Jun 26th 2021
IF IT EVER was Shanghai’s tallest building, the 40-metre-high headquarters of the North China Daily News did not remain so for long. Skyscrapers became fashionable before the Communists took over in 1949 and turned China into a world leader for them. In 2015 the tallest building in China (and second-highest in the world) opened in Lujiazui, Shanghai’s Wall Street, on the far side of the Huangpu river. Chinese officials call the 632-metre edifice Shanghai Tower, a symbol of the financial capital’s might.
The sinuous, 128-storey structure, designed by an American firm, purports to evoke a dragon’s twisting form. It is home to Chinese and foreign financial firms betting on China’s rise. JPMorgan, an American bank, occupies four floors. But the Communist Party is there as well. It has taken a large, airy space high up to run a political operation about which it is open and proud. Its focus is on companies in…
