Department of Geography and Resource Management (GRM), The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Prof. CHUNG King Lam, Calvin

Faculty Member

Prof. CHUNG King Lam, Calvin

Assistant Professor

BSSc (CUHK - Geography and Resource Management)
MPhil (CUHK - Geography and Resource Management)
PhD (UCL - Planning Studies)
FRGS
FeRSA
AFHEA

(852) 3943-9791

calvin.chung@cuhk.edu.hk

RESEARCH PROJECTS

As principal investigator

On the way to zero waste? A spatialised sociotechnical analysis of waste management transition in Chinese cities. General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. (2025–27, HK$750,900)

Everyone goes green: A structure-technology nexus analysis of China’s municipal green bond issuance. General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. (2024–26, HK$689,400)

More data, better governance? The central-local politics of environmental data in China. Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. (2021–24, HK$891,700)

Financing urban green projects in China: An urban political ecology perspective. Direct Grant, Faculty of Social Science, CUHK. (2022–23, HK$100,000)

Health by design in contest: The planning politics of healthy city in China. Direct Grant, Faculty of Social Science, CUHK. (2020–22, HK$99,377)

Internationalisation at home through introducing virtual field trips to geography teaching and learning. Grant Scheme for Internationalization of Curriculum, Teaching Development and Language Enhancement Grant, CUHK. (2021–22, HK$85,650).

The greening of urban governance in China: A case study of greenway development in the Pearl River Delta cities. Hong Kong Research Grant 2016, Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). (2016–17, £2,500)

As co-investigator (selected)

Green gentrification studies in China’s global city: Measures, mechanism and effects. General Programme, National Natural Science Foundation of China. (2024–27, CNY460,000)

Taming the dragons: A structure–technology nexus analysis of China’s New Spatial Planning System. General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. (2023–25, HK$781,384)

Big data for big land grab? A discursive–material nexus analysis of big data-themed land development in China’s inland Data Valley. General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong. (2022–24, HK$916,896)

The role of neighbourhood governance in cities in China and the UK amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. National Social Science Fund of China. (2021–24, CNY200,000)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

(* for corresponding author)

Chung, C. K. L.*, & Dai, J. (forthcoming). Rural greenways for urban environmental demands: Environmentalised urbanisation in the Pearl River Delta. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research.

Teo, S. S. K., Chung, C. K. L.*, & Wang, Z. (forthcoming). Theorising with urban China: Methodological and tactical experiments for a more global urban studies. Dialogues in Human Geography. [Free access to full paper]

Xu, J., & Chung, C. K. L.* (forthcoming). Of scale and discourse: China’s ecological civilization and the struggle for development in Anshun. Urban Geography. [Link to full paper]

Wang, K., Chung, C. K. L., Xu, J.*, & Cheung, A. C. K. (2024). Can the locked-in be unlocked? University stratification in China under state-led quest for world-class university. Higher Education Policy, 37, 1-20. [Free access to full paper]

Wang, K., Chung, C. K. L., Xu, J.*, & Long, Z. (2024). Reconceiving China’s urban economic transition through symbiotic state-firm dynamics: An integrated perspective from urban governance and global production networks. Cities, 150, 104974. [Free access to full paper]

Day, T.*, Chung, C. K. L., Doolittle, W. E., Housel, J., & McDaniel, P. N. (2023). Beyond COVID chaos: What postsecondary educators learned from the online pivot. The Professional Geographer, 75(1), 14-30. [Free access to full paper] [Digest on The Conversation]

Xu, J., Li, A.*, Chung, C. K. L., & Yue, Y. (2023). Mapping the unmapped: Investigating big data companies via online sources. The Professional Geographer, 75(5), 816-826. [Link to full paper]

Zhou, Z.*, Chung, C. K. L., & Xu, J. (2023). Geographies of green industries: The interplay of firms, technologies, and the environment. Progress in Human Geography, 47(5), 680-698. [Link to full paper]

Xu, J., Chung, C. K. L.*, Yang, H., & Guan, H. (2022). New sectors, new spaces, and China’s evolving state–firm relations. The China Review, 22(4), 1-18. [Free access to full paper]

Xu, J., Zou, G.*, & Chung, C. K. L. (2022). (Re)shaping urban governance through state-business interaction in inland China’s emerging industries. The China Review, 22(4), 77-104. [Free access to full paper]

Zheng, S., Qin, X., Chung, C. K. L., Pan, M., & Li, X.* (2022). State–firm relations in knowledge sourcing for regional innovation: The rise of the robotics industry in Dongguan, China. The China Review, 22(4), 19-44. [Free access to full paper]

Chung, C. K. L.*, & Xu, J. (2021). Scalar politics of urban sustainability: Governing the Chinese city in the era of ecological civilisation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(3), 689–703. [Free access to full paper]

Zhang, F., Chung, C. K. L.*, Lu, T., & Wu, F. (2021). The role of the local government in China’s urban sustainability transition: A case study of Wuxi’s solar development. Cities, 117, 103294. [Link to full paper]

Xu, J.*, Chung, C. K. L., & Zhang, M. (2021). Governing mega-city regions in China: One region, many systems. In A. G. O. Yeh, G. S. C. Lin, & F. F. Yang (Eds.), Mega-city region development in China (pp. 226–247). Routledge.

