Guanlin is a DPhil candidate and a Jardine scholar from the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, where he also previously received his MSc in Contemporary China Studies. Prior to Oxford, Guanlin graduated with the highest GPA in Social Sciences, with a major in Economics and double minors in Sociology and Psychology, from the University of Toronto. Currently working with Prof. Hugh Whittaker, Prof. Eric Thun and Prof. Kyle Jaros, Guanlin’s doctoral research mostly concerns the political economy of regional development and sectoral transition in China and beyond, with a special focus on Shenzhen.
DPhil topic
Arguably as 'the fastest-growing city the world has ever seen, Shenzhen has not received the scholarly attention it deserves'. While some studies have been devoted to the identification of key factors enabling Shenzhen's phenomenal transformation, few have seriously delved into the actual process of such transformation, especially from a perspective of sectoral transition. Primarily adopting the method of processing tracing and synthesizing the literature on broadly defined state-market, central-local, and domestic-foreign relations, this project attempts to carefully unfold the highly challenging yet recurring cycle of Shenzhen's sectoral transition and to understand the fairly unusual yet persistent ability of Shenzhen to reinvent its growth models across different critical junctures of development. In turn, this project hopes to use the experience of Shenzhen to shed light on the political economy of regional development and sectoral transition in China and beyond.
