China's "New" Socialist City

China’s “New” Socialist City: From Red Aesthetics to Standard Urban Governance Carolyn Cartier University of Technology Sydney b pu ePr Forthcoming in Lisa Drummond and Douglas Young (eds), Socialist and Post-Socialist Urbanisms, Toronto University Press. Introduction Any traveller in China intently observing the urban landscape sees the symbolic signage lic of the civilized city. Its forms appear in long banners, draped across building facades or hung across streets, in the red aesthetic of political propaganda that gained ascendency in at the Cultural Revolution – emblazoned with jumbo Chinese characters. Civilized city signage also appears on modern billboards along inter-city expressways. Whether io traditional or contemporary forms, their repetitive slogans exhort civility with socialist n characteristics. They differ yet follow predictable formulas, promoting socialist virtues that echo statements of the Maoist era. “Collectively strive to be civilized, together build m a civilized city” (Zhengzuo wenming ren, gongchuan wenming cheng 争做文明人, 共创文明 城). “Cultivate a civilized atmosphere, act as civilized citizens and create a civilized city” an (Shu wenming xinfeng, zuo wenming shimin, chuang wenming chengshi 树文明新风，做文 明市民，创文明城市). To the uninitiated, however, the banners appear more like ribboned us paraphernalia for the opening of a new building. Even for readers of Chinese, such slogans would seem out of step with the minimalist landscapes of high modernism in t ip cr China’s new cities. Figures 1 and 2. Or are they? Figure 1. “Strive to Become Civilized Citizens, Strive to Become a Civilized City.” Shenzhen, 2005. (Photograph by the author) io at lic b pu ePr Xi’an, 2013. (Photograph by the author) n Figure 2. “Establish a National Civilized City, Construct and International Metropolis.” us an m t ip cr 2 This chapter introduces the National Civilized City (Quanguo wenming chengshi 全国文明 a policy program of the Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee of the Chinese b pu ePr 城市), Communist Party (CCP). Based on analysis of the Party documents, I assess its meanings as a contemporary policy program and technique of urban governance in relation to the twentieth century history of ideas that witnessed the melding of European philosophy, about civilization, with Chinese ideas about models and exemplary citizens as models for society. To set the stage, I first introduce prevailing research trends on the city in China and the apparent contradictions between new built forms, symbolizing the apparent lic arrival of capitalism, and the red legacies of model programs among which the National Civilized City is paramount. Not a planning program in the conventional sense, the at National Civilized City is an evolving policy regime designed to improve the urban condition. It is also a staunch reminder of the role of the Party-state in governing the io modernization and development in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). n With images of spectacular new buildings surging in the global mediascape, the visual m impact of urbanizing China – punctuated by novel architecture, megamalls and forests of high-rise apartments towering over fading villages – represents the country’s rapid an economic growth. Skyscrapers in China’s new central business districts stand to compete with those in world and global cities, from Hong Kong and Singapore to New York and us beyond. The “red aesthetics” of the civilized city would seem to be particularly out of synch with the frenzied building of China’s new high-rise “worlding” landscapes (Ong ip cr 2011, 4). Perhaps the idea of the civilized city is better interpreted within the logic of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” (Huang 2008), which originates in “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” a core ideology of the CCP. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics points to the difference between marketization of the economy, with its t production of capitalist forms in the built environment, and orthodox Party thought and its political capacities to govern society. The original expression comes from the early reform era when, at the landmark 12th National Party Congress, in 1982, Deng Xiaoping 3 declared, “we must…blaze a path of our own and build a socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Deng 1982). Yet the scholarship of China’s “reform and opening” largely treated China through the b pu ePr framework of economic transition, reflecting, and consistent with, transformations in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Through the 1990s, even the China specialist literature rarely ventured to consider how the CCP would maintain ruling power and even revive socialist policy. For example, entering “transition” and “China” in Ngram viewer, with a date range of 1970-2008, and a smoothing of three, shows that “transition” peaked in 1995. Research continued to adopt assumptions about transition and transition theory through the 1990s, and little of it considered how or in what ways lic the CCP would continue its socialist policies through the turn of the century. at In addition, most contemporary research on cities in China follows the lead of urban and