mainly concentrated on addressing structural problems of chronic diseases.

From the perspective of existing medical resources, neither the professional background of medical workers, the devices, nor the entire medical system can effectively respond to the outbreak in a timely and effective manner. Therefore, in the fight against the virus, even metropolises with huge medical resources, such as Wuhan, New York, and Tokyo, were caught off guard and paid a heavy price.

As early as in 2015, Bill Gates warned people that investing too little in viral infectious diseases would lead to a global failure. The scourge of the COVID-19 epidemic unfortunately confirmed Bill Gates’ prediction.

7. Explosive technological progress

The current measures of various countries to combat COVID-19, such as national state of emergency, lockdowns of the country and cities, self-discipline when going out, and keeping social distancing, focus on reducing and cutting off people-to-people communication to block the spread of the virus. Although the measures have achieved certain results, they cannot eradicate the virus from the root. Though the epidemic has been controlled by the strong “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy”, the achievements are very weak, and any slack or loophole may trigger a resurgence.

We must rely on the technological progress to return to a safe and secure world. At present, all countries are stepping up the research and development efforts to find wonder drugs and vaccines for COVID-19.

The pandemic has been inspiring the breakthroughs in related technologies. Human beings dare not to say that they have controlled and defeated the virus until they master effective testing methods, wonder drugs and vaccines.

Opportunities also lie in crises. Every global war and crisis in modern society has brought a major transformation and explosive technological progress to mankind. For example, the WWII stimulated the development of the aviation industry and initiated the nuclear industry. The Cold War not only promoted the development of aerospace technology, but also laid the foundation for internet technology. The pandemic not only inspired the breakthroughs of technology but also greatly promoted the digital transformation of human society.

While the tension brought by the pandemic is pushing forward technological progress, it may also explore new technological paths so that those overlooked in the past can stand out. For example, traditional Chinese medicine has played an excellent role in Wuhan’s anti-epidemic process and won global attention. The fight against COVID-19 may become an important opportunity for traditional Chinese medicine to go global.

Ozone is also a technological option that has been neglected due to prejudice. As early as on Feb. 18, I wrote an article appealing for the attention to the performance of ozone in sterilization and advocated the use of ozone in the COVID-19 fight[19]. Experiments in Japan have proved that the possibility of virus transmission through droplets in a closed environment is 17.7 times more than that in a non-closed environment. Therefore, an important anti-epidemic measure of the Japanese government is to call on people to avoid going to confined spaces, densely populated places, and contacting each other closely. If we can make breakthroughs in the research and development of ozone sensors and control the ozone concentration as cheaply and freely like we did in temperature control, we are expected to solve the indoor virus infection problem in the presence of people by using ozone to sterilize and kill the virus, thus freeing people from the fear of contact. The globally concerted efforts in combating the pandemic will surely inspire huge technological progress and upgrade a large number of industries.

8. Globalization will not stop

Countries around the world have been cutting off international personnel exchanges and locking down cites since the global outbreak of COVID-19. Globalization has been instantly stopped. We are inundated with worries about globalization, and doubts and even opposition about metropolitanization.

Indeed, with the further development of globalization, international personnel exchanges have been expanded. The overseas trips worldwide have surged from 400 million 30 years ago to 1.4 billion in 2018.

Against the backdrop of globalization, metropolitanization is the extension of globalization. From 1980 to 2019, 117 cities around the world saw its population increase by more than 2.5 million people, and the increased population amounted to 630 million in total. Particularly, the number of megacities with a population of over 10 million surged to 33 from only five in 1980. And these megacities are mostly centers of international exchanges, and leaders in the world economic and political development. The population of those megacities amounts to over 570 million, accounting for 15.7% of global population.

The virus has been spread worldwide through the dense aviation network and a large number of international personnel exchanges, making COVID-19 a pandemic. Many international metropolises with large populations and extensive international exchanges have been severely stricken by it.

But it must be clear that the real reason for global spread of COVID-19 is not the speed and density of international personnel exchanges, but the long existing neglect towards infectious diseases among human beings.

Actually, the progress of globalization has been accompanied by the threat of spreading infectious diseases from the very beginning. From the Age of Navigation to today, human beings have been fighting against infectious diseases and paid heavy price many times during the period. But due to the achievements in suppressing infectious diseases, many countries and international organizations tended to underrate their threat.

For example, the Global Risks Report 2020 released at the World Economic Forum listed 10 possible global risks for the future 10 years and infectious diseases were not included. In the list of the ten risks of the greatest global impact, infectious diseases only ranked the last.

Unfortunately, contrary to the prediction of the World Economic Forum, the COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented blows to human society at the beginning of 2020.

Most countries and regions that once experienced SARS, such as China, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, have responded with measures similar to the “Zero COVID-19 Case Policy” and achieved good effects. That is probably thanks to the impressive experience of combating SARS. China has incorporated the experience of combating SARS into laws, regulations and general emergency response plans, and compiled related measures into manuals and guidebooks, which determined a quick launch of effective measures in time amid the COVID-19 outbreak and suppressed the epidemic.[20]

In this sense, we do not need to be pessimistic. COVID-19 has drawn global attention and led to global investment in viral infectious diseases, which will definitely trigger an explosive technological revolution and social change. We will eventually overcome the threat from viral infectious diseases and turn the global failure to a global victory.

The pandemic will not stop globalization and international metropolitanization, but give birth to a better globalization and healthier international metropolises after pains and sufferings.

Kurimoto Kenichi, Zhen Xuehua, and Zhao Jian contributed to data compilation and graphic production in the article.Wen Feng contributed to proofreading.

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Endnotes:

[1] Zhou Muzhi, “COVID-19: Why is the medical system in metropolises so vulnerable?” In China.com.cn, Apr. 20, 2020 (http://www.china.com.cn/opinion/think/2020-04/17/content_75944655.htm)

[2] Zhou Muzhi, “COVID-19: Why is the medical system in metropolises so vulnerable?” In China.org.cn, Apr. 21, 2020 (http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2020-04/21/content_75957964.htm?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0).

[3] Zhou Muzhi, “COVID-19: Why is the medical system in metropolises so vulnerable?” In Japanese.China.org.cn, Apr. 21, 2020 (http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2020-04/21/content_75957964.htm?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0).

[4] For information about China Integrated City Index, please refer to 2018 China Integrated City Index: Development Strategy of megalopolises issued by the People’s Publishing House in September 2019.

[5] There was no COVID-19 death in Wuhan after May 11, 2020.

[6] Japan successfully avoided overloaded medical system as COVID-19 testing in the country can only be done after the person has gained a testing approval after medical consultations. However, limited testing has caused delayed quarantine of asymptomatic and moderate cases. Moreover, medical consultations and approval procedures before the testing also increased the work load of medical facilities.

[7] A dinner party attended by 40 trainee doctors from Keio University has caused 18 people tested positive for COVID-19 in March even after the Japanese and Tokyo governments issued guidelines against mass dinner gatherings.

[8] According to information published by ICN on Sept.16, nearly 3 million health care workers were infected by the novel coronavirus by Aug. 14 from data provided by 33 nurse organizations of 32 countries. For more information, please visit https://www.icn.ch/news/new-icn-report-shows-governments-are-failing-prioritize-nurses-number-confirmed-covid-19-nurse.

[9] For details, please refer to the Emergency Notice of the Ministry of Transport on Effectively Preventing and Controlling the Epidemic through Traffic Control in and out of Wuhan on Jan. 23, 2020.

[10] The Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies in Hubei province was deliberated and approved at the 52nd executive meeting of Hubei provincial government on Apr. 22, 2010. It is formulated in accordance with the Emergency Response Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, the Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Treatment of Occupational Diseases, the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Regulation on the Urgent Handling of Public Health Emergencies, the National Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies, and the Overall Response Plan for Emergencies in Hubei Province.

[11] Responses to major public health emergencies are divided into four levels. The implementation of the first-level response requires to be organized by the State Council or the health authorities and other relevant departments under it. For details, please refer to the National Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies.

