The embeddedness and hidden political economy of the world heritage site inscription boom in China

Abstract

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a boom in world heritage site (WHS) inscriptions in China. Nevertheless, incumbent studies have not sufficiently explained why cities are enthusiastic about and capable of joining the boom. They tend to attribute such enthusiasm to the WHS values in heritage protection and tourism development. However, why stakeholders have motivations and opportunities to create the boom and what institutional environments support the craze are still yet to be answered. This paper investigates the boom through the concept of embeddedness to display how multi-scalar institutional contexts in China stimulate and sustain WHS nomination. This study argues that the enthusiasm for WHS inscription is embedded in the political-economic interests of stakeholders on different scales. At international and national levels, WHS nomination is regarded as a political tool to address diplomatic agendas, shape national honor, and balance regional development. On a local scale, WHS inscriptions can serve as a solid pretext for local states in China to fulfill their strong developmental imperatives and break financial constraints. These imperatives are embedded in China's transitional institutional environment, associated with power decentralization, central-local fiscal rearrangements, and the top-down system of cadre evaluation. In this context, local states are ambitious of initiating large-scale development projects to boost local development. WHS nomination has become a pretext for local states to fulfill extraordinary development in tourism and other industries, such as the real estate industry. This study discloses the hidden political economy behind the WHS inscription boom using the cases of Wulingyuan and the South China Karst.