regional planning in the Chinese academy, which concerns restructuring the functional io use of urban space for continuing economic development. In the 1990s, for example, economic restructuring focused on transforming urban cores for services industries and n the new consumer economy. When China’s coastal cities opened to the world economy in m the 1980s, the built environments of central business districts bore pre-war facades. Some were even marked by large industrial plants. Lack of commercial development of the city an in the era of the socialist planned economy owed to Mao’s infamous urban-economic dictum: “turn consumer cities into producer cities” (ba xiaofei chengshi biencheng us shengchan chengshi 把消费城市变成生产城市). Transforming the built environment of the Mao-era producer cities into new commercial landscapes required “demolition and ip cr relocation,” including the socialist housing of many former factory work units (Wilhelm 2004). Frequently, relocation has required removal to new high-rise development projects on distant ring roads. This process makes the new commercial urban cores in historic cities emblematic of “urban transition” in China (Friedman 2005; McGee et al 2007; t Tang and Chung 2002). Models and Model Cities 4 Here we take a different approach to the urban condition by viewing the city through China’s model city program for civilized cities. The National Civilized City is the highest “honour” bestowed on a city in China. It is one of several “model city” programs in the contemporary PRC, yet where other programs target improvement of particular b pu ePr conditions in the city, the National Civilized City is a general award for overall improvement of the material and social environment of the city. The National Civilized City is also a Party program, administered under the CCP Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee. Its agenda covers a set of categories of urban governance, from incorruptible and efficient environment for public affairs to healthy and progressive human environment and solid and effective foundation for rural-urban policy implementation. These aspirational conditions indicate how the honour of National Civilized City is not a lic conventional award. Its conditions institutionalize a process of striving to improve. Neither is it a one-off award or irrevocable. It requires application, evaluation and at subsequent reevaluation, or continual and periodic reinstantiation. Moreover, a corruption incident in an honoured civilized jurisdiction results in loss of the honour. Thus where the io National Civilized City distinction depends on corruption-free officialdom, it links the behaviour of local Party officials to the city’s civilized standing in the national landscape n (Cartier 2013). m The idea of models and model conduct in China has a long history and significantly an antedates the idea of model cities and the founding of the People’s Republic. The idea of model behaviour in China traces history to the Confucian tradition of upholding learned us men as exemplars of society (Bakken 2000). Local histories of the imperial era at the county level routinely included sections featuring notable and exemplary personages, ip cr including a category for virtuous widows (Leung 1993). In the Mao era, models gained new traction through the Stakhanovite labour mobilization model, originally introduced to China from the Soviet Union in the 1940s. The image of Alexey Stakhanov, a mythologized model worker who symbolized socialist competition through zealously t performative work, became transferred to collective labour in socialist China (Funari and Mees 2013). The labour model unstintingly urged villages, factories and industrial towns to collectively compete to increase production. Exceeding quotas accrued reward and 5 masking failures and faking successes was common (Shapiro, 2001). Under reform, Party thought has also promoted models of human “quality” (suzhi 素质) to urge modernization of rural populations under rapid urbanization (Anagnost 2004). b pu ePr China’s best-known model citizen is Lei Feng, a 1950s-era People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier, whose life has continued to symbolize selfless labour contribution and unwavering socio-political dedication (Penny 2013). Historically, Lei Feng was “Chairman Mao’s good soldier” whose loyalties defined the political sensibility of symbolic social relations between the people and the PLA and the CCP. His model characteristics gained national and enduring proportions through hagiographical accounts (Larson 2009). That the myth and reality of his life continues to engender debate makes lic the model of Lei Feng more important in China’s history than the man. In the reform era, since the 1980s, his symbolic capital has transformed with the new realities of the reform at economy. Images of Lei Feng now adorn various consumer goods, while his symbolic poses frequently include ordinary volunteer activity dedicated to the betterment of urban io society (Jeffreys 2012). Less a Party ideologue and now more an engaged urban citizen, the new Lei Feng cares about your quality of life. Figure 3. n (Photograph by the author) us an m Figure 3. “Establish a Civilized City, Construct a Harmonious Society.” Xiamen, 