[12] The Chinese government promulgated the Regulation on the Urgent Handling of Public Health Emergencies, on May 7, 2003, and the National Response Plan for Public Health Emergencies on Jan. 8, 2006, based on the experience of combating SARS and in accordance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases (coming into force as of Sept. 1, 1989). The National Response Plan for Public Emergencies was formulated based on the aforementioned law, regulation and overall plan. On Aug. 30, 2007, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress approved the Emergency Response Law of the People’s Republic of China, further systemizing the above-mentioned law, regulation and response plans. On Jan. 20, days before the lockdown of Wuhan, the National Health Commission issued its No. 1 announcement of 2020, categorizing the novel coronavirus pneumonia into the Class B infectious diseases stipulated in the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, and adopting prevention and control measures for Class A infectious diseases.

[13] U.S. President Trump deployed the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort to Los Angeles and New York respectively in late March 2020. Both hospital ships have 1,000 hospital beds. Although they are not suitable for patients infected with the novel coronavirus, they can accommodate a large number of patients with common diseases, so that local medical facilities can free up more beds for patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

[14] For details, please refer to Ferguson NM, Laydon D, Nedjati-Gilani G, et al., “Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand”, in Imperial College London HP , March 16, 2020.（http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/77482）

[15] On March 16, the White House issued the coronavirus guidelines, calling on Americans to practice social distancing; avoid gatherings of more than 10 people; avoid eating and drinking in bars, restaurants, and public food courts; avoid unnecessary trips, shopping or social activities; avoid going to sanatoriums, old people’s homes; encouraging schooling from home across the country. On March 29, Trump extended the federal social distancing guidelines, which originally expired on March 30, to April 30.

[16] For details, please refer to Solomon Hsiang, Daniel Allen, Sébastien Annan-Phan, Kendon Bell, Ian Bolliger, Trinetta Chong, Hannah Druckenmiller, Luna Yue Huang, Andrew Hultgren, Emma Krasovich, Peiley Lau, Jaecheol Lee, Esther Rolf, Jeanette Tseng & Tiffany Wu, “The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic”, in Nature, June 8, 2020.

[17] On Feb. 17, 2020, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued guidelines on taking science-based, targeted, region-specific, and multi-level measures on the epidemic prevention and control. The guidelines ordered governments at provincial levels to make dynamic adjustments to the list of high-risk, medium-risk and low-risk areas in their jurisdictions. According to the risk criteria defined in the guidelines, cities, counties and districts with no new confirmed cases in the last 14 days are categorized as low-risk areas. Those with fewer than 50 cases or those with over 50 but without a concentrated outbreak are classified as medium-risk areas, and those with over 50 cases as well as a concentrated outbreak are classified as high-risk areas.

[18] Wohlrabe Klaus, Peichl Andreas, Link Sebastian ,Leiss Felix, Demmelhuber Katrin, “Die Auswirkungen der Coronakrise auf die deutsche Wirtschaft”, in ifo Schnelldienst Digital, No.7, May18, 2020.

[19] Zhou Muzhi, “Ozone: a powerful weapon to combat COVID-19 outbreak” In China.org.cn, Feb. 26, 2020.（http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2020-02/26/content_75747237.htm）

[20] China has turned the experience in combating SARS into laws, regulations, manuals and guidebooks and those are the keys to combating the epidemic. On the contrary, in the U.S., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepared a guideline for restarting world economic activities, only to be rejected by the Trump administration in the first 10 days of May for being too detailed.

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The article was published on China SCIO Online on Dec 3, 2020, and was republished by foreign media, including China Daily, Guangming Daily, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

Zhou Muzhi 

Editor’s note:

The 2020 Beijing Cultural Industry Development Conference, organized by the Publicity Department of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, was held on Sept. 6, as part of a featured event at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). Zhou Muzhi, president of Cloud River Urban Research Institute and professor of Tokyo Keizai University, delivered a keynote speech titled “A look at Beijing’s cultural industry development from its culture, sports and entertainment radiation,” giving his insights into the good practices and new challenges of the city’s cultural industry. This article is a further elaboration on the topic based on his speech.

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1. 2019 ranking on culture, sports and entertainment radiation of Chinese cities

As part of the China Integrated City Index, the Cloud River Urban Research Institute has released the 2019 ranking on culture, sports and entertainment radiation based on a research of 297 cities at prefecture level or above across China. The top 10 are Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Xi’an, Shenzhen and Chongqing. Beijing takes an overwhelming lead in the rank.

The next 10 cities in the top 20 are Changsha, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Jinan, Shenyang, Harbin, Hefei, Qingdao and Changchun. Following them, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Kunming, Wuxi, Nantong, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Dalian, Nanning, and Nanchang round out the top 30.

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Jointly developed by Cloud River Urban Research Institute and the Development Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China Integrated City Index is a system that evaluates growth performance of 297 cities at prefecture level or above across the country. The institute has been publishing the city index annually since 2016. Available in Chinese, Japanese and English, the index measures urban development in three dimensions: the environment, society and economy. Under each dimension lies many indicators that support its sub-dimensions at different layers. The culture, sports and entertainment radiation is a group of indicators supported by 785 data sets, with 29.2% coming from statistical data, 30.8% from satellite remote sensing data, and 40% from internet data.

The radiation index measures a city’s capacity in providing goods and services in certain areas. A high radiation score means the city has the capacity to sell its goods and services, while a low radiation score means that it needs to purchase certain goods and services from other places.

2. Beijing’s overwhelming lead in cultural and entertainment industry

2019 ranking in culture, sports and entertainment radiation of Chinese cities is composed of three modules: returns and traffic, facilities and human resources. On returns and traffic, total revenues of the cultural and entertainment industry in top 30 cities in the ranking account for 67.9% that of the whole country. That is to say, the top 10% cities account for nearly 70% of the country’s total revenues in the industry. Beijing even takes a staggering 24.8%, or nearly a quarter, of the total revenue, reflecting the city’s overwhelming lead in the cultural industry.

Other statistics in the returns and traffic module follow the same logic. The top 30 cities account for 54.5% of China’s box office, 52% of the total movie attendance, and 46% of the country’s total museum and gallery visits, with Beijing taking 5.7%, 4.5% and 6.9%, respectively.

The top 30 cities also boast 72.3% of all the related facilities or industry assets in China, with Beijing taking over a quarter (26.4%) of the total.

Specifically, the top 30 account for 34.9% of all the theaters, 46.8% of all the galleries, 38.6% of all the museums, 84.2% of all the ancient relics, 37.1% of all the sports venues, and 53.7% of all the public libraries, with Beijing taking 2.7%, 6.4%, 3.4%, 46.6%, 2.7% and 6.6% of them respectively.

On human resources, the top 30 boast 53.3% of all professionals and 48.2% of the business entities and organizations of the cultural and entertainment industry, with Beijing taking 12.8% and 10.4% respectively.

Why Beijing can reap a quarter of the national total revenue in the cultural industry with only 12.8% of all its human resources? The reasons lie in its high quality facilities, which accounted for a quarter of the country’s total, as well as its highly concentrated top talents in the field.

According to statistics, the top 30 cities are home to 95.9% of all the national A-class performing artists, 75.1% of all the A-class art designers, 91.7% of all Mao Dun Literature Prize winners, and 68.3% of Olympic champions, with Beijing taking 63%, 37.2%, 47.9% and 5.7%, respectively.

All the above figures show that Beijing is home to many heavyweights in the cultural and entertainment field. The top talent and the high-quality facilities make Beijing a cultural and entertainment production center in China and give the city overwhelming lead in the culture, sports and entertainment radiation.

3. A comparison of cultural and tourism industries in China and Japan

In March 2018, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was founded, combining the functions of the China National Tourism Administration and the Ministry of Culture, as part of the country’s effort to promote integrated development of the two industries.

To analyze their integrated development, we found a correlation coefficient of 0.55 between the 2019 ranking of culture, sports and entertainment radiation and inbound tourism. Correlation coefficients are used to measure the strength of the relationship between two variables. The stronger the association between the two variables, the closer the coefficient will incline toward 1, while 0.55 demonstrates a not so close relationship between the two.

