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Abstract: This paper systematically reviews the different stages of China's urbanization process since 1949, its achievements and problems it faces. It offers in-depth discussion on the trends of Chinese urbanization, i.e. maintaining rapid growth; making small and medium- sized cities the main driver in development; and focusing on central and western China as the major areas to be urbanized. This paper analyzes new-type urbanization for instance to set up comprehensive urban system that meets the requirements of having a high urbanization level, such as focusing on developing medium-sized cities of one to two million people, using city clusters to encourage population concentration and following an urban construction model that is intensive and compact; and finally this paper proposes policy suggestions for boosting the healthy development of new-type urbanization, including reforming current models for urban-rural governance and establishing development zones, reactivating the normal process of creating cities, and establishing and improving relevant policy systems.
Keywords: Chinese urbanization, development stages, strategic vision
JEL Classifications: ROO, N95
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The 18th CPC National Congress has highlighted the strategic mission to steadily push forward urbanization in China with the belief that urbanization can effectively solve the greatest structural problem facing China's economy: internal and external imbalances. By pursuing the strategy of urbanization, China hopes to effectively boost its internal demand and thus ensure a positive economic momentum of long-term, rapid and sound growth. Since its pro-market reform in 1979, China has achieved huge economic success, created an exportoriented open economic system that is fully integrated with the global economy and global labor division, but at the same time has increased its dependency on external demand. On the one hand, pro-market reform has facilitated 30 years of rapid growth; on the other hand, it has resulted in unstainable economic growth and rendered China vulnerable to global economic fluctuations, causing the problem of imbalances between internal and external demand. In fact, for a big developing country, long-term, rapid and sound economic growth has to be driven by external and internal demands together, which should play their due roles and complement each other to stabilize total demand. The deteriorating global economic situation and China's macroeconomic policy of "maintaining growth" place a greater emphasis on boosting internal demand.