They rank cities based on the presence of four "advanced producer services" (accounting, advertising, banking and finance, and law) as alpha, beta or gamma, the first three characters of the Greek alphabet, and subdivide each category for greater clarity. They have come to a different conclusion than Professor Ren. One of the leading lights in this field is the UK-based Globalization and World Cities Research Network. There is certainly no agreed upon checklist. There are many factors that need to be examined to measure whether a city is international or of such prominence to be called a worldcity. But his definition is both overly simplistic and unnecessarily narrow. If the only true measure of what is "international" is merely the number or proportion of expats compared to the local population, then the professor may be technically correct. The devil, as always, can be found hiding in the details. I have extensively experienced these metropolises and I can confidently state that all four are not merely international cities but indeed world cities as well. He contrasts them to New York and London where the number of expats is many times higher. Ren argues that because there is a dearth of expatriates residing in both Beijing and Shanghai, neither city qualifies as international. His comment got wide coverage in the Chinese media, but I vehemently disagree. Recently Professor Ren Yuan of the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University, Shanghai, remarked that neither Beijing nor Shanghai is an international city.
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