Using the same method, we found a high correlation coefficient of 0.82 between the culture, sports and entertainment radiation for 47 prefectures in Japan and the country’s inbound tourism. A coefficient of over 0.8 indicates a very strong association between the two variables. That is to say, Japanese cities with stronger culture, sports and entertainment radiation attract more overseas tourists.

Compared to Japan, China’s culture and tourism industry is not as integrated as its neighbor.

After WWII, Japan built the world’s second largest economy based on manufacturing. In 2003, the Japanese government put forward the idea of making Japan a tourism-based country. That year, the number of inbound tourists was only 5.21 million, ranking 31st in the world.

The country’s tourism industry quickly took off and the number of inbound travel surged under the Abe administration. By 2019, the number of inbound visits surged to 31.88 million.

From 2003 to 2018, the number of inbound tourists in Japan grew by 500%, compared to 110% in Germany, 90% in China and the U.S., 60% in Spain and the U.K., and 20% in France. By 2018, Japan had ranked 11th in the number of inbound tourists, compared to 31st in 2003.

It’s interesting to see that there is a relatively low correlation coefficient of 0.45 between inbound travels and domestic travels in China while a relatively high correlation of 0.87 in that of Japan. A high correlation means that cities popular among inbound tourists is also popular among domestic tourists, while a low correlation is just the opposite.

One reason for the low correlations in China is that many of the inbound visits in Chinese mainland are Chinese compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan who travel frequently in coastal cities in Guangdong and Fujian, which has caused the “decoupling” of inbound and domestic travelers.

4. Manufacturing industry VS IT industry

After analyzing the correlation between the 2019 culture, sports and entertainment radiation and the manufacturing radiation based on 297 cities at prefecture level or above across China, we found a correlation coefficient of 0.43 between the cultural industry and the manufacturing industry, which is relatively low. The analysis of the 2019 culture, sports, entertainment radiation and manufacturing radiation for 47 prefectures in Japan found a coefficient of minus 0.5, showing a mutually exclusive relationship between the two industries. From the comparative analysis of the relationship between the cultural radiation and the manufacturing radiation in China and Japan, we saw that there is no interactive development pattern between the two industries in China or Japan.

In the early years of China’s reform and opening up, provinces and cities across China attracted foreign investment through arts and culture. Art shows and film festivals, for instance, were hosted to attracted foreign investors. Commenting the approach, Zhao Qizheng, who was the first director of the Management Committee of Pudong New Area, criticized that this practice was not feasible, because “men of letters and artists do not invest, and entrepreneurs do not watch shows.” His judgement proved true, given that the economic structure back then was dominated by the manufacturing industry.

However, the relationship between the cultural industry and the IT industry is another picture, as the IT industry serves as the new driving force for the current economy. After analyzing the correlation between the 2019 culture, sports and entertainment radiation and the IT industry radiation of 297 cities at prefecture level or above cities in China, we found a coefficient of 0.94, showing a “complete correlation” relationship. The same analysis of 47 prefectures in Japan showed a correlation coefficient of 0.97 between them, higher than that of China. The analyses concluded that no matter in China or Japan, the IT industry must be located in a city with a strong cultural industry. The development of the two industries is closely related and develop synchronously.

5. Beijing Metropolitan Area VS Tokyo Metropolitan Area

Beijing has the peerless radiation of the cultural industry in China, so Beijing has to look to other top metropolises to find out the gap and then fine-tune its strategy. Today, in the global top metropolises, such as London, New York, Paris and Tokyo, the cultural industry has become a magnet and driving force for the IT industry, the financial industry, scientific and technological innovation, higher education, and corporate headquarters. In the future, Beijing should align itself with the world’s metropolises, build itself into the world’s top cultural and entertainment capital, and lead the development of the national interaction economy.

After comparing the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (hereinafter referred to as Tokyo circle) consisting of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama, and the Beijing Metropolitan Area (hereinafter referred to as Beijing), we found that the area of Beijing is 20% larger than that of Tokyo circle, but the population of Beijing, no matter by measure of permanent resident population or DID (Densely Inhabited District, which is defined as an area with a population of 5,000 or more per square kilometer), is only 60% of that of Tokyo circle. And its GDP is only 30% of that of Tokyo circle. The carbon dioxide emission of Beijing is 20% higher than that of Tokyo circle.

A further analysis found that Beijing’s per capita GDP is only half of that of Tokyo circle, but the per capita carbon dioxide emission is 2.1 times that of Tokyo circle, and the energy consumption per unit GDP is 7.4 times that of Tokyo circle. We concluded that Beijing still lags behind Tokyo in the industrial structure, energy structure, urban structure and lifestyle. Moreover, Beijing has a smaller share of cultural and tourism industries, largely because there is lack of interaction between the two industries. In this sense, Beijing should aim to become a global center of culture and tourism in the future.

In 2019, the number of inbound tourists to Beijing accounted for only 14% of that to Tokyo circle. From 2000 to 2019, the number of inbound tourists to Beijing increased from 2.82 million to 3.77 million, an increase of only 34%. However, during the same period, the number of inbound tourists to Tokyo (excluding Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama counties) increased from 4.18 million to 14.1 million, an increase of 237%, cementing its position as a top destination for tourists around the world.

The huge boon brought by foreign tourists to Tokyo’s economy, lies not only in tourism spending, but also in the exchange between visitors and the interaction economy like the IT industry. Tokyo’s leading position in the IT industry is built on such an interaction. 

As the above comparative analysis shows, Tokyo outperforms Beijing in terms of the number and the growth rate of inbound tourists. How to make Beijing more attractive is the key to building Beijing into a cultural and tourism metropolis.

To build a more appealing city, we need to use universal logical, concepts and methods to give insight into its own cultural characteristics.

For example, “eating” is a very important social communication scene in the interaction economy. Almost all the cities with a strong IT industry in the world are destinations for foodies. In fact, “eating well” is also the productivity of communication economy. Beijing is home to many famous restaurants with Chinese characteristics, but the number of the world’s top restaurants in the city is only 10% of that in Tokyo circle. Tokyo (excluding Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama counties) has 219 Michelin-starred restaurants, more than any cities in the world. Moreover, 65% of those star restaurants serve Japanese cuisine, and many of their chefs have studied cooking skills overseas. Exchanges in the field of cooking led to the integration and mutual learning, rather than assimilation, between Japanese cuisine and Western cuisine. One of the main reasons why Japanese food is popular worldwide is that there are many Japanese chefs who have preserved their culture and created their style despite influences of other countries. 

To know the world and to make itself known to the world holds the key for Beijing to become a world-class metropolis.

The article was published on China SCIO Online on Sep 29, 2020, and was republished by foreign media, including China net, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

Editor’s note: The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to big cities like New York, London and Tokyo, drawing wide concern over the outlook of international metropolises. How to balance urban development and ecological protection? How to lead a city’s cultural development? Join Professor Zhou Muzhi and Professor Yoshinori Yokoyama as they brainstorm what those big cities have in store.

Introduction of speakers:

Globalization grows in tandem with urbanization

Zhou Muzhi: Cities originate from the fairs and thrive on trade and exchanges. In 1950, only two megacities, Tokyo and New York, each had a population over 10 million. By 1970, the Osaka megalopolis had been added to the list. However, the number of megacities has grown from five in 1980 to 33 today. They are mostly hubs for international exchanges that determine the future of world politics and economic development. With a combined population of 570 million, those megacities account for 15.7% of the world’s population of Urban Agglomerations. It is quite worthwhile for us to take a closer look at what’s behind their rapid growth.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: First of all, infrastructures are very important for urban development. Edo, what Tokyo was known for in the Tokugawa period, was built on marshes had an ample supply of water, a very good drainage system and a sound network of canals for the transportation of goods and people. These infrastructures supported the development of Edo that had a population over one million.

