new modern, intellectual public separate from the Manchu Confucian-orientated, Qing dynasty sanctioned public sphere. The considerable influence of the international concessions allowed them to foster the development of a new intellectual movement, reflecting the ability of the city to be the crucible of modernity. New Chinese cities thrived on the innovative, new business produced by the blending of Western business practices and Chinese culture. Hong Kong’s Sincere and Wing On department outlets established stores in Shanghai during the early 1900s. These stores expanded rapidly by applying Western models intertwined with traditional Chinese cultural values. The Sincere and Wing On department stores “physically and figuratively marked the fuller modernisation in China […] Western stood for quality and superiority” . Under Republican rule, the creation of the ‘modern city’ Nanjing demonstrated the value that the new regime placed on utilising the city as an embodiment of the power, dominance and modernity that the Chinese endeavoured to establish. The Republican era under Sun Yat-sen was characterised by the beginning of a “New China […] progressive in spirit” , open to Western methods and systems that were previously shunned by the Qing Government. In 1927, the Nationalists moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing, believing that the Nationalist regime could only break free from “Manchu rule if it left Beijing and crafted Nanjing into a new capital city”. Nanjing demonstrated the importance of the city as a symbol of power. However, the Nanjing of the early Republic was neglected and hardly the opulent city of the Ming era or the modern capital that Sun Yat-sen had aspired to. The reformers in Nanjing were inspired by Western planning history and styles, and adopted the international planning principles of the City Beautiful Movement with “little heed to local context and tradition” . By 1937, over 107 miles of roads had been paved, electricity was available on a large scale and progress was occurring in the development of water and sewage systems. For the Republican Government, the modernisation of Nanjing on Western planning styles established its legitimacy in the modern world. The Nationalist government wanted to transform China through its capital. This reflects the belief that cities were the ‘crucible of modernity’ and an agent of change in society. The Mao era differed from the Republican in its equal focus on the development of cities and rural areas. The rise of the peasants was instrumental in Mao’s rise to power in 1949 and consequently he turned his focus to the countryside. By re-instating the capital as Beijing, the proletariat saw the capital as a symbol of the People’s Republic and the centre of the new modernity. Mao promised to eliminate the “three great differences” between worker and peasant, city and countryside and mental and manual labor. The Communist regime acknowledged that China could only industrialise if agricultural productivity improved. This marked a key difference from the Republican and colonial era modernisation that largely ignored the countryside and focused instead on urban centres. Mao’s efforts to modernise the countryside changed drastically during his reign, according to these prevailing political movements. Ultimately, Mao’s agrarian commune reforms and the Great Leap Forward were unsuccessful, causing a widespread famine and a failure to modernise either the city or the countryside as hoped.
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