2013. t ip cr 6 at lic b pu ePr Maoist-era models and the political campaigns used to promote them constitute the io historical and aesthetic roots of the contemporary model city programs. Model cities programs launched in 1997 with the China National Environmental Protection Model n City. They range to include the National Entrepreneurial City, National Model City for m Science and Technology, National Hygienic City and National Excellent City for Comprehensive Management of Public Security (Zhao 2011). The current concept of the an model city continues, in new ways, the use of model places in socialist planning. The two famous model places of the Mao era were Daqing, city of oilfields, and the Dazhai us People’s Commune. In the 1960s, the propaganda apparatus tirelessly urged the nation, “in industry, learn from Daqing” (gongye xue Daqing 工业学大庆), “in agriculture, learn ip cr from Dazhi” (nongye xue Dazhai 农业学大寨). Real and symbolic, these places were geographical contexts and constructs for reproducing a mode of governing involving emulation and repetition (Hoffman 2011, 57). Yet instead of basing a model on particular places, the contemporary National Civilized City program provides a set of aspirational t policies for all cities. What has not changed, from the time of Daqing and Dazhai, is that model city guidelines provide idealized visions of development and officially approved 7 standards for modernization. Past and present, the big red banners with CCP-approved political statements herald such model activities. The first sign of the PRC’s renewed interest the ideological thought of civilizing emerged b pu ePr in the 1980s. Yet in 1986, when the Party Central Committee adopted the “Resolution on Guiding Principles for Building a Socialist Society with Spiritual Civilization,” China was in its first decade of opening to the world economy. The reform era had generated new socio-economic problems and the CCP responded in the usual way, through a political campaign. With international attention focused on China’s new international investment and foreign trade regime in coastal cities, “spiritual civilization” seemed like an atavistic call by the CCP Propaganda Department. But then in 1996, at the 14th Party Congress, the CCP issued the “Resolution Concerning Several Important Questions for lic Strengthening Socialist Spiritual Construction” (CCP Central Committee 1996). The next year the Propaganda Department established the Central Guidance Committee for at Building Spiritual Civilization, whose programs focus on socialization of state values in io the interests of social control (Brady 2008). Where the spiritual civilization campaigns generated by these documents focused on political dimensions and social goals, this n resolution also proposed to carry out trial construction of civilized cities, townships and towns. Thus by the 1990s, when most research on cities focused on urban restructuring m for economic development, CCP planning committees had already initiated official an policy for a new era of civilized places. Tracing the origins of the civilizing imperative leads to an international encounter with us emerging modernity in Japan and its adaptations of European thought from French philosophy. While civilization or wenming 文明 appears scattered in early Chinese texts, ip cr its modern usage in China arrived in the late nineteenth century exchange between China and Japan (Anagnost 1997, 80-81). As Geremie Barmé (2013, xvi-xvii) explains, Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) developed the idea of wenming, or bunmen in Japanese, t in An Outline of the Theory of Civilization, published in 1875, based on François Guizot’s 1828 General History of Civilisation in Europe. For Fukuzawa, civilization meant both material attainment and spiritual refinement. Thereafter, the idea of civilization as 8 economic improvement and civility in society periodically appeared in Chinese social and political thought. After Mao’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1976, the civilizational impulse began to feature again in Chinese political discourse. On National Day in 1979, PLA leader Ye Jianying called on the country not only to build b pu ePr “material civilization” (wuzhi wenming 物质文明) but also to reconstruct China’s “spiritual civilization” (jingshen wenming 精神文明). This distinction retrieved the century-old debate over modernity in Asian society and repositioned it, for renewed guidance, in the reform era. The National Civilized City Program Based on the 1996 proposal to carry out trial construction of civilized cities, townships lic and towns, in 2003 the Spiritual Civilization Committee set standards and selection procedures for National Civilized Cities. It also specified a range of places at distinct at levels of government administration: national civilized cities and districts, civilized villages and towns and civilized (work) units. These levels of government administration io exist in hierarchical scale relations under the central government, in which cities also exist at three levels: province-level city, prefecture-level city and county-level city. n Urban districts, which are subsidiary governing areas in both province-level and m prefecture-level cities, may gain