Water, City and State: Jiangbeicheng and the making of urban China

Abstract

This paper studies the making of urban China in the process of nation-building and state-making from the late imperial to modern era by focusing on the rise and fall (and rise again) of Jiangbeicheng, a small river town on upper Yangtze River. Literally means “city on the north bank of the Yangtze River,” Jiangbeicheng is located at the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze Rivers and used to be the main transportation node in Chongqing, a major city in Southwest China and the most important port on the golden waterway of the upper Yangtze River. After the walled city was built in the late eighteenth century, Jiangbeicheng became a religious, cultural and economic center of Chongqing on the north bank for more than a century until 1950s. In the reform era after late 1970s, however, Jiangbeicheng declined into a poor, sluggish and forgotten community. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the town was completely demolished in order to be transformed into an entirely rebuilt CBD (Central Business District). The life cycle of this small river town presents a significant case to illustrate the historical process in making modern and urban China in the past two centuries which includes the state manipulation of religions, reshuffle of guilds, and violence against environment. Based on archival research, this paper will illuminate a microhistorical perspective into how local development experience is shaped by and fits into changing political discourses on religion, environment and society through the lens of state building.