Port— Hinterland and China's Modernization Process

Author: Compiled by the Center for Historical Geography, Fudan University
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-06-01
Features: How many international ports does China really need? Do all regional ports need to grow and strengthen? When considering the development of port cities, how should factors related to the cities themselves and their hinterlands be taken into account? Professor Wu Songdi from the Center for Historical Geography at Fudan University has recently conducted research on "Modern Ports—Hinterlands" and the spatial process of China's modernization. The purpose of this research is to study the two-way connections, mutual influence, and impact of port cities and their surrounding regions on regional modernization. Clarifying this relationship is of great significance for coordinated regional development. This book adopts the form of a monograph rather than an anthology of papers, publishing the contributions of the participants, with the aim of facilitating reading and avoiding the common drawback of anthologies, where individual papers lack coherence, thereby providing readers with a comprehensive and complete impression. At the same time, the book strives to preserve the original form of each paper. Except for Chapter, which comes from a single paper, the remaining chapters are each based on separate papers, and most of the section titles adopt the original paper titles. For those that have been changed, the original titles are noted at the end of the respective sections. In terms of text, each section has had only unnecessary phrases removed in the introductory part, and the annotation symbols and certain numerical usages have been standardized. No other modifications have been made, even for vocabulary that is identical in meaning but expressed differently in different papers, or for concepts that are the same but phrased differently in different papers, which have all been retained. To ensure continuity between chapters, I have added a lengthy introductory passage at the beginning of each chapter. Some of these passages also express my own views, so they may not necessarily summarize the content of the sections. This attempt by the book has been understood and supported by all the authors, but its effectiveness remains to be tested by the readers.