the award only in province-level cities – Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The rank and size of these four cities make only their an subsidiary districts eligible for civilized city status. Work units of state enterprises continue to exist, such as educational institutions, hospitals, hotels and more. This us complex matrix plays out in the following way, for example, in Shanghai, a work unit is eligible in a civilized district whereas Shanghai at large cannot receive the honour. The ip cr broader rationale reflects the history of establishing cities in the PRC under reform. Before the 1980s, territories at the prefecture and county levels were largely rural, and the number of cities was fewer than 200 total. In the 1980s, China began transforming prefectures and counties into prefecture-level and county-level cities. By the 2000s, the t number of cities exceeded 600 and has stabilized at around 650. In the context of rapid urbanization, with hundreds of relatively new cities, the National Civilized City program – drawing on the PRC’s socialist models as well as deeper history in Chinese philosophy 9 and aesthetics – exists to support and guide urban development and modernization. In 2005, the Spiritual Civilization Committee published a National Civilized City Assessment System in the form of manuals for each administrative jurisdiction of award, updated in 2008, 2011 and 2014. This analysis adopts the 2011 manual (Central b pu ePr Guidance Committee for Building Spiritual Civilization 2011), and concludes with an introduction to changes in the manual for 2014. The manuals include basic instructions for governments about how to apply for the scheme, beginning with screening and prequalification to enter the site evaluation process. Some prerequisites prevent application. In the year preceding application or evaluation review, any rule violation or crime committed by a jurisdiction’s Party secretary or mayor prevents application or nullifies civilized status, as does any serious accident or incident in the jurisdiction, such lic as pollution of the water supply or a food security incident. Thus attainment of the honour is not an enduring award but the opportunity to hold the title in a continuing process to at strive for improvement or to “civilize” over the ensuing three- to four-year period until the next evaluation. A city’s site evaluation is also a highly visible event with roadsides io outlined by potted flowers and red-jacketed volunteers in public places heightening the intensity of the red banners strung across streets – the appearance of striving for n civilization reprises the aesthetic of a mid-twentieth century Maoist campaign. The cities’ m local Spiritual Civilization Committee offices work with other branches of government to plan and implement activities that will meet established goals, based on over 100 us an indicators in nine categories. Figure 4. Figure 4. National Civilized City Evaluation System – General Evaluation Categories Incorruptible and efficient environment for government affairs Democratic and fair legal environment Fair and honest market environment Healthy and progressive human environment Socio-cultural environment for the healthy development of adolescents Comfortable and convenient living environment Safe and stable social environment Ecologically sustainable environment Solid and effective foundation for rural-urban policy implementatio t ip cr 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 The assessment manual establishes nine broad categories of evaluation, each of which includes three subsidiary levels. Category one of the evaluation system, incorruptible and b pu ePr efficient environment for government affairs, demonstrates the legacy of exemplary conduct in Chinese society while it seeks to strengthen contemporary tenets of Party organization. It has three main indexes, leading with continuing education for officials followed by administrative code of conduct and satisfactory measures for honest and industrious government officials. Each of these diversifies into two or more points of evaluation content under which fall detailed goals that include general and specific standards to be measured by evaluation. In the administrative code of conduct, the lic evaluation criteria break down into three separate sets of goals each one of which includes three to five items. Within these, practical goals urge cities to introduce expert at advisory systems for public information, maintain a public service hotline with electronic access and effective response mechanism, and accept oversight of the news media and n io feedback from the general public. The standards are challenging to achieve. Some represent ideals that reflect shifting m political winds. Where most cities in China have a citizens’ services centre, much like a city hall with information for local residents, including online resources, an open system an that would incorporate journalistic oversight remains highly limited in the PRC. (Freedom of the press in China in 2015, as assessed by Reporters without Borders, ranks us at 176 out of 180 total countries, four places lower than in 2010.) But the illustrative event is the 2013 “Southern Weekend incident” in which the Southern