Cities' rankings are nothing for their govts to get excited about

THE GLOBALIZATION AND WORLD CITIES RESEARCH NETWORK, a think tank created by the geography department of the Loughborough University, has published a ranking of world cities, which ranks six Chinese cities as world first-class cities and dozens of cities as second-class cities. This has sparked a wave of infectious excitement among some of the local governments. Beijing News comments:

The governments of these cities, which are used to being regarded as second-class cities in China, must have been surprised and flattered to be ranked among the world's second-class cities.

It is undeniable that the Chinese cities have witnessed fundamental changes over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, and some are not inferior to global metropolises. But the brouhaha caused by the rankings among some city governments is unwarranted.