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On April 13， the smog is still heavy in Beijing. In a famous snack shop located two miles away from a CBD of Beijing， two middleaged men were eating noodles with soybean paste while talking with each other loudly about how to make their wives more diligent. A visitor from Shanghai sitting next to them obviously felt unused to the taste of fermented bean –only after one gulp， he couldn’t help but frown at it.
This is a typical day for most of the citizens in Beijing. On the same day， AT Kearney， a global management consulting company， published the 2014 version of global cities index （GCI）， in which Beijing for the first time jumped into the Top 10 （eighth place） and closed the gap between it and the topranking cities like New York， London and Paris.
The GCI also shows that Shanghai and Taipei are in the middle level in terms of globalization. Guangzhou， Shenzhen and Chongqing stayed at the bottom of this list. In 17 Asian cities that had their names appear on the list， the three cities ranked only higher than Karachi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Why Beijing？
The GCI is initially published in 2008 and gets updated once every two years. Its prominent and unique feature is that it measures the extent of globalization of 84 cities in terms of five aspects： commercial activities， human resources， information exchange， cultural communication and political involvement.
Beijing？ Yeah， that’s right. It is one of the cities that have the biggest increase in their scores in the latest list. Even though people could find a lot of reasons to berate this city， such as the choking smog， terrible traffic jam， extraordinarily high housing price and unbearable discrimination against non- Beijing people， this city still found its way to extend its global influence.
Even the biggest haters of Beijing have to admit the fact that Beijing’s ranking in this city got drastic improvement from the every beginning of the GCI. This year， it surpassed Seoul， Brussels， Singapore and Washington. This is because Beijing has made impressive progress in four of the five aspects.
The commercial activities rose as more Fortune 500 companies move into Beijing； the HR force raged because of the increasing number of international schools； the information exchange intensified since the number of Internet users went up； the cultural communication was improved as shown by more museums.
Hong Kong is the other Chinese city that got into the Top 10 with Beijing. In the past six years， Hong Kong firmly kept the fifth place in the list. However， this year， its ranking in in-formation exchange dropped from the fourth place to the ninth one. The scores in commercial activities were surpassed by Beijing and London. It was also defeated by Tokyo and Chicago in terms of the scores of HR resources.
AT Kearney said in the report that the two cities were different from each other in culture， history， social economic conditions， geography and natural environment. Therefore the two cities follow different paths of development. Beijing is still three places behind Hong Kong. Since Beijing is the political and cultural center of China， it stands above Hong Kong in terms of commercial activities， cultural communication and political involvement. Hong Kong， however is more internationalized； its citizens are better educated and it is able to realize the free and fast information exchange. These advantages enable Hong Kong to rank higher than Beijing when it comes to the comprehensive scores.
“Apparently， the improvement in the ranking of Beijing is not a simple result of its role as a unique political cen- ter in China. It is also related to its increasingly important role as a business center，” said Johnson Chng， President of AT Kearney Greater China. According to him， all Chinese cities had similar performance in the commercial activities and innovations. Beijing’s advantages are a result its HR potential that is much higher than other cities.
The measurement of HR capital concerns the number of foreigners born and educated in this city， the higher education quality and the level of citizens’education. Beijing， the 8th place in the GCI list， still faces a lot of challenges if it wants to further increase its rankings. As Johnson Chng said， the air pollution is weighing heavily on the development of Beijing. If this problem cannot be solved in time， Beijing will be confronted with the loss of talents.
“Actually， many of my friends and business partners moved out of Beijing in the past six months. They have concerns about the health of their own and their families. Many others with the same concerns are carefully thinking of it as well，” said Chng.
Shanghai and Taipei
Different from Beijing that could be the “angel” and“demon” at the same time， Shanghai is always considered to be an ideal place for the businessmen from Taiwan to seek business opportunities and new life. Shanghai and Taipei ranked between No. 11 and No. 40 in the GCI list. Shanghai took the 18th place while Taipei stayed ion the 40th place. The rankings might explain why there were more people moving from Taipei to Shanghai than the inverse journey apart from many other complicated reasons.
AT Kearney’s report shows that Shanghai kept a relatively stable position in all versions of the list. In 2014 its ranking went up by three places. As the economic and financial center of China， Shanghai could attract a lot of multi-talented and better educated people. This gave Shanghai more advantages than Taipei and Beijing.
In comparison， Taipei’s ranking dropped from the 34th place in 2008 to the 40th in 2014. Compared with Chinese cities that have the same size， Taipei is apparently at a disadvantage in terms of HR resource and commercial activities. In the aspect of commercial activities particularly， Shanghai surpassed Taipei with easy-to-see gap in the scores： Shanghai was scored at 4.7 in this aspect while Taipei only got 2.7.
Johnson Chng said： “Apparently， the Shanghai Free Trade Zone is going to have a positive influence over Shanghai’s globalization from the longterm perspective. However， how great the influence can be and how fast it can appear need to be watched. It will depend on the details of implementation and how the free trade zone is operated. At present there are a lot of thing to be consummated.”
Apart from that， apart from Hong Kong， Beijing， Shanghai and Taipei， the other Chinese cities simultaneously saw the drop in their rankings. Guangzhou ranked No. 66； Shenzhen， No. 73 while Chongqing， No. 84. The pace of the drop and the reasons varied to different cities. Guangzhou， for example， had the fastest increase in the commercial activities and HR capital in the world， but its scores in political involvement were greatly lowered.