Weekend media ip cr group, in Guangzhou, encountered new restrictions from the state propaganda apparatus after a decade-long run of relatively open, distinctive national reporting. (“Outrage at Guangdong Newspaper Forced to Run Party Commentary” 2013). The Southern Weekend newspaper had gained reputation as a relatively strong, open voice in the t national media landscape. In the mid-2000s, Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong, was also a national leader in the early 11 implementation of China’s open government information initiative (Horsely, 2007), which also encourages governments to place online new policies and regulations. In response to the National Civilized City program, city officials have become publicly b pu ePr involved in promoting their interpretations of the civilized city as well as general and specific civilizing measures. In 2009, the mayor of Shenzhen, on the Hong Kong border, which opened in 1979 as China’s first special economic zone, launched a network of mayors to create civilized cities (“Mayor Xu Zongheng guests on Shenzhen News Network to Talk about the Civilized City” 2009). His leadership led to a series of television news-talk shows featuring mayors and Party secretaries parsing interpretations of civilization for the contemporary city. These officials contributed to popularizing the idea through contemporary information streams, while also acting in the tradition of lic exemplars in society. As spokesmen, they embodied elements of the National Civilized City program, demonstrating how it works as a “tactics of government” and “dynamic at form and historic stabilization of societal power relations” (Lemke 2002, 58). By placing io the conduct of Party officials at the top of the National Civilized City evaluation system, the Spiritual Civilization Committee exacts a governing relationship between the Party, n officials and society. This capacity reaches its fullest optimization in the relationship between the National Civilized City award and the ranks of officialdom in which the m Spiritual Civilization Committee rescinds the honour in the event of any corruption an incident by either the Party secretary or mayor in an awarded jurisdiction. A bond between the city and moral authority of ranking officials works to impart awareness and regularity of action and rectitude in officialdom at large. It draws on Chinese history of us exemplars in society, and contributes to highlighting responsibilities of Party members in the PRC where authoritarian power of the Party prevails over regulation and policy. ip cr Among the cities honoured as National Civilized Cities in 2005, six have retained the status through the 2009 and 2011 evaluations, including Xiamen, another city opened to t the world economy in 1980, as a special economic zone. In 2009, the Spiritual Civilization Committee recognized 11 new cities and three new urban districts, and retained titles for all cities and districts named in 2005, except for Qingdao and the 12 Pudong district of Shanghai. For 2011, 24 cities and three districts attained the honour. Among existing titleholders, all remained “civilized” except Shenzhen, Zhongshan and Jing’an district, Shanghai, which was recognized in 2009. In 2011, Qingdao and Shanghai Pudong re-attained National Civilized City status. After the 2011 evaluation b pu ePr round, 50 cities or districts were awarded the honour. On what basis then do cities fail to regain the honour? The documentary record of the Spiritual Civilization Committee provides no record of the assessment process or nullification of the award. Since Party documents are distinct from government documents, they are not part of the government’s open information initiative. Available records of the National Civilized City list only honoured places by name, i.e. only the lic name of cities listed in order by administrative rank, from prefecture-level cities and districts of provincial-level cities to civilized towns and civilized units. When a city loses at its title, its name simply disappears from the list. io The National Civilized City program amalgamates existing policies from multiple government bureaus. Thus variation in the durability of the reward, i.e. loss of the n honour, must also reflect issues in administrative jurisdictions. It turns out that, in several m instances, the timing of corruption cases correlates with loss of civilized city status. The city of Shenzhen lost its status after Xu Zongheng, the mayor who championed the an civilized city concept, was removed from office in 2011 in association with buying and selling official appointments (“Just the Tip of an Iceberg for Official Graft” 2011). The us Shandong province capital of Qingdao lost its title in 2009 after authorities discovered its Party secretary, Du Shicheng, took millions in bribes, and awarded his mistress large ip cr contracts for Olympics-related projects during preparations for the sailing competition of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (“Du Shicheng 626 Million Yuan in Bribes Mostly Involves Two Women” 2008). The Pudong district of Shanghai, site of the city’s new financial district, also lost its title in association with corrupt real estate dealings. The vice-mayor t of Pudong from 