Abstract:

World city and world city network are one of the most important topics in international urban studies in the last two decades. The current research of the world city network exclusively reflects a Western corporate-dominated network, which comprises core world cities. However, the hegemony of the Western cities and top world cities is undermined by the globalizing economy of emerging economies. In this more complex nexus of world cities, the diversity and complexity of the world city network with the influence of newly emerging economies are far from revealed. In this research, we take the emerging banking sector of China, one of the biggest economies around the world, as a case study and see how Chinese commercial banks expanded globally and shaped the world city network from 1979 to 2015. A modified interlocking network model is applied as the main method of the research. It is found that the Asia-Pacific region, West Europe, and North America are the key arenas of the global operation of Chinese commercial banks. The oversea affiliations of Chinese commercial banks are highly agglomerated in global financial centers and specialized financial centers, especially those in the three regions mentioned above. Then they expand to the whole world through gateway cities of their respective regions. Based on such global expansion strategies, Chinese commercial banks influence the world city network by intensifying the global connection of Chinese cities, the connectivity of core world cities, and regional city networks of the Asia-Pacific region. China's outward economy, including its foreign direct investment and trade, along with the increasing number of emigrants, are main factors affecting the globalizing Chinese commercial banking network. The intervention of the Chinese government to regulate and facilitate the global expansion of Chinese commercial banks, also makes contribution to the results.

Key words: Chinese commercial banks, globalization, world city network, time and space process, influencing factors