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(DIS)CONNECTING THE PEARL RIVER DELTA:
CASE STUDY OF A BORDERLAND TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE
IN SOUTH CHINA, 1978-2002
INTRODUCTION
This paper presents a conceptual framework and preliminary analytical results for the
study of telecommunications infrastructure in the Pearl River Delta,
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a rapidly
urbanizing region along China’s south coast. For millennia, the area has been the
major hub of exchange between China and Southeast Asia (Cartier, 2001). With the
escalation of post-Mao reforms since 1978, the Delta has played a pivotal role in
linking China – via telecom technologies and other channels – with the rest of the
world (Lin, 1997a; 1997b; Sung, Liu, Wang, and Lau, 1995; Foster, Goodman, and
Tan, 1999). What is most unusual about the region is that, unlike most modernist
metropolis with consecutive spatial design (e.g.
“zones of succession”) and relatively linear
historical progression, the Delta was and
continues to be a decentralized sprawl, growing
by leaps and bounds, often with little plan. It is
a “most representative urban face of the 21
st
century” when the juxtaposition of global
connectedness and local disconnected-ness
emerges as the essential feature of a new city
form (Castells, 1996:404-409).
How has the telecommunications infrastructure of the Pearl River Delta transformed
since the inception of post-Mao reform in late 1970s? This question deserves
attention in the 2003 ICA conference because the Delta is indeed a fascinating
borderland at the “new frontier” of the world’s most populated nation; because the
urban diaspora of the region is prototypical for many cities around the globe; and
because, most importantly, confronting the Pearl River Delta entails a new appraisal
of the ways in which systems of communication technologies in metropolitan
environments should be approached. In this study, I choose to focus on telecom-
munications – including fixed-line telephony, cellular phone, pager, fax, and the
Internet – whose increasingly prominent role in shaping urban ecology has been fully
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Also known as the Zhujiang Delta or Zhu River Delta, the Pearl River Delta is a region of 14 cities
covering an expanse of 41,700 square kilometers, and home to 40.8 million residents (Guangdong
Statistics Yearbook, 2001, p. 34). It is where the largest river in South China, the Pearl River, flows into
the Pacific Ocean.
Convention