Economy

Shanghai is the commercial and financial center of mainland China, and ranks 13th in the 2017 edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (and fourth most competitive in Asia after Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo) published by the Z/Yen Group and Qatar Financial Centre Authority.[70] It also ranks the most expensive city to live in Mainland China, according to the study of economist Intelligence Unit in 2017.[71] It was the largest and most prosperous city in East Asia during the 1930s, and rapid re-development began in the 1990s.[16] This is exemplified by the Pudong District, a former swampland reclaimed to serve as a pilot area for integrated economic reforms. By the end of 2009, there were 787 financial institutions, of which 170 were foreign-invested.[72] In 2009, the Shanghai Stock Exchange ranked third among worldwide stock exchanges in terms of trading volume and sixth in terms of the total capitalization of listed companies, and the trading volume of six key commodities including rubber, copper and zinc on the Shanghai Futures Exchange all ranked first in the world.[73] In September 2013, with the backing of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang the city launched the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone-the first free-trade zone in mainland China. The Zone introduced a number of pilot reforms designed to create a preferential environment for foreign investment. In April 2014, The Banker reported that Shanghai "has attracted the highest volumes of financial sector foreign direct investment in the Asia-Pacific region in the 12 months to the end of January 2014".[74] In August 2014, Shanghai was named FDi magazine's Chinese Province of the Future 2014/15 due to "particularly impressive performances in the Business Friendliness and Connectivity categories, as well as placing second in the Economic Potential and Human Capital and Lifestyle categories".[75]In the last two decades Shanghai has been one of the fastest developing cities in the world. Since 1992 Shanghai has recorded double-digit growth almost every year except during the global recession of 2008 and 2009.[76] In 2011, Shanghai's total GDP grew to 1.92 trillion yuan (US$297 billion) with GDP per capita of 82,560 yuan (US $12,784).[9] The three largest service industries are financial services, retail, and real estate. The manufacturing and agricultural sectors accounted for 39.9 percent and 0.7 percent of the total output respectively.[72] Average annual disposable income of Shanghai residents, based on the first three quarters of 2009, was 21,871 RMB.[77]Located at the heart of the Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai has the world's busiest container port, which handled 29.05 million TEUs in 2010.[78] Shanghai aims to be an international shipping center in the near future.[79]Shanghai is one of the main industrial centers of China, playing a key role in China's heavy industries. A large number of industrial zones, including Shanghai Hongqiao Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jinqiao Export Economic Processing Zone, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Shanghai Caohejing High-Tech Development Zone, are backbones of Shanghai's secondary industry. Heavy industries accounted for 78% of the gross industrial output in 2009. China's largest steelmaker Baosteel Group, China's largest shipbuilding base – Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group, and the Jiangnan Shipyard, one of China's oldest shipbuilders are all located in Shanghai.[80][81] Auto manufacture is another important industry. The Shanghai-based SAIC Motor is one of the three largest automotive corporations in China, and has strategic partnerships with Volkswagen and General Motors.[82]The conference and meeting sector is also growing. In 2012, the city hosted 780 international gatherings, up from 754 in 2011. The high supply of hotel rooms has kept room rates lower than expected, with the average room rate for four- and five-star hotels in 2012 at just RMB950 (US$153).[83]As of September 2013, Shanghai is also home to the largest free-trade zone in mainland China, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone. The zone covers an area of 29 km2 and integrates four existing bonded zones — Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, Waigaoqiao Free Trade Logistics Park, Yangshan Free Trade Port Area and Pudong Airport Comprehensive Free Trade Zone. Several preferential policies have been implemented to attract foreign investment in various industries to the FTZ. Because the Zone is not technically considered PRC territory for tax purposes, commodities entering the zone are not subject to duty and customs clearance as would otherwise be the case.

