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While global commentators hail the unprecedented success of the Beijing Olympic Games, few have commented on the methods employed to promote urban development in China. This article develops a conceptual framework to unfold the Beijing Olympics and China's mega-event urbanization model, which feature 'playing games for leveraging land'. Literally, this informally translates to 'concept creation' and 'land and finance leverage paradigm'. Based on a detailed investigation of the way China has dealt with mega-events such as the Olympics and the Asian Games, this article begins with an analysis on the well-known Chinese 'land and leveraged finance' model. However, it goes a step further to reveal a much bigger picture and brings to light the deeper underlying logic behind China's 'mega-event urbanization model' as well as its legacy and consequence. It unfolds the intriguing relations between central and local governments; between functional/institutional systems (land, taxation and banking) in regard to territory and space; and between economic and political dynamics (local competition for both economic/GDP growth and individual political aspirations). This development model is unique to China and extraordinarily unconventional on a global scale which is unparalleled by any past experiences in other countries that have hosted the Olympic Games and other similar events. The ramifications of such ambitious and untested strategies could yield negative impacts on China's long-term development and harm the world economy in the global scale. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

The Hong Kong Government has long boasted its success in using the laissez-faire approach to economic development. Indeed, the citizens of Hong Kong enjoy a high GDP per capita. However, income inequality is high, has worsened in recent years and will likely become even more serious. All solutions discussed are inevitably highly political. (CIJ/DÜI)

China has experienced an almost double-digit economic growth rate since Deng Xiaoping launched his market-oriented economic policies in 1978. The authors discuss the disparities between social and economic trends in China, with special reference to Guangdong Province. They point out that excessive degrees of urban growth and speculation of development land may have caused irreversibe disruptions of the natural environment and brought about social wastes. (DÜI-Sen)

Urban infrastructure has been substantially upgraded in reform-era China. This paper explains, contextually and empirically, how Chinese cities finance their infrastructure. It demonstrates that China has succeeded in addressing urban infrastructure backlogs by opening up new venues for financing, but simultaneously, heavily relying on unconventional sources. The paper also argues that urban infrastructure financing has much to do with the country's transition to a market-oriented economy that fosters the pro-growth role of city governments as well as the redistribution of fiscal power between the levels of the urban hierarchy that produces significant variation of financial capacities among the different administrative ranks of cities.