Zhou Muzhi: The spring water in Inokashira Park near my home is the source of Kanda River. Tokugawa Ieyasu had indeed put a lot of efforts in finding quality water and building a network of waterways in Edo.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: The most important infrastructure that supports the development of modern Tokyo is the railway system, especially the Yamanote Line. Although the loop line did not adopt new technologies in its construction, it was a successful practice in the world’s urban planning history which widened the central business district (CBD) by creating several activity centers or CBDs like Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro. Compared with most US cities which have only one business district,. Those CBDs are modal change point between Yamanote Line loop and commuter rails. This transportation network increased the diversity of Tokyo’s urban life.  multiple CBDs in Tokyo have not only increased the city’s capacity but also its diversity.

Zhou Muzhi: The railway system in Tokyo also contributes to the urban density.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Yes. Los Angeles also has a downtown area, but the density of its urban facilities is low as people movement mostly relies on automobiles. The beauty of Yamanote Loop is its adequate size. It takes one hour to go around. That means it takes less than 30 minutes to move from one point to another, which is psychologically acceptable. In this regards, London Loop is too big and Chicago Loop is too small.

Zhou Muzhi: Improving infrastructures and urban capacity are very important solutions for urban diseases. When the population was around 10 to 20 million, the Tokyo megalopolis already suffered from many problems. But as the population grows to 38 million today, many of the problems have been solved thanks to the city’s investment on high quality infrastructures. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is bound to stimulate investment on healthcare, drainage system, waste treatment and other public health infrastructures.

Of course, the capacity here does not indicate the actual living space but the ability to attract talents and create employment. After the 1980s, globalization and development of megacities are mainly driven by the global supply chain in manufacturing as well as the information technology (IT) revolution. It is fair to say that globalization has been growing in tandem with urbanization.

The 33 megacities in the world are either coastal cities or national capitals. The manufacturing industry in the global supply chain era depends very much on deepwater ports. So it is not surprising that the top 10 cities (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Dongguan, Suzhou, Foshan, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Xiamen) on China’s 2018 manufacturing radiation ranking released by the Cloud River Urban Research Institute are all large container ports. They account for around half of the total volume of China’s export in goods.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Japan’s export-oriented manufacturing industry is also highly concentrated in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya megalopolises. Those cities have good ports facing to the pacific ocean because they have been the destination of cargos. Recently, the Northern part of Kyushu facing to the Eastern China sea, because of the increasing importance of China and intra-Asia trade.

Zhou Muzhi: Compared with manufacturing, the IT industry is more concentrated and converged in big cities and megacities.

As a typical part of the interaction economy, the IT industry needs to grow in an open, inclusive and diversified cultural environment, which coincides with the vibes of most coastal and central cities. Therefore, the top 10 cities in China’s 2018 ranking for IT radiation are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Ji’nan and Xi’an, which are either major big cities or coastal cities. The employment in IT, the number of IT companies listed on the main board, the SME board, and the second board in those 10 cities account for 53%, 76%, 60% and 81% of the country’s total, respectively. 

Yoshinori Yokoyama: The IT industry in the United States first concentrated in Route 128 (Boston’s technology corridor) getting the benefit of intellectual properties of Harvard and MIT, then the Silicon Valley which is close to Stanford and Fairchild Camera, Seattle with Microsoft, then, spread to other international metropolises like the New York City.

Zhou Muzhi: Japan’s IT industry is highly concentrated in Tokyo megalopolis, which boasts 80% of the IT companies listed on the First Section Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

There is an interesting relationship between the manufacturing and IT radiation and urban functions. For example, from the perspective of transportation, manufacturing depends very much on the convenience of container ports, while the IT industry hinges much on airport convenience. Manufacturing radiation has a very high correlation with science & technology radiation and finance radiation, so does IT radiation with catering and hotel radiation as well as culture, sports, and entertainment radiation. What’s also noteworthy is that manufacturing radiation has relatively low correlations with healthcare radiation and higher education radiation, while IT radiation has high correlations with them. This means that people working in the IT industry have higher demands on catering, hotel, culture, entertainment, higher education and healthcare. Big cities with superior facilities in the above areas are more attractive to those talented professionals.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: IT sector is becoming more software intensive. This implies highly talented people are the source of value added. So a city’s amenity and comfort for them and their families is very important. Last year, I contributed an expert’s review to the 2018 China Integrated City Index highlighting a city’s provision for a comfortable life.

‘Satoyama’ style in urban development

Zhou Muzhi: There is always an impulse among the intellectuals to escape the city. As early as 35 years ago, the American futurist Alvin Toffler had depicted what would be like in an information society in his book “The Third Wave”. Many of his predictions have been materialized except those about people working effectively away from the big cities in the information society while enjoying the idyllic lives in the countryside. On the contrary, the information revolution has rather promoted the development of megacities.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: People in the western countries have long been feeling the urge to escape the big cities. But most of them still live there. Because some unique kind of comfort could only be enjoyed in the city. Some fifty years ago, A famous French novelist said that French are farmers, Americans are suburbanites and Japanese are truly urbanites. But, today, many have become urbanites. Even with COVID-19, this urbanization trend will nor reverse inspite of predictions by the so-called intellectuals. Cities are the source of energy which is coming from the interaction of various kind of people.

Zhou Muzhi: Cities, especially big cities, offer jobs, comfortableness and charm that other places could not possibly have. That’s why people still move to cities and are unwilling to leave.

But sometimes urban development does not take into account the importance of nature preservation. This is the key reason why some sensitive intellectuals want to leave the big cities.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: In some sense, the relationship between man and nature is now at a tipping point. The human beings are over-exploiting the nature to an extent that the earth could not possibly recover by itself. In other worlds, we may be killing the nature’s inherent self-adjusting ability. What’s behind the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak is the ecological imbalance and the abnormal distribution of species caused by environmental damages. As animals are the carrier of certain viruses, changes in distribution of the living species, also lead to changes in the generation and transmission of the viruses.

Zhou Muzhi: Over exploitation of the nature and huge CO2 emissions also transformed the global ecosystem.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: I am a bit skeptical about the development of effective vaccine for the corona virus because we have not developed it for HIV and SARS. But, even when specific medicine or vaccines are developed that could help contain coronavirus, the human beings may face deadlier virus in the future because virus is a part of our evolution mechanism according to biologists.

Zhou Muzhi: Therefore, we need to recognize the global threat of infectious diseases. According to the Global Risks Report 2020 released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the issue of infectious diseases did not even rank among the top 10 risks by likelihood over the next 10 years. Infectious diseases only listed lowest in the rank of top 10 risks by severity of impact over the next 10 years.

Against the WEF’s predictions, the COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately, turns out to have brought unprecedented challenges to the human society.

Many populous metropolises with close international exchanges were hit hard by the virus, prompting people’s concern over the future of globalization and megacities. We need to recognize that the global spread of the coronavirus is not caused by global movement but people’s long-time ignorance of the threat of infectious diseases. In the future, the international community and international metropolises should better understand viral diseases and increase investment in combating them.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: As I said cities are the source of our energy and innovation to improve our everyday life, we do not have the option to suppress the activities. We have to maintain the spontaneity of urban development. At the same time, we should also transform our way of thinking on the relationship between urban development and nature.

Zhou Muzhi: In Japan, people say “the village is made by god, while the city is made by men.” I think it’s only partially correct. Japan’s countryside is traditionally called “satoyama”, which is described as a rural landscape with human beings and nature co-existing in harmony. It is even more ecologically diverse than pristine mountain forests. My friend Mr. Ono, who is the executive producer for the NHK natural science program, told me that proper human presence or intervention in nature has created a new ecosystem that is richer and more diverse than pristine mountain forests.

Satoyama is actually the integration of man-made landscape with the “god-made” natural world.

However, in modern urban development, people always emphasize too much on man-made landscape and ignore the presence of and interaction with the natural world. They sometimes even excluded natural landscape in urban planning and have turned cities into concrete jungles.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Back in 1915, many trees donated from around the country were replanted in the barren field around Meiji Shrine. Back then, one would never have imagined that a forest would be created in the heart of Tokyo. There used to be a nine-hall golf course in the Tokyo Imperial Palace. But the February 26 Incident in 1936 made Emperor Hirohito very angry, he decided not to play golf any more. The unattended golf course is now developed into a natural habitat of many species such as birds, reptiles and insects. The nature has indeed a very strong recovery capability.

