Shanghai is China's largest city with 25 million people. With more tall buildings than any other city on earth, it is China's economic engine. But it also has challenges, like the oppressiveness of the Communist party, the inequality created by the hukou system, and sea-level rise.
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Script:
Of all the cities on earth, the pace of civilizational transformation is most evident here. With over 25,000 buildings standing 12 stories or more, it has more high rises than anywhere else and is the most important economic engine in China. But there are real challenges on the horizon for this city of 25 million: some that took a pandemic to fully emerge, and others that grow more frightening with each passing year.
This is Shanghai, a bellwether of the 21st century.
The most populous city in the People’s Republic of China rises on the low-lying swamplands where the tributaries and lakes of the Yangtze River Delta meet the East China Sea, and the vast Pacific Ocean beyond.
Founded in the tenth century, its easy access to the extensive Asian interior made it an ideal location for those seeking to trade regionally and - eventually - with the empires of the West. In the 1800s, after a prolonged struggle with imperialists who used subterfuge and sabotage - like hooking millions, China was forced to allow foreigners greater access to its markets-and control over much of Shanghai. The city became a foothold for the British, French, Americans, and Japanese, who took possession of designated areas in the city, called “concessions,” where they established businesses that extracted great resources and wealth. Many Chinese call this the “century of humiliation.” Shanghai was essentially split into a “Chinese” half and a more modern European-styled “Western” half home to around 35,000 foreigners. Despite this dysfunction, the combined area thrived and by the mid-1930s it was one of the largest cities in the world with three million inhabitants.
Shanghai is where the second world truly began, as Japan unleashed Blitzkrieg. The combination of siege warfare and aerial bombardment, followed by attacks and house-to-house fighting, produced the horrific scenes now associated with Europe, but was first reported in China’s megacity.
Despite this nightmare, a glimmer of humanity still flickered in Shanghai, as evidenced by its unconditional welcoming of any Jews fleeing.
The war’s aftermath brought the Communists to power. This forced many foreign businesses to move south to independent Hong Kong. Despite this drain on capital and talent, the economic heart of the People’s Republic of China remained in Shanghai, and for the next four decades, this vital port city provided 70% of all the tax revenue that was collected and spent nationwide by China’s central party, whose bureaucrats were ensconced in Beijing-1,100 km away.
This was an untenable burden on the Shanghainese, and in 1991 two of their local leaders seized a rare opportunity to change things. After the crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, China’s Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping wanted new management in Beijing. The reins of power were turned over to two former mayors of Shanghai: Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Xiaoping as paramount leader, and Zhu Rongji, who became Vice Premier. They declared that Shanghai would be the “dragon’s head” of China’s modernization.
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