New urbanisation under globalisation and the social implications in China

China launched a new urbanisation programme for the period of 2014–2020. The new urbanisation programme will produce positive impacts on China’s social and economic development through focusing on integrated urban and rural development, creating city clusters and promoting sustainable urban development. However, the new urbanisation programme may also bring some new social and economic problems, like widening the gap in urban development between different regions in China, leading to the formation of a new urban poor class, based on the current design and implementation. To minimise the negative effect, we suggest to better deal with the relationships between market and government and between economic and social development in the process of urbanisation. We argue that the key is to allow the market to determine the flows of capital, land and people in the process of urbanisation so as to achieve a sustainable development of China’s urbanisation. * Hu: Emerging Markets Institute, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Chen: Policy and Governance Program, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia & the Pacific, The Australian National University, Acton, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia. Corresponding author: Chen, email chunlai.chen@ anu.edu.au