Abstract: Spatial planning is not merely a technology-led scientific practice, but also a social undertaking. There have been two research approaches in social sciences that reveal the social dynamics of planning: one is to use the framework of interest politics to explore the inter-governmental negotiations in planning formulation； and the other is to examine the interplay between the state and society in planning based on the paradigm of contentious politics. Both explanations, focusing either on the intra-bureaucracy relationship or on the state-society relationship， have neglected the urban-rural dimension of planning， making it difficult to capture the unique social dynamics arising from planning practices in the context of rapid urbanization in contemporary China. This paper proposes an explanatory framework that emphasizes the embeddedness of planning in the urban-rural relationship structure shaped by urban transformation. Based on the case of a suburban village in eastern China， this study finds that whether in conservation or development planning， rural areas are in a dual hierarchical structure consisting of an administrative hierarchy between government levels and a territorial hierarchy between the urban and the rural. This unique urban-rural situation， combined with the overall comprehensiveness of planning itself， process practicality， and future-orientated characteristics of spatial planning itself， results in three social mechanisms of planning including the implicit infrastructuralization of rural spaces， the transcendence of planning power over land systems， and the asymmetric distribution of planning certainty. Consequently， villages under planning tend to employ opportunist adaptive strategies rather than engage in power negotiations or social actions. By outlining the urban-rural dynamics in Chinese spatial planning， this paper reveals the reciprocal reproduction of planning and the urban-rural structure in contemporary China， thereby explaining how spacial planning becomes part of the repertoire of Chinese state-led urbanization.

Key words: spatial planning, urban-rural relations, urban planning, urbanization