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Comments on the authenticity and editorial procedures in the introduction to the Chinese book version of the Tiananmen Papers that illuminate an understanding of Chinese politics. Discrepancies between the Chinese and the English versions; Definition of authenticity; Faulty editorial policies and processes.

Gender statistics provide an essential tool to mainstream gender equality in policymaking through the recognition by government and the public of gender differences in all walks of life. One legacy of feminist movements since the 1990s has been a focus on the challenges women face to effect substantive equality with men. Based on the findings of a project carried out in three districts of Tianjin, this paper identifies a lack of gender statistics in China's statistical system and the resulting negative impacts on local policymaking. The findings point to weaknesses in the Chinese “state feminist” approach to gender statistics, mostly at the level of the central government. From a feminist political economy perspective, the paper argues, policymaking in China is a process built upon centralized statistical reporting systems that serve the senior governments more than local communities. Gender statistics have the potential to enhance local governance in China when policymaking becomes a site of contestation where community activists demand the use of statistics to assist policies that promote equality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's social health insurance has expanded dramatically over the past decade. The increasing number of beneficiaries and benefits, however, has aggravated rather than mitigated regional disparities in health care. How can the regional variation in Chinese social health insurance be explained? This paper argues that the subnational variation in China's social health insurance results from the policy choices of central and local states. The central leadership, which is concerned about regime stability, delegates substantial discretionary authority to local state agents to accommodate diverse social needs and local circumstances. Local officials, who care about their political careers in the centralized personnel system, proactively design and implement social health insurance policy according to local situations such as fiscal resources and social risk. In specifying the rationale, conditions and patterns of regional variation in Chinese social health insurance, this paper addresses the general issue of how political leaders in an authoritarian regime respond to social needs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the Chinese state's moral performance during several major disasters, including the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the 1998 Yangtze River floods, and the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Drawing on the theatrical theory of symbolic politics, I argue that the Sichuan earthquake marked a turn in the state's moral performance. While the Chinese state continued to project an image of a secure, heroic state, it endeavoured to construct a sympathetic image through leaders' displays of compassion and sorrow, a mourning ritual for ordinary victims, and narratives of response and rescue. This shift towards a more compassionate performance can be explained by the state's deployment of cultural resources to respond to societal challenges since the new millennium and its effort to repair its image amid the crises of 2008. The compassionate performance was temporarily effective because it found common ground with the traditional political culture of disaster, which still shapes the public's expectations of the state's moral conduct, and the new public culture that values equality and dignity of human life. Nevertheless, the political dilemmas of the compassionate performance became evident. Its efficacy largely relied on the presentation of suffering at the scene, which, however, led to public demands for the state to address the causes of the suffering. When the state failed to construct an “accountable state” image, this “dilemma of scene” had repercussions for its legitimacy. The efficacy of paternalism was also limited because it was less appealing to the growing urban middle class. By addressing moral performance, this paper contributes to the literature on politics of disaster and advances the important research agenda on cultural governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that popular trust in the Chinese central government is significantly weaker than five national surveys suggest. The evidence comes from these surveys. First, the surveys show that between one- and two-thirds of respondents hold hierarchical trust, i.e. they have more trust in the central government than they do in local government. Second, all other things being equal, people who are less satisfied with political democracy in China tend to be less trusting of the central government. Finally, hierarchical trust holders tend to be less satisfied with political democracy in the country than those who express equal trust for central and local governments. Put together, the three findings show that hierarchical trust holders are less trusting of the central government than equal trust holders with regard to developing political democracy, although they sound equally confident. The fact that so many respondents hold hierarchical trust indicates that trust in the central government is significantly weaker than it looks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Interjurisdictional cooperation has emerged as a major recent trend in China in response to challenges from market reforms and globalization. However, given that cities are in fierce competition with one another, interjurisdictional cooperation presents many difficulties for policy making. This paper attempts to examine how cooperative partnerships can be developed, sustained, or even resisted. It uses the Guangzhou–Zhuhai Railway as a case study to explore the institutional configuration of such a practice and to understand how the historical contingencies and path-dependencies in a transitional society interact with intensive bargaining to influence partnership building. It argues that the lack of a formal institutional framework to facilitate horizontal networking forces actors to opt for ad hoc collaborative arrangements. With the objective of making joint projects workable, commitments for cooperation have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis through extensive bargaining. Although this creates much flexibility in consensus building, it does not guarantee success: success depends on the interplay of inter-ministry politics, interscalar relations, intercity politics and state–market relations. To a certain extent, the Chinese state can go beyond economic logic and shore up its legitimacy by prioritizing development. The post-reform path-dependencies can provide current political leaders with more rather than fewer instruments with which to negotiate interjurisdictional projects, and thus have greater influence over urban and regional economic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Provides information on the articles discussed in the periodical "The China Quarterly" from October-December 2003. Foreign relations; China's European Union policy paper; Economic affairs; Military affairs; Party and political affairs.

