China’s Edifice Complex
Key takeaways
- NING LENG is an Assistant Professor at the Mc Court School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and the author of Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China.
- Why Beijing Can’t Stop Wasteful Spending
- For decades, government officials have built grand, showy projects that prioritize size and appearance over practicality, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.
NING LENG is an Assistant Professor at the Mc Court School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and the author of Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China.
Why Beijing Can’t Stop Wasteful Spending
China is suffering from enormous waste. For decades, government officials have built grand, showy projects that prioritize size and appearance over practicality, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability. Projects such as sprawling but underused airports, oversized but empty exhibition centers, and futuristic technology zones disconnected from industrial needs have proliferated in virtually every sector in which the state has tried to encourage development. Officials have pursued these highly visible projects to impress their superiors and showcase their achievements, but in doing so they often take away resources from less glamorous but more effective development initiatives, ultimately holding back China’s growth.