Transport

Shanghai has an extensive public transport system, largely based on metros, buses and taxis. Payment of all these public transportation tools can be made by using the Shanghai Public Transportation Card.Shanghai's rapid transit system, the Shanghai Metro, incorporates both subway and light metro lines and extends to every core urban district as well as neighboring suburban districts.As of 2016, there are 14 metro lines (excluding the Shanghai Maglev Train and Jinshan Railway), 364 stations and 588 km (365 mi) of lines in operation, making it the longest network in the world.[104] On December 31, 2016 it set a record of daily ridership of 11.7 million.[105] The fare depends on the length of travel distance starting from 3 RMB.In 2010, Shanghai returned tram, this time as a modern rubber tyred Translohr system, in Zhangjiang area of East Shanghai as Zhangjiang Tram.Shanghai also has the world's most extensive network of urban bus routes, with nearly one thousand bus lines, operated by numerous transportation companies.[106] The system includes the world's oldest trolleybus system. Bus fare normally costs 2 RMB.Taxis are plentiful in Shanghai. The base fare is currently ¥14 (inclusive of a ¥1 fuel surcharge; ¥18 between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am) which covers the first 3 km (2 mi). Additional km cost ¥2.4 each (¥3.2 between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am).Shanghai is a major hub of China's expressway network. Many national expressways (prefixed with G) pass through or terminate in Shanghai, including G2 Beijing–Shanghai Expressway (overlapping G42 Shanghai–Chengdu), G15 Shenyang–Haikou, G40 Shanghai–Xi'an, G50 Shanghai–Chongqing, G60 Shanghai–Kunming (overlapping G92 Shanghai–Ningbo), and G1501 Shanghai Ring Expressway. In addition, there are also numerous municipal expressways prefixed with S (S1, S2, S20, etc.). Shanghai has one bridge-tunnel crossing spanning the mouth of the Yangtze to the north of the city.In the city center, there are several elevated expressways to lessen traffic pressure on surface streets, but traffic in and around Shanghai is often heavy and traffic jams are commonplace during rush hour. There are bicycle lanes separate from car traffic on many surface streets, but bicycles and motorcycles are banned from most main roads including the elevated expressways.Private car ownership in Shanghai has been rapidly increasing in recent years, but a new private car cannot be driven until the owner buys a license in the monthly private car license plate auction. Around 11,500 license plates are auctioned each month and the average price is about 84,000 RMB ($12,758). According to the municipal regulation in 2016, only those who are Shanghai registered residents or have paid social insurance or individual incomer tax for over 3 years in a row. The purpose of this policy is to limit the growth of automobile traffic and to alleviate congestion.Shanghai has four major railway stations: Shanghai Railway Station, Shanghai South Railway Station, Shanghai West Railway Station, and Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station. Three are connected to the metro network and serve as hubs in the railway network of China. Two main railways terminate in Shanghai: Jinghu Railway from Beijing, and Huhang Railway from Hangzhou. Hongqiao Station also serves as the main Shanghai terminus of three high-speed rail lines: the Shanghai–Hangzhou High-Speed Railway, the Shanghai–Nanjing High-Speed Railway, and the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway.Shanghai is one of the leading air transport gateways in Asia. The city has two commercial airports: Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport.[109] Pudong Airport is the main international airport, while Hongqiao Airport mainly operates domestic flights with limited short-haul international flights. In 2010 the two airports served 71.7 million passengers (Pudong 40.4 million, Hongqiao 31.3 million), and handled 3.7 million tons of cargo (Pudong 3.22 million tons, Hongqiao 480 thousand tons).

Politics

Like virtually all governing institutions in the mainland People's Republic of China, the politics of Shanghai is structured in a dual party-government system,[54] in which the Party Committee Secretary, officially termed the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary (currently Han Zheng), outranks the Mayor (currently Ying Yong).Political power in Shanghai is widely seen as a stepping stone to higher positions in the national government. Since Jiang Zemin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in June 1989, all former Shanghai party secretaries but one were elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the de facto highest decision-making body in China,[54] including Jiang himself (Party General Secretary),[55] Zhu Rongji (Premier),[56] Wu Bangguo (Chairman of the National People's Congress),[57] Huang Ju (Vice Premier),[58] Xi Jinping (current General Secretary),[59] and Yu Zhengsheng. Zeng Qinghong, a former deputy party secretray of Shanghai, also rose to the Politburo Standing Committee and became the Vice President and an influential power broker.[60] The only exception is Chen Liangyu, who was fired in 2006 and later convicted of corruption.[61] Officials with ties to the Shanghai administration form a powerful faction in the national government, the so-called Shanghai Clique, which was often thought to compete against the rival Youth League Faction over personnel appointments and policy decisions.[62] Xi Jinping, successor to Hu Jintao as General Secretary and President, was a compromise candidate between the two groups with supporters in both camps.