Day, T.*, Chang, I.-C. C., Chung, C. K. L., Doolittle, W. E., Housel, J., & McDaniel, P. N. (2021). The immediate impact of COVID-19 on postsecondary teaching and learning. The Professional Geographer, 73, 1–13. [Free access to full paper]

Chung, C. K. L.*, Xu, J.*, & Zhang, M.* (2020). Geographies of Covid-19: How space and virus shape each other. Asian Geographer, 37(2), 99–116. [Free access to full paper]

Shao, Z.*, Xu, J., Chung, C. K. L., Spit, T., & Wu, Q. (2020). State as both the regulator and the player: The politics of transfer of development rights in China. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 44(1), 38–54. [Free access to full paper] (Top Cited Article of the journal, 2020-21)

Zhang, F.*, Chung, C. K. L., & Yin, Z. (2020). Green infrastructure for China’s new urbanisation: A case study of greenway development in Maanshan. Urban Studies, 57(3), 508–524. [Free access to full paper]

Zhang, M., Xu, J., & Chung, C. K. L.* (2020). Scalar politics and uneven accessibility to intercity railway in the Pearl River Delta, China. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110(4), 1260–1277. [Free access to full paper]

Zhang, M.*, Xu, J., & Chung, C. K. L. (2020). Politics of scale, bargaining power and its spatial impact: Planning for intercity railway in the Pearl River Delta. The China Quarterly, 243, 676–700.

Chung, C. K. L.*
, Zhang, F., & Wu, F. (2018). Negotiating green space with landed interests: The urban political ecology of greenway in the Pearl River Delta, China. Antipode, 50(4), 891–909. [Free access to full paper]

He, S., Chung, C. K. L., Bayrak, M. M., & Wang, W.* (2018). Administrative boundary changes and regional inequality in provincial China. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 11(1), 103–120.

Chung, C. K. L.*
, & Xu, J. (2016). Scale as both material and discursive: A view through China’s rescaling of urban planning system for environmental governance. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 34(8), 1404–1424.

Chung, C. K. L.*
 (2015). Upscaling in progress: The reinvention of urban planning as an apparatus of environmental governance in China. In T. C. Wong, S. S. Han, & H. Zhang (Eds.), Population mobility, urban planning and management in China (pp. 171–187). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Wang, L.*, Shen, J., & Chung, C. K. L. (2015). City profile: Suzhou – A Chinese city under transformation. Cities, 44, 60–72.

Xu, J.*, & Chung, C. K. L. (2014). ‘Environment’ as an evolving concept in China’s urban planning system. International Development Planning Review, 36(4), 391–412. (Awarded the journal’s best paper in 2014)

Lam, K. C.*, Ma, W., Chan, P. K., Hui, W. C., Chung, K. L., Chung, Y. T. T., Wong, C. Y., & Lin, H. (2013). Relationship between road traffic noisescape and urban form in Hong Kong. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment185(12), 9683–9685.

Teaching Fields

  • Theories of global political economy (GPEC5801)
  • Environmental politics and sustainability (GRMD1402, GPEC5817)
  • Smart city policies and governance (GRMD4503)

Research interests

  • Geographies of state restructuring
  • Politics and practice of spatial planning
  • Political ecology and environmental policy

Services/ Posts

GRM

  • Board Secretary (08/2021 to present)
  • Seminar Coordinator (08/2020 to 07/2022)
  • Member, Research Committee (08/2021 to present)
  • Member, Staff-Student Consultative Committee (08/2020 to present)

Faculty/College

  • Member, Campus Planning Committee, United College (06/2022 to present)
  • Member, MSSc in Global Political Economy Programme Committee, Faculty of Social Science (08/2019 to present)

External

  • Interim Co-chair, Urban Geography Research Group, Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (12/2023 to present)
  • Board Member, Asian Geography Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers (10/2021 to present) 
  • Associate Editor, Asian Geographer (11/2020 to present)

SUGGESTED RESEARCH TOPICS FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Politics of urbanisation

The study of how the planning and development of cities are shaped by a constellation of actors, institutions and discourses at and across different sites and scales; those with a focus on the themes of urban and regional infrastructure and data-driven governance are particularly welcomed.

Political ecology and environmental governance

The study of how environmental changes at various sites and scales both shape and are shaped by political, economic, social and cultural conditions; those attempting to combine qualitative and quantitative approaches for their research are particularly welcomed.