It is ideal to plan for urban development based on the idea of nature restoration, but few people have made such trials.

Zhou Muzhi: A few years ago, I proposed the idea of “Module City” in urban planning when I was chairing the Zhenjiang Ecological New City. By “Module City”, I mean to separate a city of one million population into different sections with each highlighting a certain proportion of ecological space in the man-made environment and then link each section with trams. I remember Mr. Yokoyama also participated in this program.

I hope not only to build satoyama style countryside but also satoyama style cities.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Neither the so-called new towns in the UK after the WW-II nor the Australian capital Canberra based on the functionalist design approach are successful. It is quite hard to build a city with urban charm while seeking for interaction with the nature.

Zhou Muzhi: “Satoyama” actually finds a delicate balance between human intervention and natural restoration. This is a new way of ecological protection that beyond our imagination. The human presence should be moderate and sustainable. In recent years, the rural population in Japan is dwindling. With fewer residents, some “satoyama” countryside, however, turn out to be less ecologically diversified than before.

So it is very important to be discrete in human intervention when designing urban spaces. Another thing we need to pay attention is to set a proper distance between man and nature. Many cities in China have created a lot of green spaces far away from where people work and live, making it hard for them to be close to nature.

Overall planning and layer designing

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Design a new city from scratch is almost impossible even for the most talented urban designers and city planners. A city is a complex and dynamic entity which has many layers, including its ecosystem, water and energy supply, sewage network, supply chain, multiple type of transportation, and culture. They interact with each other constantly. Each layer sometimes covers different size of areas overlapping and integrating with each other and grow and decline constantly.  

Those layers are the mixture of hardware and some are software. A city hardware can be designed relatively with logic such as its unique transportation and energy systems to cope with globalization. But, design of software is not easy. It depends on the spontaneity of many people’s activities. The cultural element of a city is especially important. It is the source of unique character and attractiveness of a city. For example, living in New York City and Tokyo is very different because they have different cultures. But in general, they are two very successful international metropolises. It is important to recognize and design a city through its layers.

Zhou Muzhi: Building a master plan before designing its layers is even more important.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Yes. It is necessary for us to discuss how the master plan works for urban development. But, master plan by integrating many layers activities is getting extremely difficult. It should not focus too much only on the physical design of facilities and city scape, but on the core ideas and philosophies to embody and strategies to achieve that .

Zhou Muzhi: Only this kind of master plan can truly guide the layers designing.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: We can design a city’s drainage, energy supply and transportation systems because these are all visible facilities. But it is hard to plan for a city’s invisible elements like its culture.

Zhou Muzhi: Many elements in the cultural layer are decided by the unique characteristics of a region’s cultural orientations. Some may turn to nationalism and some may choose regionalism. The former confronts globalization through its own culture while the latter aims to demonstrate its own regional and cultural features in globalization. Each successful international metropolis has its own choice in cultural orientations.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: A city’s cultural layer needs constant fine-tuning. Any culture has two elements. There are elements which change over time and elements which does not and should not change. This is a difficult issue when you deal with renovation and renewal. 

Zhou Muzhi: Right. For example, China has built a lot of new cities and zones in recent years with very good facilities and infrastructures, but their cultural vibe is something that needs constant nurturing. I invited many foreign friends to visit Shenzhen. The city boasts a lot of skyscrapers, but they find it not interesting at all. The city of Guangzhou made them excited because they can easily experience the typical Cantonese history and culture while walking down the streets.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: This is also the case with Nishi-Shinjuku, a Tokyo’s urban sub-center. You cannot feel its charm because it has over control of open space use in the context of discouraging the student revolt which was common all over the world in the late 1960’s. Unfortunately, this kind of control orientation not nurture spontaneous and self-evolving in culture of urban areas. Many buildings have   squares and open spaces but no street food venders which are common at night market.

Zhou Muzhi: The cultural element and the ecosystem of a city are constantly evolving in itself. Urban designing and management should promote their cultural and ecological development. A city’s tradition, culture and ecology develop through time and form its own characteristics that its residents take pride in.

The great Italian designer Mario Bellini once told me: A city is not built, destroyed or changed at your disposal. A city is where a community with the same cultural identity live and grow.

Service industries and interaction economy

Zhou Muzhi: Unlike Mr. Yokoyama’s view that the labor productivity ratio in Japan’s service sector is lower than the US level, my understanding is that this is exactly what makes Japan’s service sector so charming. Service industries in the country, such as catering and retail, emphasize on interactions with customers, which can hardly be standardized but help engage customers in enjoyable conversations and help improve the overall service quality of the industries in a steady manner.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: This is like dining in a fancy sushi restaurant. The quality of the dishes themselves is important for the customers, but at the same time, the interactions with the sushi chefs are also an important element of enjoyment. Naturally, you can accommodate a small number of custmers.

Zhou Muzhi: Therefore, when it comes to evaluating different commercial areas these days, we should compare the number of locally owned catering and retail businesses with that of chain brands in the areas. Only those with more locally owned brands can obtain high praises, because businesses doing well in customer interactions are mostly locally owned ones offering customized services.

For example, Kichijoji, the neighborhood where I live, is the most popular block in Japan and is rated the No.1 commercial area in the country. Shops in Kichijoji are mostly operated by self-employed individuals, with an average area much smaller than Tokyo’s average. However, per square meter sales volume in Kichijoji shops is very high, much higher than that of the Disneyland.

Therefore, the standardized approach is not necessarily the only way to take when service businesses aim at pursuing high added value. The interaction economy approach deserves more attention.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Tokyo has more Michelin star restaurants than any other city in the world.

Zhou Muzhi: In the 2018 ranking of Chinese cities on hotel and restaurant radiating capability released by the Cloud River Urban Research Institute, the top 10 cities were Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Sanya, Xi’an, and Xiamen, which are home to 36% of China’s five-star hotels and 77% of the country’s top international restaurants.

A close look at the radiating capability of IT industry and that of hotel and restaurant has demonstrated a “perfect correlation” between them, with the correlation coefficient reaching 0.9. This indicates that, working in a typical industry of the interaction economy, the high-income IT professionals are keen on quality dining experience, and that restaurants are important venues for these professionals to “interact”. Top cities with strong radiating capability of IT industry are all famous for their food. Today, the ability to offer great food has become a major boost to a city’s endeavor in developing its interaction economy.

By contrast, the correlation coefficient of manufacturing radiating capability and hotel and restaurant radiating capability registered only 0.68. Clearly, compared to IT professionals, manufacturing professionals are much less sensitive to delicious food.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Certainly, there is connection between Tokyo

s advanced IT industry and its food. The higher people’s income and the intellectual levels of their work are, the higher the need for interactions will be. The COVID-19 pandemic will not put an end to globalization.

Zhou Muzhi: In that sense, as the hubs for globalization and interaction economy, international metropolises are not likely to suffer irretrievable economic declines. They are bound to recover from the setback and embrace a new era of economic boom.

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The article was published on China SCIO Online on June 2, 2020, and was republished by foreign media, including China Daily, Guangming Daily, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

Editor’s note:

Zhou Muzhi, head of Cloud River Urban Research Institute and professor of Tokyo Keizai University, and Yoshinori Yokoyama, an adviser of the Office of the President of the University of Tokyo, weigh in on the prospect of globalization amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction of speakers:

What now for global supply chains

Zhou Muzhi: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on globalization has been a major concern of the international community. Globalization is a multi-dimensional concept, and supply chains are one of the integral aspects of globalization. My prediction 20 years ago was that the global expansion of supply chains would help form global supply chain-based industrial clusters, and then megalopolises, in China’s Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The prediction has been confirmed over the past two decades, as huge global industrial chain-based industrial agglomeration formed in the regions, and the three megalopolises have gradually taken shape and driven China’s social and economic development. What concerns the public most is the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. policies of bringing its manufacturing back, and the impact of the policies on globalization.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: We should pay attention to the concept of “regionalization” when it comes to discussing about the characteristics of “globalization,” as the two are complemental and mutually reinforcing notions as opposed to nationalization which is sometimes a hindrance. This is true with regard to the supply chains.

