China’s Urbanization Progress and Urban Change: Sustainability Cannot Be Divorced from China’s Future Development

Undoubtedly, China’s urbanisation progress is one of the most remarkable transformations in modern history. It is a story of unprecedented speed and scale, driven by both policy decisions and economic forces [19, 50, 51, 72, 82]. From the historical context, we see China has a long history of urbanisation and even a much higher rate before compared to most developed countries. But, China’s modern urbanisation can be traced back to the late 1970s when economic reforms, notably the opening up policies led by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 (i.e., the Open Door Policy), spurred rapid industrialisation and urban growth [13, 15, 17, 41, 60]. This new era led China to open for new directions and investment, focusing on economic reforms, industrialisation drive, urban growth and migration, foreign investment, technology transfer, and social and cultural changes [31, 52, 90, 94]. The multiplicity of this opening up was so significant that created a foundation for China’s emergence [7, 18, 33] as a global economic power later on.