This study examines the contemporary cultural phenomenon of fanggu (sic), or "historical relic exploration," which emerged in China early in the twenty-first century and has gained increasing prominence on social media. While echoing traditional literati travel practices, fanggu is more directly shaped by modern heritage tourism and state-driven heritage-making policies. Surrounding these practices is a complex cultural nexus involving online subcultural communities, local conservation groups, heritage tourism enterprises, and professional scholars. This project draws on in-depth interviews with key practitioners, engaged academics, corporate actors, as well as digital ethnography focused on online communities and social media discourse. It investigates how these diverse actors collaboratively produce and circulate heritage knowledge. Applying Michel Maffesoli's theoretical notion of "neo-tribalism," I argue that the dynamic interactions within the fanggu cultural nexus have given rise to innovative, multimodal forms of heritage engagement that integrate cognitive inquiry with affective investment, thereby fostering a new mode of heritage community in contemporary China.
This paper uses the case of Wenheyou, a retro-themed restaurant in Changsha, to examine how the recent built environment is heritagised and junkified in contemporary China. Wenheyou’s deliberate celebration of the dilapidated streetscapes, dirt, and mundane everyday life of the 1980s and 1990s has been widely discussed as a cultural and commercial phenomenon. Situating Wenheyou within Changsha’s broader processes of urban redevelopment and heritage reconstruction, the paper argues that recreated “trash” in Wenheyou operates alongside recreated heritage in the city, stabilising, rather than challenging, the boundary between what can and cannot be preserved. Drawing on scholarship on material culture and trash studies, the paper argues that, in the context of rapid urbanisation following the reform and opening up of the 1980s, the designation of “shantytowns” or “old and dilapidated neighbourhoods” emerged in parallel with the recognition of recent heritage in official listings. These two processes are produced through the same urbanisation mechanism that granted the government the spatial power to determine how the past is materially inscribed onto the cityscape.
This article examines China’s evolving development model amid rising financialisation, focusing on state-sanctioned institutional investors and the rising tensions between state control and business autonomy. Since the early 2010s, as China’s bank-centered development model came under pressure from rising debt, slower growth, and the limits of traditional credit allocation, state-owned business groups leveraged their financial clout and extensive parent-subsidiary networks to channel capital into strategic emerging industries. Traditionally rooted in heavy industries and infrastructure, these groups reshaped financial flows by transforming into State Capital Investment and Operation companies (SCIOs). Enabled by past state-owned enterprises reforms that granted asset ownership, SCIOs now serve as key arms of China’s new industrial policies. After recounting the changes in the financial architecture of these enterprises, this article analyses business registry data to show that while central government SCIOs attract public investment due to their status as state institutional investors, they also contribute to stock overvaluation and market distortions. These dynamics illustrate how financial markets both advance state objectives and disrupt capital allocation, reflecting China’s shifting economic governance models.