2004-07 had gained the monicker “new landlord of Pudong” and “director of real estate speculation” in the process of profiting from granting access to land for development (“Shanghai ‘Director of Real Estate Speculation’ Sentenced to Life 13 in Prison” 2009). Yet like the periodic evaluation process instantiated within the model, a former civilized city can strive to improve to regain its award. For example, in March 2013, Shenzhen became the first city to implement a civility law to make “uncivilized” public behaviours subject to fines (“Civility Law to Take Effect March 1” 2013). b pu ePr Roles of Party and government officials in upholding the values of the National Civilized City would appear to hew primarily to suzhi-related categories of moral conduct and social models. Yet, by comparison, category four, healthy and progressive human environment, melds socialist values and practices with measures of contemporary urban governance. It features six main indexes, each of which includes up to eight points of subsidiary evaluation that run the gamut from Lei Feng-style models to development of lic creative industry. They are: establishment of socialist values and morals, national education, development of cultural professions and cultural industry, activities and at facilities for culture and sport, popularization of science, citizens’ civilized behaviour, and social conduct and volunteerism (Spiritual Civilization Committee 2011, 12-19). io Volunteerism is also a practice from the Maoist era, when armies of volunteers supplied labour for rural development projects. Now, according to the manual, more than 90 n percent of the citizens of a city must demonstrate awareness of volunteer service m organizations, and at least eight percent must participate in volunteer work in order for the city to qualify. Urban volunteers are mostly women and students, and especially an women retirees since the official retirement age for women remains 55 years of age. This volunteer labour economy meets the new urban cultural economy where public libraries us and sports facilities must provide regular, free activity programs, and museums and cultural and exhibition centres must provide free entry in order to be civilized. The ip cr civilized city must also make an economic commitment to cultural services for which the evaluation standard is evidence of local government spending on the cultural sector at a rate in keeping with its general revenue growth. The concept is not unlike a one percent for art policy in cities around the world that maintain commitment to the cultural sector in t the public interest. With the second edition of National Civilized City manual, in 2009, the program 14 incorporated standard measures of environmental quality. These reflect new directions in orthodox Party thought adopted in 2007. That year, the Party chairman and president, Hu Jintao, proposed the concept of “ecological civilization” as “a future-oriented guiding principle” in his report to the 17th National Party Congress of the CCP (China Daily b pu ePr 2007). Attribution of the concept to the PRC’s paramount leader reflects the authoritarian power of the single-party state in which adoption of a position by the chairman of the CCP, in a formal report, signals its fundamental acceptance and future incorporation into general policy at all levels. Stressed as “not a term the Party has coined just to fill in a theoretical vacancy in its socialism with Chinese characteristics,” ecological civilization “reflects an important change in the Party’s understanding of development.” “Rather than emphasizing economic construction as the core of development as it did in the past, the lic Party authorities have come to realize that…the construction of ecological civilization…needs to be transformed into tangible measures that will change the way our at economy develops” (ibid.). The narrative shows continuity in Party thought, from socialism with Chinese characteristics to socialism with ecological characteristics, as well io as the PRC’s continuing approach to development through emphasis on “construction” (jianshe 建设), a keyword of the socialist lexicon. Tellingly, where jian in jianshe means n to construct, the she in jianshe means, in addition to build, to establish and display. We m can glean from jianshe the sense of material effects in which the approach to construction of the city involves, in Party committee planning, a sanctioned work plan and application an of labour and technology to accomplish established, visible goals. Now, tangible measures of construction for ecological civilization feature in the evaluation criteria of us the National Civilized City program. ip cr Category eight of the National Civilized City evaluation system – ecologically sustainable environment – remains consistent with the approach of constructing improvement by applying technology to monitor and achieve environmental standards. It promotes contemporary governing standards for the urban environmental through three t main indexes: greening the urban environment, environmental quality and management, and land use management standards. Each reflects the continuing role of urban and economic planning in urban modernization. Indexes for greening the urban environment 