20 years from now what will be China's major cities next to Beijing and Shanghai?

I think the four places to look for in the future are:

Kunming is an important trading center between the far west and central and south China (Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand). It has a new international Airport. The bridges have been opened across the Mekong and Laos is building road infrastructure. Pop 3,055,000

Chengdu Chengdu is one of the most important economic centers and transportation and communication hubs in Southwestern China. According to the 2007 Public Appraisal for Best Chinese Cities for Investment, Chengdu was chosen as one of the top ten cities to invest in, out of a total of 280 urban centers. Pop 3,750,000

Chongqing The municipality became the spearhead of China's effort to develop its western regions and coordinate the resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas of the Three Gorges Dam project. Pop 5,087,197

Shenzhen Foreign nationals have invested more than US$30 billion for building factories and forming joint ventures. It is now reputedly one of the fastest growing cities in the world. pop 8,464,300

New York and Los Angeles.
And Hong Kong is a region, not a city.

20 years is too long, but I think in the next 5-10 years, these cities will begin to get a lot more attention because they are closer to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong:

Shenzhen
Guangzhou
Chongqing
Harbin
Tianjin

besides those, also Dalian, Hangzhou,changsha

The next major international cities in China would probably be Xian, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Qingdao, Nanjing, Wuhan, Harbin, Shenzhen, Urumqi etc.

Location is very important for this so the following are cities China is focusing on right now to build up and make them equal with the ones you mentioned

Chong Qing and Wu Han are the two main ones right now


http://www.chinalawblog.com/2007/06/chinas_next_top_ten_cities_for.html

the capitals of the provinces and the seaside cities