This paper explores the complex connection between heritage, light and power in Shanghai since the late 19th Century, and seeks a new understanding of how mutually coupled legacies of modernity, socialism and cosmopolitanism continue to shape this city’s unique identity and image. It focuses on the recent ideological remake of the skyline along the Huangpu River, achieved largely through the flamboyant illumination designed in 2018. Combining a number of visual and textual sources with fieldwork, it reveals the persistent symbolic role the city has played in a triumphant socialist cause, and assesses how past promises of a new Shanghai and a bright future for China have been sustained in the Reform Era. It forms a preliminary attempt to depict what the author argues should be perceived and studied as the engineering of a new propaganda medium which intersects with urban space governance. The implications of this project are discussed in the context of the threats and opportunities for Shanghai in terms of maintaining the city’s unique character and meaning coming from its own history and culture, rather than in terms of Shanghai simply being a vehicle for China’s modernity.

Shanghai as an international finance center - the achievements and challenges for further development

The purpose of the study was to analyze selected actions, which were and are important for Shanghai to obtain the status of the international financial center, together with an initial assessment of the achievements and an indication of the challenges for further development. The carried out analysis shows, that Shanghai strengthens its position as the world’s leading international financial center. Whereas it is necessary for its further development to implement reliable market rules, that will give certainty to investors (domestic and foreign) that they have an open and fair access to the market and their interests are protected. The transparency and growing maturity of the stock market, the full liberalization of capital flows and the full interchangeability of the chinese currency play an important role. Whether Shanghai will be given the right to valuation global financial assets, depends to a significant extent on the alignment of China’s economic development and progress in the internationalization of the yuan. It also depends on whether the leading foreign financial organizations will see Shanghai as the most important platform to draw dividends from China’s economic development and the internationalization of the chinese currency. In the event of these basic conditions not being completed, Shanghai will not be able to become a fully global, mature financial center, integrated into the global financial system, taking into account, for example, the degree of internationalization of stock exchange operations.