Zhou Muzhi: In fact, some problems in global supply chains had emerged before the outbreak of COVID-19, as seen in China-U.S. trade frictions. In the past, manufacturing supply chains were confined to one country or even a certain region. For example, Toyota’s supply chains were basically in areas with a radius of 50 kilometers. The global expansion of supply chains coincided with China’s reform and opening up, making China a major beneficiary of the trend. From 2000 to 2019, the export volume of China increased 10 times. The three main drivers of the expansion of global supply chains were information technology revolution, transportation revolution, and the sense of security brought along by the stable world order after the Cold War. Global supply chains broke the deadlock of high labor distribution rate of industrial countries in the West, and changed the mechanism of global wealth creation and distribution.

The Chinese economy has largely benefited from global supply chains to achieve its rapid development. Therefore, in the book “The Chinese Economy: Mechanism of Its Rapid Growth” published in 2007, I used the entire first chapter to explain the relationship between China’s economic development and global supply chains. However, the recent years have witnessed frictions between China and other players on the global supply chains. First, international capital felt uneasy about government intervention. For example, to avoid over-dependence of its supply chains on China, Japan rolled out its “China plus one” policy, which encouraged its companies to build supply chains in countries and regions outside China. The second issue is intellectual property rights, which is one of the focuses in the China-U.S. trade frictions. The third one is the rising costs of labor and land as well as taxation.

Of course, the U.S. and other Western countries are facing with the woes of industrial hollowing-out, which constitutes the important social foundation that helped Donald Trump win the election.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Another issue is China’s rapid rise in global influence and presence. When the concept of globalization was born, I interpreted it as “global Americanization.” However, as China expands its influence on the world stage, the U.S. grows increasingly sensitive in many aspects. I have been proposing regionalization as a measure to counterbalance the process of globalization, and I believe that regionalization, or regionalism, is an idea that favors regional characteristics, but coexists with globalization in a mutually reinforcing fashion. At the same time, we should be fully aware of the nationalist sentiment that goes against globalization.

Respect for intellectual property rights is a constantly evolving process. Today, China already has many strengths in the field of intellectual property rights, and will have a better understanding why it is necessary to protect intellectual property rights in the future.

Zhou Muzhi: The development of global supply chains accelerates the industrial hollowing-out in the old manufacturing base of the U.S., and Donald Trump’s election was in some sense a result of rising nationalism in these Rust Belt states.

During the 40 years of reform and opening up, especially the nearly two decades since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, China has made tremendous achievements with great efforts and built up confidence in its development. However, China’s confidence seems yet to be appreciated by the rest of the world, and thus, has triggered some negative sentiments in some people. If not properly handled, this mismatch of confidence and negative sentiments may distort China’s relations with the rest of the world.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: In fact, it was not plain sailing for the U.S. and Japan to be accepted by the outside world in the process of their ascent. The U.S. became the largest creditor nation in the world in the 1930s after World War I, before which Europe was the center of the world. It was until the 1950s when the U.S. formed its own distinct style in many fields such as music, arts and architecture, and the number of Nobel Prize winners in the U.S. soared after World War II. Despite of all of this, Americans were called “ugly Americans” for a long time, and Japanese were also called “ugly Japanese” in Europe and America in the 1980s. 

Facing this situation, shall we confront it or display complementarity? These two approaches show the difference between narrow nationalist sentiment and regionalism that emphasizes regional characteristics. For example, China has attached great importance to the development of digitalization in recent years, while Japan still fond of  the analog world before digitalization. As a result, Japan’s manufacturing industry has a solid foundation, but the labor productivity of its service industry seems to be a bit stagnant. Only very recently with the experience of COVID-19 showed vividly this problem of inertia of old ways of doing things. China made Japan to be aware of that. China and Japan have their own unique characteristics, and possible complementary relationship which are the regionalism advocates.

Zhou Muzhi: Therefore, globalization and regionalism are a pair of complementary relations. However, narrow nationalism goes against and harm globalization. How to curb narrow nationalism and make the world more secured is the key for all countries to maintain and develop the global supply chains and promote globalization.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: In terms of response to COVID-19, putting a country or a city on lockdown is a form of strengthening national intervention, which may lead to the rise of narrow nationalism. Someone would be worried about it, but I think the sentiment would wane sooner or later.

Manufacturing evolves into interaction economy

Zhou Muzhi: Everyone is talking about the U.S. policy of getting manufacturing back. As an economist keeping a close eye on the development of industrial chains, I think that even without Trump’s strong push, the return of the manufacturing industry to the West to some extent will occur naturally.

Historically, the earliest globalization of supply chains started from agriculture. The earliest merchandises for trade between the East and the West in ancient times were agricultural products, such as silk, pepper, cotton, sugar, and tea. Obtaining these agricultural products from other regions was the driving force behind the Great Navigation pushed by Western countries. The globalization of food supply chains has boomed ever since then.

My hometown Hunan is the birthplace of rice civilization and used to be typically a self-sufficient economy, with almost all of the food produced locally or purchased from the surrounding market. The dynamic line of the supply chain in my hometown was short and visible. However, the food supply of Chinese people nowadays has gone beyond regions, rendering its dynamic line invisible and non-traceable.

Japan’s countryside has a typical rice civilization. Its original scenery was very similar to Hunan, and it also depended on typical self-sufficient agriculture. However, calculated by kilocalorie, 60% of Japanese food today is imported.

Although globalization makes food supply more efficient, it has dealt a heavy blow to rural areas, agriculture and farmers of China and Japan depending on small-scale peasant economy. Even under the auspice of the much-maligned protection policy, Japan’s agriculture is in danger of being squeezed by imported food. More importantly, the invisibility of the supply chain makes the hidden risks of food safety non-traceable and uncontrollable.

In recent years, good changes have taken place in Japan’s food supply, as more farmers bypass the intermediate link to sell to consumers directly. Post-war agricultural cooperatives and supermarkets that promoted the scale and efficient supply of agricultural products were skipped directly. “Visible farmers’ agriculture” adds communication, trust, sensibility and quality to agricultural products, which not only improves the value of agricultural products, but also makes agriculture itself more attractive. As a result, the number of female students majoring in agriculture has increased significantly in Japan recently, and more and more young people are going to the countryside.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: In Japan, both agriculture and the fishing industry are exploring a new type of producing and circulating system that interacts with consumers. Some people call this industrial form of production. In other words, fishery is changing from hunting to farming and farming is changing to “manufacturing.” Or, we should not use the word industry which could be replaced with the notion of “social systems.” They are transforming themselves into “food delivery systems” as one of social systems such as medical systems, information systems, transportation systems and financial systems.

Zhou Muzhi: In developed countries, the production and consumption of the manufacturing industry have encountered similar situations. In regard to the supply chain of manufacturing in the past, a high proportion of information exchanged between enterprises was tacit knowledge that must not and cannot be transferred to others. In order to ensure the confidentiality of tacit knowledge and smooth communication, enterprises preferred long-term cooperation and capital support. The relationship between enterprises in the supply chain was pyramidal. Information technology has greatly reduced the proportion of tacit knowledge through standardization and digitalization, and greatly reduced the time and cost of information exchange between enterprises. At the same time, the mode of module production disclosed its design rules, so that global enterprises can participate in the supply chain competition fairly. Therefore, the supply chain can break through the shackles of tacit knowledge and expand globally. The relationship between enterprises in the supply chain has also changed from a close pyramid to a flat network, which provides the preconditions for developing countries to participate in the global supply chains. At the same time, the participation of China and other developing countries has led to a substantial drop in prices of industrial products. This kind of global supply chains which minimizes tacit knowledge is a typical interaction economy.

