Contested geopolitics of distribution in the city-region-building: Promoting enclave industrial parks in the Pearl River Delta, China

The discourse on the ascendancy of city-regions as a geopolitical framework predominately derives from neoliberal experiences, articulating the interplay between the politics of city-regional distribution and the evolving role of the state in distribution governance, alongside the challenges related to post-suburban development. Given the diverse political and economic frameworks across the state, exploring the geopolitics of city-regional distribution beyond overwhelmed neoliberal assumptions is imperative. This study aims to explicate alternative geopolitics of distribution within China's recent city-region-building. Through studying the negotiation and development of two Enclave Industrial Parks (EIPs) in the Pearl River Delta, Southern China, we recontextualise the centrally orchestrated city-regional distribution within the authoritarian framework of the developmental party-state. We propose a conceptual framework delineating the transitional rationality of the multi-scalar state, illustrating the political and territorial negotiation of distribution within a hierarchical resource arrangement. We argue that authoritarian distribution schemes, while manipulating the market regime, do not inherently impede the local distribution. Nonetheless, political and territorial mandates on city-region-building, which arbitrarily redefine the opportunities of local communities, perpetuate an authoritarian and contested nature of distribution, ultimately contributing to widening regional development disparities in contemporary China.