15 evaluate the extent of green space in residential areas and public park area per capita. Environmental quality management incorporates expectations for a range of tools to support awareness of problems of pollution, including urban noise pollution. The evaluation criteria for civilized air quality require meeting national air quality standards b pu ePr over 290 days per year. This goal sets the bar too high for some cities, while many urban governments have now expanded air quality monitoring of the standard indicators – PM2.5, O3, CO, PM10, SO2 and NO2 – through an integrated, spatially distributed systems of stations. Where even in the mid-2000s information on particulate matter and air pollutants was not generally available in China (Cartier 2013), now anyone with access to the Internet can look up the air quality index of major cities in China at aqicn.org. lic Until 2014, the National Civilized City Assessment System manual had nine general at evaluation categories. The 2014 manual introduced a new category and placed it first: central civilization committee key-point work. This new category of evaluation features io 10 main indexes and 30 points of evaluation. By comparison with the other categories, and given its priority placement in the manual, the new evaluation category strengthens n Party support for the policy work of the Spiritual Civilization Committee. The word m “central” in the name of the category refers to the central government and top-level Party committees. The category’s points of evaluation include strengthening socialism with an Chinese characteristics and new measures for implementation of the goals and targets of civilizing, at all levels of government. The new manual for 2014 is also restructured. us Instead of adding 30 new points of evaluation to the existing 111 points in the 2011 manual, the 2014 manual pares back the overall number to 100 total points of evaluation. ip cr Thus the key-point work of the Spiritual Civilization Committee now occupies nearly one-third of the directive content for assessment of the civilized city. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, who became general secretary of the CCP and president of the PRC in 2012, the Party has sought to consolidate power and strengthen the domestic t security apparatus (Lampton 2015). These priorities now appear in policy documents of all Party committees and government departments. The prominence of core activities of 16 the Spiritual Civilization Committee in the current National Civilized City program places greater emphasis on ideological forms of social control in the city. Conclusions: a hybrid model of standard urban governance b pu ePr The PRC has been developing hundreds of new cities under reform, requiring a broad approach to urban modernization and development. Still, many of its policy forms are neither readily visible to observers nor directly comparable to approaches in international urban planning. The National Civilized City program articulates measures for achievement of multiple urban development goals by promoting coordinated modernization among spheres of government, society, the economy, the environment and culture-as-conceived-by-the-state. It promotes replicability of governing standards and lic seeks to entrain both officials and citizens in reproduction of a PRC-defined urban modernity. Its expansive brief underscores how the program has grown beyond a set of at political-linguistic techniques for socializing citizen conduct, in ideas about population quality, to become a general governing approach for improving the urban environment. io The role of Party officials in upholding standards of the civilized city, through exemplary conduct, underscores the program’s capacity for meta-governance. n m As a Party program, with continuing use of red slogans, the National Civilized City is also a commercialized form of socialist mobilization, or agitprop, linking Maoist an traditions of mobilizing the masses and model strategies with contemporary urban planning. The civilized city’s formal and aesthetic roots lie in the Mao-era political us campaigns, employing model people and places to socialize results. Today, these results tally-up in response to promotion of standard governing measures. In addition, instead of ip cr promoting a model based on a particular place, the National Civilized City program operationalizes the style of a political campaign to promote a standardized model of urban management for all cities. Where the current program continues the tradition of mobilizing volunteers, it combines techniques of social control with initiatives for t generating citizen awareness of and participation in maintaining quality of life in the city. Propaganda continues, while building the new modern city incorporates governing measures that strike a new bargain with urban citizens. The model of the National 17 Civilized City establishes a set of rules, regulations and standards that transmit the current ideal of officially approved and guided urban modernization. This new socialist city in the PRC is becoming a world-class city with Chinese characteristics. n io at lic b pu ePr us an m t ip cr 18 References Anagnost, Ann. 1997. 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