As the times change, consumers who used to pursue low prices begin to value emotion, personality, and interactivity with manufacturers. The broader background that makes this possible is that the modularization of industrial production has entered a new phase. The precondition for the new industrialization of developing countries is essentially built on the fact that modularized manufacturing enables unskilled workers to take on industrial activities such as assembling, which is the foundation for the globalization of manufacturing chains. Nowadays, modularization in conjunction with personalized design can lead to diversified and personalized small-scale production. Based on modularization, manufacturers and consumers can produce more stylish and personalized products through interaction.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Japan is a leading country in the interactive development of modularization and personalization, or custom design. Building a house is a good example. Traditionally, in Japan, there has been a modular system based on 3 feet by 6 feet module. Today, through the personalized, or custom design featuring interaction between clients and designers/architects, modular production of prefabricated building units and components in factories, and seamless assembly by skilled construction workers on site, it not only achieves efficiency, but also realizes the personalized taste of home owners.

Zhou Muzhi: It was the Japanese manufacturers who first and best combined individualized customization and assembly line production in auto manufacturing. 

Yoshinori Yokoyama: The new type of manufacturing supply chain is a new system characterized by interaction between consumers and producers while maintaining the improved efficiency. The return of manufacturing to the U.S. or Japan is certainly not relocating factories, but building a new supply chain system.

Zhou Muzhi: We can imagine that the future manufacturing will realize the global supply of high-tech core modules like semiconductor chips on one hand. On the other hand, on the basis of core modules, users interact with manufacturers to produce personalized end products, and the latter’s dynamic line of supply chains will be short and visible. The current return of manufacturing to developed countries is largely a return to the market, which means getting close to consumers. Even if there was no Donald Trump or the COVID-19 outbreak, the return would still take place, which is a demonstration of manufacturing’s evolution from trading economy to interactional economy. 

Yoshinori Yokoyama: As labor cost advantage diminishes in China, and labor cost as percentage of manufacturing cost also diminishes, it is inevitable for some manufacturers to leave China to alleviate an over-dependence in one country. China should be wary of the return of advanced manufacturing to developed countries.

In addition, we need to pay attention to the importance of non-digital accumulation of knowhow and expertise which is difficult, at least for some years to be replaced with current level of so-called AI. For example, the complete digitalization of the production of optical lens is hard to achieve, as it requires exquisite integration accumulated expertise and digital technology. After all, light is not digital outside of quantum mechanics scale. In this regard, Sony, Olympus and other Japanese manufacturers regard the development and inheritance of this kind of expertise in the optical field as their core competitiveness.

Zhou Muzhi: The production of terminal products in the manufacturing industry will become more and more personalized and localized, while the core components and modules are supplied globally.

Therefore, I recently proposed to President of Broad Group Zhang Yue to focus on developing ozone sensors. If the cost of an ozone sensor can be reduced to less than US$100, it can be used in mass quantities in manned space to curb the indoor spread of the novel coronavirus. Moreover, Broad Group is expected to become a global enterprise boasting core components by supplying sensors to ozone equipment manufacturers around the world.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: A similar case in Japan is Murata’s capacitor, which has the largest market share in the world. The company is now the world’s leading manufacturer of key electronic components.

Zhou Muzhi: The interaction economy of manufacturing is essentially the return of some manufacturing industries to the West and the return of market orientation. Therefore, Chin’s manufacturing should recognize this in time, strive to evolve and upgrade, strengthen communication and interaction with the market, and reposition its characteristics in the global supply chains. It is happy to note that China has not only solid manufacturing infrastructure, but also a huge market. We believe that China will blaze a new trail in interaction economy of manufacturing.

Display personality based on knowledge of world

Zhou Muzhi: Engines used to be the key to auto manufacturing. In the age of electrical automobiles, the key has shifted to designs. 

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Yes, even the sound of closing the car’s door is an important element of design, and it can even affect sales. It is a design parameter called sensuality. Other design parameters are engine sound (quietness has not necessarily the highest value), eye levels of the driver seat (SUVs found that) and so on. The comprehensive design ability of the visible parts and the invisible parts becomes increasingly important, which contains characteristics of cultural heritages. For example, in my opinion, the sofa made by Italians is look ordinary sometimes, but, very comfortable, and it is difficult for Germans to make a sofa more comfortable than an Italian sofa.

Zhou Muzhi: So the chairs and sofas in my home are all the works of Italian designer Mario Bellini, who is my good friend. Recently, in the sensibility field that Europe is good at, Japanese manufacturers have gained international recognition for its products such as white wine, whisky, and chocolate. In the ranking of the most popular enterprises among female graduates in science and engineering, there are many food-related enterprises. Emotional women are willing to go to these enterprises, which is a manifestation of sensibility and culture.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: There are increased international people-to-people exchanges for travel, business, academic exchange and other purposes. Hopefully, this trend enhances inter-cultural flexibility. As I said before, globalism and regionalism can go along with each other. We might need to control the nationalism. Sometimes, it goes against globalism.

Zhou Muzhi: There were 400 million international trips 30 years ago, and the figure soared to 1.4 billion in 2018.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: In my opinion, what deserves notable attention is the exchange of professionals with certain cultural backgrounds, such as architects, designers and even doctors.

Zhou Muzhi: Chefs as well. 

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Chefs have always made much of traveling after finishing the stage of apprenticeship. They used to be called journeymen to get the broader experience and test their acquired skills during the apprentice period. In the past, young chefs in Japan had to travel to different places and work as hired chefs. When their skills reached a level, they would go back to their hometown and run a restaurant. Now the travel and practice for culinary apprentices and journeymen have been globalized for a long time.

Zhou Muzhi: Several of my friends’ children are studying cooking abroad. Some of them have become top chefs. Some of their fathers are famous professors in universities and some are bosses of listed companies.

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Culinary study abroad has brought about the fusion and mutual learning between Japanese cuisine and Western cuisine, but it hasn’t led to assimilation. One of the important reasons why Japanese cuisine is popular around the world is that many Japanese chefs promote regional characteristics based on their knowledge about the world. For example, they now use various kind of meat which was not common in a very traditional Japanese cuisine.

Zhou Muzhi: Getting to know the world and getting oneself known to the world is what every responsible country and every responsible individual should pursue in the course of globalization.

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The article was published on China SCIO Online on Jun 02, 2020, and was republished by foreign media, including China net, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.

By Zhou Muzhi, president of Cloud River Urban Research Institute

Editor’s note: Why did the strongest manufacturing cities in China report negative growth in local public budget revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic? How will the traditional development mode of export industries be? What is the future for manufacturing and global supply chains? As the Cloud River Urban Research Institute releases the 2019 ranking on manufacturing radiation of Chinese cities, Professor Zhou Muzhi gives his perspective on the outlook.

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Shenzhen, Suzhou and Dongguan top the 2019 manufacturing radiation ranking

As part of the China Integrated City Index, the Cloud River Urban Research Institute has released the 2019 ranking on manufacturing radiation based on a research of 297 cities above prefecture-level across China. The top 10 are Shenzhen, Suzhou, Dongguan, Shanghai, Foshan, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuxi, and Xiamen. Four cities in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are among the top 10. Other than Chengdu, nine of the 10 cities are big container ports, and the 10 cities’ combined export in goods accounted for 47.7% of the country’s total.

The next 10 cities in the top 20 are Huizhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, Zhongshan, Qingdao, Tianjin, Zhuhai, Quanzhou, Jiaxing, and Nanjing. Following them, Zhengzhou, Jinhua, Yantai, Nantong, Xi’an, Changzhou, Dalian, Shaoxing, Fuzhou, and Taizhou round out the top 30.

The top 30 cities’ export in goods accounted for as much as 74% of the national total. That is to say, the top 10% in the ranking produced nearly three-fourth of the country’s export in goods. Except for Chengdu, Beijing, Zhengzhou, and Xi’an, other cities in the top 30 are all coastal or river ports, underlining the importance of container ports for export industries.

The growth of export industries is closely linked with container transportation. We found high correlations between manufacturing radiation and container port convenience, with a correlation coefficient of 0.7. In 2018, China’s container port throughput accounted for 28.5% of the world’s total. Among the world’s top 10 container ports, China had six.

China’s three major megalopolises — the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Pearl River Delta region — accounted for 6%, 36.3%, and 24.5% of the national total export in goods, respectively, combining to share 66.9% of the country’s total. The three, especially the latter two, are the driving force of China’s export industries.

