A Letter from Chongqing

By: Asa Roast

The metropolis of western China has built thousands of council flats for its migrant workers. Does it really offer an alternative to China’s state–driven capitalism?

The unfinished spaces of Chongqing reveal the blind spots of the Chinese state. (Photo by Alessandro Rizzi / Getty Images.)

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Within China, Chongqing has been seen as the city of the future for a long time. The joke runs, ‘if China was a magazine, Shanghai would be on the cover, but Chongqing would be the next issue’. More and more capital is moving inland to this industrial port on the Yangtze River, several thousand miles […]

Medium

Within China, Chongqing has been seen as the city of the future for a long time. The joke runs, ‘if China was a magazine, Shanghai would be on the cover, but Chongqing would be the next issue’. More and more capital is moving inland to this industrial port on the Yangtze River, several thousand miles […]

Large

Within China, Chongqing has been seen as the city of the future for a long time. The joke runs, ‘if China was a magazine, Shanghai would be on the cover, but Chongqing would be the next issue’. More and more capital is moving inland to this industrial port on the Yangtze River, several thousand miles […]

Within China, Chongqing has been seen as the city of the future for a long time. The joke runs, ‘if China was a magazine, Shanghai would be on the cover, but Chongqing would be the next issue’. More and more capital is moving inland to this industrial port on the Yangtze River, several thousand miles […]

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