The new geography of information and consulting services in China: Comparing Beijing and Guangzhou

This paper examines China's emerging geography of information and consulting services (ICS)—one of the most rapidly growing economic sectors in the national economy. China's ICS activities have taken place in recent years as the reformed state adapted to and articulated with the intrusion of global market forces. The analysis of the data at the national level has identified a distinct pattern characterized by a high concentration of the ICS industry in a few central metropolises. A further study of the growth and location of ICS activities at the national capital (Beijing) and a provincial capital (Guangzhou) has revealed a close and sophisticated relationship between the state and market forces that underlined the growth of ICS in different locales. The existing literature on the service economy can be enhanced by moving beyond the thesis of the Engle's law and the notion of localized production networks to take more seriously state–market relations as a key to understanding the growth and location of service activities in emerging economies such as China.