Export industries amid COVID-19 pandemic

The year 2019 witnessed escalations of China-U.S. trade frictions and a shaky global supply chain. Under the trade tensions, China’s total volume of export in goods still grew by 5%, according to the General Administration of Customs. Cities higher in the manufacturing radiation ranking clearly played a part in the country’s continued growth.

Since the beginning of 2020, the novel coronavirus has hit the whole world, posing a new challenge to the global supply chains. Some export businesses were shutdown, overseas demand shrank, and some supply chains are broken.

In the first quarter, all the top 10 cities in the manufacturing radiation ranking reported negative growth in local public budget revenue. Six cities, including Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai, Foshan, Chengdu, and Xiamen, had double-digit losses. This indicated that, as the world’s largest exporter of industrial goods, China is facing a huge challenge.

Global industrial chains greatly boost China’s export industries

China’s export industries have benefited from the global expansion of manufacturing supply chains. I predicted 20 years ago that the global expansion of supply chains would help form global supply chain-based industrial clusters, and then megalopolises, in China’s Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The prediction has been confirmed over the past two decades, as huge global industrial chain-based industrial agglomeration formed in the regions, and the three megalopolises have gradually taken shape and driven China’s social and economic development.

In the past, information about transactions between enterprises in the manufacturing supply chains contained a high amount of tacit knowledge that could not be disclosed. Companies valued long-term cooperative relations and the support of capital, so as to ensure the confidentiality of tacit knowledge and smooth communication. The relationship among the enterprises in supply chains was pyramidal. Therefore, manufacturing supply chains were confined to a country or a region. For example, Toyota’s supply chains were basically in areas with a radius of 50 kilometers.

It is through the standardized and digital trend based on information technology that the proportion of tacit knowledge and the time and cost of information exchange between enterprises were greatly reduced. At the same time, modular production, in which design rules were disclosed, allowed global companies to compete in supply chains fairly. Therefore, supply chains were able to break through the constraint of tacit knowledge and extend to the world. The relationship among enterprises in supply chains also changed from a compact pyramid to a flat network, providing a prerequisite for developing countries to engage in global supply chains.

The global expansion of supply chains coincided with China’s reform and opening up, making China a major beneficiary of the trend. Its three main drivers were information technology revolution, transportation revolution, and the sense of security brought along by the stable world order after the Cold War. Global supply chains broke the deadlock of high labor distribution rate of industrial countries in the west, and changed the mechanism of global wealth creation and distribution.

Of course, developing countries led by China contributed to a sharp drop in the prices of industrial products through their participation. Such global supply chains, which minimize tacit knowledge, are classic examples of the transaction economy.

The Chinese economy has largely benefited from global supply chains to achieve its rapid development. Therefore, in the book “The Chinese Economy: Mechanism of Its Rapid Growth” published in 2007, I used the entire first chapter to explain the relationship between China’s economic development and global supply chains.

China’s 40 years of reform and opening up can be roughly divided into two stages by its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The first stage featured efforts in concept changing and economic system reform on the one hand, and those to enter the Western market on the other hand. China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 enabled the country to enter the international free trade system, and the door to international markets opened to China. At the same time, initial results were also achieved in the concept changing and the economic system reform during this period. Therefore, China’s reform and opening up and the world’s free trade system generated enormous energy together. China became the “world’s factory” swiftly, and leapt into the top as the world’s largest exporter in 2009. In contrast to previous economic struggles, China entered a stage of substantial development after joining the WTO. The robust export industries boosted the rapid growth of a large number of Chinese cities.

From 2000 to 2019, the export volume of Germany and the U.S. increased 1.7 times and 1.1 times, respectively, while that of France, the U.K., and Japan only increased by 0.7 times, 0.6 times, and 0.5 times, respectively. During the same period, the total export volume worldwide increased by 1.9 times, demonstrating that the export growth rates of leading industrial countries were all below the global average. In comparison, China’s total export volume was only US$249.2 billion in 2000, but surged to US$2.5 trillion in 2019, 10 times that of 2000. China’s exports accounted for only 3.9% of the world’s total in 2000, but the percentage reached 13.2% in 2009, ranking first in the world.

The vitality unleashed by reform and opening up and the entry into the WTO have brought huge dividends to China’s international trade.

Limits of traditional development mode of export industries 

China’s export industries experienced a growth rate and an expansion scale never reached by other countries. While accomplishing extraordinary achievements, China has a structural trade imbalance with the U.S. and other countries. The rapid development of China’s export industries has inevitably resulted in the hollowing-out of industries in Western countries. The woes of the industrial hollowing-out in the U.S. helped Donald Trump to win the election in a sense.

China’s sudden rise in presence has set off alarms among many countries. Intellectual property, for instance, is one of the thorny issues in the China-U.S. trade frictions. For another example, to avoid over-dependence of its supply chain on China, Japan began to roll out its “China plus one” policy, which encouraged its companies to build supply chain in countries and regions outside China.

China’s rising costs of labor, land, the environment, and taxation should not be ignored. The labor costs are a case in point. From the change of the average wage for on-the-job employees in the 10 cities topping the list of manufacturing radiation in 2019, we can see that the average wage in Shanghai increased 9.3 times from 2000 to 2008; 8.5 times, eight times, and 7.5 times in Chengdu, Suzhou, and Wuxi, respectively; and 6.6 times, 6.3 times, 5.7 times, 5.6 times, and 5.1 times in Ningbo, Foshan, Guangzhou, Xiamen, and Dongguan, respectively. Because of a higher base, Shenzhen’s wage rise was the smallest among the 10 cities, with an increase of 4.8 times. It can be seen that China’s labor costs have risen at a fast pace.

In the global supply chains, China’s advantages in labor costs are disappearing fast. 

The traditional development mode of export industries has reached its limit, so China’s manufacturing industry needs to evolve to a higher level.

Manufacturing is evolving into interaction economy

A recent buzz is around the U.S. policy of bringing its manufacturing back. I think, even without Trump’s strong push, the return of manufacturing to Western countries will occur naturally to some extent.

With rising manufacturing costs in China, some manufacturing sectors sensitive to profit margins are bound to flee China. China should pay more attention to the new trend of advanced manufacturing returning to developed countries. 

As the times change, consumers who used to pursue low prices begin to value emotion, personality, and interactivity with manufacturers. The broader background that makes this possible is that the modularization of industrial production has entered a new phase. 

The precondition of new industrialization of developing countries is essentially built on the fact that modularized manufacturing enables unskilled workers to take on industrial activities such as assembling, which is the foundation for the globalization of manufacturing chains. However, modularization in conjunction with personalized design nowadays can lead to diversified and personalized small-scale production. Based on modularization, manufacturers and consumers can produce more stylish and personalized products through interaction.

We can imagine that future manufacturing will realize the global supply of high-tech core modules, sensors, and other core components like semiconductor chips. In fact, In Western countries, especially in Japan and the U.S., enterprises have been sharpening their advantages in the development of core modules and components. On the other hand, on the basis of core modules and components, users interact with manufacturers to produce personalized end products, and the latter’s dynamic line of supply chains will be short and visible. 

Therefore, the current return of manufacturing to developed countries is largely actually returning to the market, which means getting close to consumers. Manufacturing of terminal products will become more personalized and localized. Even if there was no Donald Trump or the COVID-19 outbreak, the return would still take place, which is a demonstration of manufacturing’s evolution from trading economy to interactional economy. 

Therefore, China’s manufacturing should recognize this point in time, take hold of manufacturing’s shift to interaction economy, strive to evolve and upgrade, strengthen communication and interaction with the market, and reposition its specializations in the global supply chain. What is gratifying is that many Chinese cities already have strong manufacturing infrastructures, and possess enormous markets. We believe they will blaze a new trail in the interaction economy of manufacturing, and create a bright future.

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Zhou Muzhi is the president of the Cloud River Urban Research Institute and a professor of economics at Tokyo Keizai University. 

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The article was published on China SCIO Online on May 18, 2020, and was republished by foreign media, including China Daily, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.