AbstractSince the early 2000s, the “race to the bottom” that typified the “China price” and the model of export‐oriented industrialization has been challenged by various factors, triggering another round of industrial restructuring and producing new economic geographies of production and employment in China. This paper provides a review of existing research on the new economic geographies of China's manufacturing industries. In doing so, we seek to show how critical engagements with China may help us “theorize back” at the dominant discourses and theories in economic geography (e.g., global value chain, global production network, new regionalism, spatial fix, and labor agency theories). Specifically, this paper focuses on two strands of literature that have engaged critically with China and sought to remake the economic geography through new insights from China—one on China's new geographical and industrial dynamics and the other on the issue of labor agency and labor regime in China. We argue that the sheer pace and rapidity of regional dynamics in China provide a fertile ground for new conceptual development, methodological innovation, and empirical insights.
