Urban redevelopment in Chinese cities is significant for urban growth. This study aims to investigate the dynamics of governance of urban redevelopment in Guangzhou, China from 1990 to 2015 under the Chinese authoritarian regime. The connections between such governance and the authoritarian regime are the key to understand the governance dynamics; this is the main contribution of this research. This study explores 5 research objectives to achieve research aims by qualitative methods: (1) the institutional background; (2) patterns of governance; (3) purposes of governance; (4) mechanism of governance; and (5) a Guangzhou mode of governance. The research findings of 5 research objectives are (1) institutional background can be described as a land-oriented pro-growth authoritarian regime. (2) The patterns of governance have three various phases, the Primitive Market Phase (1990–1996) as a semi-market mode of governance; the Pure Government Phase (1998–2006) as a semi-hierarchy mode; and the Multiple Players Phase (2006–2015) as a semi-network mode. (3) The purpose of governance is to pursue economic growth in various conditions. (4) The mechanisms to produce governance modes are driven by the Chinese authoritarian regime. (5) A Guangzhou mode of governance can be established based on the comparison between Guangzhou, other Chinese cities and a simplified picture of Western cities. There are three main arguments in these findings, the governance modes in Guangzhou are dramatically changeable; these changes aim to adapt changed environments to realise growth; the authoritarian regime of Guangzhou is an important reason for this adaptive capacity.