Westerners have only a vague idea of the nature of most Chinese cities. From television and film records, we know that these cities tend to be crowded, that they range from what appears to be exceedingly modern structures and designs to the traditional, often in the same city, and that there is some difference to be noted depending on what part of China a city occupies. We know that most Chinese cities do not come up to the level of Hong Kong, soon to be a Chinese city once more and standing as an economic success story the Chinese would like to emulate, though they would like to do so without allowing the freedoms that made this success possible in the first place. A comparison of two Chinese cities will show the variety and the differences that mark these cities.
Shanghai is a name well-known to the west even though most people have little idea what the city itself is like. Shanghai is a very modern city by Chinese standards. It started as a small fishing village on a tidal creek near the mouth of the Yangzi River, and it has been transformed into a cosmopolitan trading city since the late nineteenth century. It is the third largest city in the world and the largest in China. It is also China's biggest port and largest manufacturing base. Shanghai's position at the mouth of the Yangzi was the reason it was given so much attention by traders from the West. Modern Shanghai has developed as it has to achieve its preeminence among Chinese cities because of the conjunction of Western traders and regional Chinese entrepreneurs, both of whom flocked to Shanghai to make their fortunes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shanghai was in fact one of the first ports opened to foreign commerce by the Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1842. This wa a treaty port that was also bound with the idea of "extraterritoriality," meaning that foreign residents were given immunity from Chinese laws. At that time, it was more c...