Geography

Shanghai lies on China's east coast roughly equidistant from Beijing and Guangzhou. The Old City and modern downtown Shanghai are now located in the center of an expanding peninsula between the Yangtze River Delta to the north and Hangzhou Bay to the south, formed by the Yangtze's natural deposition and by modern land reclamation projects. The provincial-level Municipality of Shanghai administers both the eastern area of this peninsula and many of its surrounding islands. It is bordered on the north and west by Jiangsu, on the south by Zhejiang, and on the east by the East China Sea. Its northernmost point is on Chongming Island, now the second-largest island in mainland China after its expansion during the 20th century.[44] The municipality does not, however, include an exclave of Jiangsu on northern Chongming or the two islands forming Shanghai's Yangshan Port, which are part of Zhejiang's Shengsi County. This deep-water port was made necessary by the increasing size of container ships but also the silting of the Yangtze, which narrows to less than 20 meters (66 ft) as far out as 45 miles (70 km) from Hengsha.[45]Downtown Shanghai is bisected by the Huangpu River, a man-made tributary of the Yangtze that was created by order of Lord Chunshen during the Warring States period. The historic center of the city was located on the west bank of the Huangpu (Puxi), near the mouth of Suzhou Creek, connecting it with Lake Tai and the Grand Canal. The central financial district Lujiazui has grown up on the east bank of the Huangpu (Pudong). The destruction of local wetlands occasioned by the creation of Pudong International Airport along the peninsula's eastern shore has been somewhat offset by the protection and expansion of the nearby shoals of Jiuduansha as a nature preserve.[46]Shanghai's location on an alluvial plain means that the vast majority of its 6,340.5 km2 (2,448.1 sq mi) land area is flat, with an average elevation of 4 m (13 ft).[6] Its sandy soil has required its skyscrapers to be built with deep concrete piles to stop them from sinking into the soft ground of the central area. The few hills such as She Shan lie to the southwest and the highest point is the peak of Dajinshan Island in Hangzhou Bay (103 m or 338 ft).[6] The city has many rivers, canals, streams and lakes and is known for its rich water resources as part of the Lake Tai drainage area.[5]

Demographics

The 2010 census put Shanghai's total population at 23,019,148, a growth of 37.53% from 16,737,734 in 2000.[86][87] 20.6 million of the total population, or 89.3%, are urban, and 2.5 million (10.7％) are rural.[88] Based on the population of its total administrative area, Shanghai is the second largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of China, behind Chongqing, but is generally considered the largest Chinese city because Chongqing's urban population is much smaller.[89]Shanghai also has 150,000 officially registered foreigners, including 31,500 Japanese, 21,000 Americans and 20,700 Koreans, but the real number of foreign citizens in the city is probably much higher.[90] Shanghai is also a domestic immigration city, which means a huge population of citizens come from other cities in China.