Guangzhou and Shanghai almost have the same advantages and disadvantages in the five indexes. However， its scores in every aspect are lower than Shanghai. As the neighbor of Guangzhou， Shenzhen is far behind Guangzhou in terms of HR capital. Chongqing used to be called “Chicgao by Yangtze River”. However， it went through the biggest decrease in the ranking of GCI as of 2008. This year， it was only scored at 0.4， far behind Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
This is a typical day for most of the citizens in Beijing. On the same day， AT Kearney， a global management consulting company， published the 2014 version of global cities index （GCI）， in which Beijing for the first time jumped into the Top 10 （eighth place） and closed the gap between it and the topranking cities like New York， London and Paris.
The GCI also shows that Shanghai and Taipei are in the middle level in terms of globalization. Guangzhou， Shenzhen and Chongqing stayed at the bottom of this list. In 17 Asian cities that had their names appear on the list， the three cities ranked only higher than Karachi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Why Beijing？
The GCI is initially published in 2008 and gets updated once every two years. Its prominent and unique feature is that it measures the extent of globalization of 84 cities in terms of five aspects： commercial activities， human resources， information exchange， cultural communication and political involvement.
Beijing？ Yeah， that’s right. It is one of the cities that have the biggest increase in their scores in the latest list. Even though people could find a lot of reasons to berate this city， such as the choking smog， terrible traffic jam， extraordinarily high housing price and unbearable discrimination against non- Beijing people， this city still found its way to extend its global influence.
Even the biggest haters of Beijing have to admit the fact that Beijing’s ranking in this city got drastic improvement from the every beginning of the GCI. This year， it surpassed Seoul， Brussels， Singapore and Washington. This is because Beijing has made impressive progress in four of the five aspects.
The commercial activities rose as more Fortune 500 companies move into Beijing； the HR force raged because of the increasing number of international schools； the information exchange intensified since the number of Internet users went up； the cultural communication was improved as shown by more museums.
Hong Kong is the other Chinese city that got into the Top 10 with Beijing. In the past six years， Hong Kong firmly kept the fifth place in the list. However， this year， its ranking in in-formation exchange dropped from the fourth place to the ninth one. The scores in commercial activities were surpassed by Beijing and London. It was also defeated by Tokyo and Chicago in terms of the scores of HR resources.
AT Kearney said in the report that the two cities were different from each other in culture， history， social economic conditions， geography and natural environment. Therefore the two cities follow different paths of development. Beijing is still three places behind Hong Kong. Since Beijing is the political and cultural center of China， it stands above Hong Kong in terms of commercial activities， cultural communication and political involvement. Hong Kong， however is more internationalized； its citizens are better educated and it is able to realize the free and fast information exchange. These advantages enable Hong Kong to rank higher than Beijing when it comes to the comprehensive scores.
“Apparently， the improvement in the ranking of Beijing is not a simple result of its role as a unique political cen- ter in China. It is also related to its increasingly important role as a business center，” said Johnson Chng， President of AT Kearney Greater China. According to him， all Chinese cities had similar performance in the commercial activities and innovations. Beijing’s advantages are a result its HR potential that is much higher than other cities.
The measurement of HR capital concerns the number of foreigners born and educated in this city， the higher education quality and the level of citizens’education. Beijing， the 8th place in the GCI list， still faces a lot of challenges if it wants to further increase its rankings. As Johnson Chng said， the air pollution is weighing heavily on the development of Beijing. If this problem cannot be solved in time， Beijing will be confronted with the loss of talents.
“Actually， many of my friends and business partners moved out of Beijing in the past six months. They have concerns about the health of their own and their families. Many others with the same concerns are carefully thinking of it as well，” said Chng.
Shanghai and Taipei
Different from Beijing that could be the “angel” and“demon” at the same time， Shanghai is always considered to be an ideal place for the businessmen from Taiwan to seek business opportunities and new life. Shanghai and Taipei ranked between No. 11 and No. 40 in the GCI list. Shanghai took the 18th place while Taipei stayed ion the 40th place. The rankings might explain why there were more people moving from Taipei to Shanghai than the inverse journey apart from many other complicated reasons.
AT Kearney’s report shows that Shanghai kept a relatively stable position in all versions of the list. In 2014 its ranking went up by three places. As the economic and financial center of China， Shanghai could attract a lot of multi-talented and better educated people. This gave Shanghai more advantages than Taipei and Beijing.
In comparison， Taipei’s ranking dropped from the 34th place in 2008 to the 40th in 2014. Compared with Chinese cities that have the same size， Taipei is apparently at a disadvantage in terms of HR resource and commercial activities. In the aspect of commercial activities particularly， Shanghai surpassed Taipei with easy-to-see gap in the scores： Shanghai was scored at 4.7 in this aspect while Taipei only got 2.7.
Johnson Chng said： “Apparently， the Shanghai Free Trade Zone is going to have a positive influence over Shanghai’s globalization from the longterm perspective. However， how great the influence can be and how fast it can appear need to be watched. It will depend on the details of implementation and how the free trade zone is operated. At present there are a lot of thing to be consummated.”
Apart from that， apart from Hong Kong， Beijing， Shanghai and Taipei， the other Chinese cities simultaneously saw the drop in their rankings. Guangzhou ranked No. 66； Shenzhen， No. 73 while Chongqing， No. 84. The pace of the drop and the reasons varied to different cities. Guangzhou， for example， had the fastest increase in the commercial activities and HR capital in the world， but its scores in political involvement were greatly lowered.
Guangzhou and Shanghai almost have the same advantages and disadvantages in the five indexes. However， its scores in every aspect are lower than Shanghai. As the neighbor of Guangzhou， Shenzhen is far behind Guangzhou in terms of HR capital. Chongqing used to be called “Chicgao by Yangtze River”. However， it went through the biggest decrease in the ranking of GCI as of 2008. This year， it was only scored at 0.4， far behind Guangzhou and Shenzhen.