continued gathering of non-capital functions
in the city’s central area, and the worsening
of the metropolitan malaise,” said Lian, high-
lighting the necessity of further integrating
the current two downtown districts to create
a core district for capital functions.
This view is shared by quite a few. At the
2016 annual sessions of China’s top legisla-
tive and political advisory bodies, the Bei-
jing Committee of the Jiusan Society (one
of China’s eight minor political parties) put
forward a proposal which suggested the inte-
gration of Dongcheng and Xicheng to form
a central district, as a way to step up the pro-
tection of the ancient capital city.Challenges for Change
But merging and restructuring would
present a number of challenges to the local
government including massive job cuts in the
public sector. Arranging staff redundancies is
a major headache. As planning expert Lian
Yuming said, even today, Beijing is still strug-
gling to manage the redundancies of public
sector staff that resulted from the 2010 merg-
er of the four downtown districts.
These concerns may have long delayed
the effort to integrate the two districts. But
the drive has regained momentum since the
2014 roll-out of the strategy for regional co-
ordinated development.
Compared with previous urban planning
blueprints for Beijing, the latest version has
one major difference, said Shi Yulong, head
of the Institute of Spatial Planning and Re-gional Economy of the National Develop-
ment and Reform Commission. He pointed
out, with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordi-
nated Development Strategy in mind, com-
piling the new blueprint requires a bigger
vision to accommodate regional inter-con-
nection and interaction.
In a written reply to ChinaReport’s inter-
view request, the Beijing Municipal Plan-
ning and Land Resources Administration
Commission said the new plans, which took
three years to compile and saw seven major
amendments, reflect the new ideas, new de-
mand and new anticipation of the capital’s
development at a key transitional period.
The released draft of the blueprint is one
that focuses on curbing the city’s population,
demands on the ecology and development
boundaries. The plans look to keep Beijing
city’s long-term residents under 23 million in
2020, compared with the city’s 2016 popula-
tion of 21.73 million.
A notable detail was that the new blue-
print was presented to both the CPC Cen-
tral Committee and the State Council for
approval – a rare diversion from the nor-
mal practice of submitting only to the State
Council.
Speaking to ChinaReport, Zhang Keyun, a
member of the China National Planning Ex-
pert Committee and professor at the Renmin
University of China’s Institute of Regional
and Urban Economics, said Beijing city’s
malaise is due to the burden brought by the
concentration of multiple functions and thecapital city’s failure to find a balance between
the role of a capital of the country and the
role of a large city in its own right.
According to Zhang, economic develop-
ment is not a priority for Beijing as a capital,
but it wants to manage its economy as a lo-
cal economic entity. Therefore, he advised,
addressing this issue requires drawing a line
between the city’s functions as a capital and
as a city.
How to go about building a central ad-
ministrative district has sparked heated dis-
cussions. Economist Ren Zeping suggested
two options: the first is to set up a residents’
agency, such as an administrative committee.
The second option is to establish a provin-
cial government, which means the creation
of a new capital and an amendment to the
Constitution.
Ren said the first option shares some simi-
larities to Washington D.C. and the Austra-
lian Capital Territory, and is more likely to
be adopted in the short term. But, he added,
building a central administrative district
within the territory of a capital is not a fea-
sible option for the Chinese capital.
“The US and Australia are federal coun-
tries, which are suited to this arrangement.
But a capital territory is not in line with
China’s legal basis for administrative district
governance. It could also hamper the already
complicated administrative coordination of
the Beijng-Tianjin-Hebei region, and weak-
en the Chinese capital’s strength as the centre
of a world-class urban cluster,” said Ren.The city model of Beijing at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall
Photo by VCG