15. Shanghai

“The visitor looks east across the Huangpu River to a skyline of skyscrapers and west down busy Nanjing Road to the People's Park – once the racecourse. The riverside Bund runs north past the notorious garden where the only Chinese allowed in semi-colonial times were nannies with their foreign wards. And it stretches south past the former headquarters the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank towards the original Chinese town, still huddled around a temple, lake and garden… Halfway down Huashan Road on the edge of the former French Concession is the Lilac Garden, with tall camphor trees and a glazed dragon wall… A commercial port in the 13th century, controlling river traffic on the Huangpu and with the delta towns south of the lower Yangtze, Shanghai’s merchants grew rich brokering cotton from the hinterland… The Yangtze estuary is only a short distance downstream. Shanghai is often referred to as ‘the mouth of the Yangtze dragon’… The Treaty of Nanjing established Shanghai and four other cities on the Chinese coast as ‘treaty ports’ where foreigners could reside and trade… By the end of the century, the International and French settlements, both administered by foreign-run councils covered more than 30 sq. kms. (Whilst) the Chinese Communist Party held its first Congress there in 1921, later the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek occupied Shanghai. With its collapse Shanghai was liberated by the victorious Communists when the widow of China’s first Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen proclaimed that ‘Shanghai’s new Day has dawned’. Since independence and the Cultural Revolution Shanghai has swept away most of the traditional Shanghai lanes (lilong) and satellite towns are being built in the suburbs. A new eco-city is planned for Chongming Island in the mouth of the Yangtze, linked to Shanghai by bridge and tunnel. The district of Pudong between the Huangpu River and the sea is the fastest growing urban landscape in China with is skyscrapers and commercial offices. Migrant workers however through whose labour the city has risen again are mostly out of sight, living in temporary barracks behind the new towers of glass and steel”. *

Whilst this synopsis reflects the general evolution of the city, nothing can remotely reflect the staggering pace of the recent development of Shanghai in the 21st century.

From the former riverside buildings along the Bund, these are almost overshadowed by the super-tall towers of Pudong as the Jin Mao Pagoda Tower and the new commercial and financial district opposite.

Some outlines of the former foreign concessions are still noticeable but the city extenuates beyond as new infrastructure has pushed the urban boundaries further outwards.

With its huge new port and international airport and areas of land reclamation in the delta, the south-eastern tip of land outside of Shanghai with its circular development is being shaped around themed Dishui Lake, with adjacent Shanghai Maritime University and its specialist programs administered by the Shanghai Municipality and Ministry of Transportation.

Here, the long offshore Donghai Bridge highway crossing connects with the Yangshan deep-water container port in Zhejiang’s Shengsi County reaching out into the outermost archipelago.

It is these staggering infrastructure developments that have changed the face of much of modern China – from being formerly a predominantly rural country, the push-pull forces of urbanisation have transformed the face of the country for visitors from the outside world with its mega-cities and urbanised perimeters, expressways and modern rail and underground metro systems, personified by the rapid Shanghai Maglev Train to the International Airport.

*John Gittings – China Changes Face – Oxford University Press, 1990.