History

During the Spring and Autumn period, the Shanghai area belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, which was conquered by the Kingdom of Yue, which in turn was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu.[26] During the Warring States period, Shanghai was part of the fief of Lord Chunshen of Chu, one of the Four Lords of the Warring States. He ordered the excavation of the Huangpu River. Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, gave Shanghai its nickname of "Shen".[26] Fishermen living in the Shanghai area then created a fishing tool called the hu, which lent its name to the outlet of Suzhou Creek north of the Old City and became a common nickname and abbreviation for the city.During the Tang and Song dynasties, Qinglong Town (青龙镇) in modern Qingpu District was a major trading port. Established in 746 (fifth year of the Tang Tianbao era), it developed into what contemporary sources called a "giant town of the Southeast", with thirteen temples and seven pagodas. The famous Song scholar and artist Mi Fu served as its mayor. The port had a thriving trade with provinces along the Yangtze River and the Chinese coast, as well as foreign countries such as Japan and Silla.[2]By the end of the Song dynasty, the center of trading had moved downstream of the Wusong River to Shanghai,[27] which was upgraded in status from a village to a market town in 1074, and in 1172 a second sea wall was built to stabilize the ocean coastline, supplementing an earlier dike.[28] From the Yuan dynasty in 1292 until Shanghai officially became a municipality in 1927, central Shanghai was administered as a county under Songjiang Prefecture, whose seat was at the present-day Songjiang District.[29]Two important events helped promote Shanghai's development in the Ming dynasty. A city wall was built for the first time in 1554 to protect the town from raids by Japanese pirates. It measured 10 metres (33 feet) high and 5 kilometres (3 miles) in circumference.[30] During the Wanli reign (1573–1620), Shanghai received an important psychological boost from the erection of a City God Temple in 1602. This honour was usually reserved for prefectural capitals and not normally given to a mere county seat such as Shanghai. It probably reflected the town's economic importance, as opposed to its low political status.[30]During the Qing dynasty, Shanghai became one of the most important sea ports in the Yangtze Delta region as a result of two important central government policy changes: In 1684, the Kangxi Emperor reversed the Ming dynasty prohibition on oceangoing vessels – a ban that had been in force since 1525; and in 1732 the Yongzheng Emperor moved the customs office for Jiangsu province (江海关; see Customs House, Shanghai) from the prefectural capital of Songjiang to Shanghai, and gave Shanghai exclusive control over customs collections for Jiangsu's foreign trade. As a result of these two critical decisions, by 1735 Shanghai had become the major trade port for all of the lower Yangtze region, despite still being at the lowest administrative level in the political hierarchy.[31]International attention to Shanghai grew in the 19th century due to European recognition of its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze. During the First Opium War (1839–1842), British forces occupied the city. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which allowed the British to dictate opening the treaty ports, Shanghai included, for international trade.[32] The Treaty of the Bogue signed in 1843, and the Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia signed in 1844 forced Chinese concession to European and American desires for visitation and trade on Chinese soil. Britain, France (under the 1844 Treaty of Whampoa), and the United States all carved out concessions outside the walled city of Shanghai, which was still ruled by the Chinese.The Chinese-held old city of Shanghai fell to the rebels of the Small Swords Society in 1853 but was recovered by the Qing government in February 1855.[33] In 1854, the Shanghai Municipal Council was created to manage the foreign settlements. Between 1860–1862, the Taiping rebels twice attacked Shanghai and destroyed the city's eastern and southern suburbs, but failed to take the city.[34] In 1863, the British settlement to the south of Suzhou Creek (northern Huangpu District) and the American settlement to the north (southern Hongkou District) joined in order to form the Shanghai International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council and maintained its own concession to the south and southwest."Bloody Saturday": a baby in the ruins of the old Shanghai South Railway Station after Japanese bombing in August 1937Citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work during the ensuing decades; those who stayed for long periods – some for generations – called themselves "Shanghailanders".[35] In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Russians and Russian Jews fled the newly established Soviet Union and took up residence in Shanghai. These Shanghai Russians constituted the second-largest foreign community. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners.[36] In the 1930s, some 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city.[37]The Sino-Japanese War concluded with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which elevated Japan to become another foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were soon copied by other foreign powers. Shanghai was then the most important financial center in the Far East. All this international activity gave Shanghai the nickname "the Great Athens of China".[38]Under the Republic of China, Shanghai's political status was raised to that of a municipality on 14 July 1927. Although the territory of the foreign concessions was excluded from their control, this new Chinese municipality still covered an area of 828.8 square kilometres (320.0 sq mi), including the modern-day districts of Baoshan, Yangpu, Zhabei, Nanshi, and Pudong. Headed by a Chinese mayor and municipal council, the new city government's first task was to create a new city center in Jiangwan town of Yangpu district, outside the boundaries of the foreign concessions. The "Greater Shanghai Plan" included a public museum, library, sports stadium, and city hall, which were partially constructed when the plan was interrupted by the Japanese invasion.[39]On 28 January 1932, Japanese forces struck and the Chinese resisted, fighting to a standstill; a ceasefire was brokered in May. The Battle of Shanghai in 1937 resulted in the occupation of the Chinese administered parts of Shanghai outside of the International Settlement and the French Concession. The foreign concessions were occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and remained occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945, during which time war crimes were committed.[40]On 27 May 1949, the People's Liberation Army took control of Shanghai. Under the new People's Republic of China (PRC), Shanghai was one of only three municipalities not merged into neighboring provinces over the next decade (the others being Beijing and Tianjin).[41] Shanghai underwent a series of changes in the boundaries of its subdivisions over the next decade. After 1949, most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong, as part of a foreign divestment due to the Communist victory.During the 1950s and 1960s, Shanghai became the center for radical leftism since it was the industrial centre of China with most skilled industrial workers. The radical leftist Jiang Qing and her three cohorts, together the Gang of Four, were based in the city.[42] Yet, even during the most tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai was able to maintain high economic productivity and relative social stability. During most of the history of the PRC, Shanghai has been a comparatively heavy contributor of tax revenue to the central government, with Shanghai in 1983 contributing more in tax revenue to the central government than Shanghai had received in investment in the prior 33 years combined.[43] This came at the cost of severely crippling welfare of Shanghainese people and Shanghai's infrastructural and capital development. Its importance to the fiscal well-being of the central government also denied it economic liberalizations begun in 1978. Shanghai was finally permitted to initiate economic reforms in 1991, starting the massive development still seen today and the birth of Lujiazui in Pudong.