Comments on the authenticity and editorial procedures to the Chinese book version of the Tiananmen Papers that illuminate an understanding of Chinese politics. Government's inability to attack the book in any effective way; Disagreement with a number of the editorial and translation decisions; Authenticity of the materials on the inspection of physical documents.

Through an investigation of the Shenzhen Collective Consultation Ordinance and the Guangdong Regulations on the Democratic Management of Enterprises, this article demonstrates how transnational capital in China deploys its associational power alongside its structural economic power to lobby and pressure the national and local governments to advance its own interests. In addition, building upon the ideas of Hall and Soskice about the varieties of capitalism, the authors have developed the concept of “varieties of transnational capital” to account for the differing positions of overseas business associations regarding the two laws. We find that these positions are shaped by two determining factors: a) where the associations are situated in global production chains, and b) the industrial relations model in their home countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although China has had difficulty improving the performance of its banks and stock markets, it has struggled even more to develop a credit rating industry. Credit rating agencies (CRA), which provide bond ratings, are vital to financial markets in advanced capitalist countries, but China's credit rating companies are weak and have had little influence over the behaviour of those who issue or invest in bonds. Some argue that CRAs gain authority through their strong reputation in the eyes of market participants, but the experience of rating agencies in China supports evidence from elsewhere that their private authority is largely dependent on government mandate, a benefit China's CRAs have only recently begun to enjoy. Many private actors, from trade associations to charity groups, are struggling to gain public influence in China, but credit rating agencies may be the best barometer to measure the Chinese government's general stance towards private authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, the Chinese government has pursued greater engagement with a range of international legal regimes. China's expanded participation in international regimes for trade and human rights, for example, can provide deeper understanding of the factors influencing China's international behaviour. Building upon scholarly perspectives about institutional compliance with treaty texts and the influence of local conditions on China's policies and practice, this article examines China's participation in international legal regimes for trade and human rights in light of dynamics of normative engagement and the paradigm of selective adaptation. Normative tensions help explain China's policies and practices on compliance with the WTO trade regime, while the imperative of normative engagement helps explain much about China's international human rights diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Might authoritarian one-party systems experience something akin to party identification – or affective proximity to the Party – that waxes and wanes over time? Such cycles do not centre on elections but on the politics of succession, new policy initiatives and ad hoc housecleaning, and their focus would be officials within the system as opposed to the electorate outside it. I argue that a key mechanism animating such variation in party identification of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres lies within the recurring rectification efforts seeking to temper these individuals and make them more submissive to the larger political goals of the Party centre. Such priming is largely an in-house phenomenon, taking place increasingly deeper within the CCP apparatus. This process tends to involve an extensive arsenal of institutional mechanisms that constitute a particularly big stick and within which pressures to comply can be uncomfortable, even excruciating. Normative elements of these movements, such as the language and substantive written materials used during study, analysis and self-criticism are predominantly in the service of enhancing the sheer domineering quality of the Party vis-à-vis the individuals that make up its ranks. I explore this through an examination of the three stresses (san jiang) campaign of 1998–2002. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What have we learned from a decade of research on the provision of public goods in the Chinese countryside? This review article surveys the literature in political science, economics and Chinese area studies. It describes the three dominant types of explanations for variation in the quality of public goods: local elections, social sanctioning and economic policies. It then argues that these findings are plagued by a set of common problems. Scholars mean different things when they use the term “public goods,” making their findings difficult to compare. Furthermore, the most common measures of public goods ignore the ways in which local officials manipulate statistics to enhance their career prospects and the interconnected nature of geographic-administrative units in the Chinese state. I suggest some ways to address these problems, and make recommendations for new directions in research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study addresses whether individuals who were sent down during the Cultural Revolution reveal different political attitudes from those who were socialized during the same period but were not themselves sent down. Using data from the urban sample of the 2006 General Social Survey of China, the authors find evidence that formerly sent-down youth – and particularly sent-down women – as compared to their not-sent-down peers, are today more willing to accept the class-struggle foundation of Mao's communist ideology but are, at the same time, more willing to assess the performance and structure of the communist regime critically. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the past two decades, the Chinese domestic security apparatus has expanded dramatically. “Stability maintenance” operations have become a top priority for local Chinese authorities. We argue that this trend goes back to the early 1990s, when central Party authorities adopted new governance models that differed dramatically from those of the 1980s. They increased the bureaucratic rank of public security chiefs within the Party apparatus, expanded the reach of the Party political-legal apparatus into a broader range of governance issues, and altered cadre evaluation standards to increase the sensitivity of local authorities to social unrest. We show that the origin of these changes lies in a policy response to the developments of 1989–1991, namely the Tiananmen democracy movement and the collapse of communist political systems in Eastern Europe. Over the past twenty years, these practices have developed into an extensive stability maintenance apparatus, whereby local governance is increasingly oriented around the need to respond to social unrest, whether through concession or repression. Chinese authorities now appear to be rethinking these developments, but the direction of reform remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After decades of policy learning and adoption of “Western” theories of international politics, the Chinese academic community has (re-)turned to the construction of a “Chinese” theory framework. This article examines the recent academic debates on theory with “Chinese characteristics” and sheds light on their historical and philosophical foundations. It argues that the search for a “Chinese” paradigm of international relations theory is part of China's quest for national identity and global status. As can be concluded from the analysis of these debates, “Chinese” theories of international politics are expected to fulfil two general functions – to safeguard China's national interests and to legitimize the one-party system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reforms carried out by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have long followed a traditional model of “experimentation under hierarchy.” This article will attempt to develop this model further by building a framework to illustrate the influence of both the political dynamics of hierarchical central–local relations and local economic circumstances in the introduction of large-scale political reforms. The initiation and expansion of “experimental points” are only permitted in those select few provinces with both favourable political and economic local conditions, allowing the CCP to minimize risk and make informed decisions regarding possibilities for nationwide reform. This article proposes that the hierarchical interaction of central and local political elites, and in particular provincial secretaries, can explain the extent of reforms, whereas the type of reform is linked to distinct provincial economic conditions and the provincial secretary's interpretation of provincial priorities. Put succinctly, the CCP's model of political reform can be specifically characterized as “experimentation under hierarchy in local conditions.” This article presents a detailed discussion of both the political and economic considerations inherent in this concept, and provides examples of reform programmes in Guangdong and Sichuan to illustrate the model in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many studies raise doubts about the effectiveness of the institutions, programmes and instruments that shape the Chinese national innovation system. This article scrutinizes central–local interactions in the national Torch Programme that has governed a large group of high-technology zones since 1988. The Torch Programme's procedural practices challenge widely shared assumptions about the dirigiste character of Chinese innovation policy. It combines centralized definition of programme objectives with extensive local implementation experiments. As three case studies demonstrate, bottom-up policy innovations are effectively fed back into national programme adjustments and into horizontal policy diffusion. The array of organizational patterns and promotional instruments that emerges from competitive “experimentation under the shadow of hierarchy” (ESH) goes way beyond what could have been initiated from top down. We hypothesize that the procedural strengths displayed in the Torch Programme may provide better indicators of future innovative potential in China's high-technology zones than retrospective statistical indices and benchmarks that are derived from OECD experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the last few years, the demands of homeowners in Chinese cities have gradually shifted away from economic rights and towards political ones. At the same time, alliances across different communities have emerged and vigorous attempts to form citywide solidarities have been made. In this process, a group of dedicated leaders has emerged, contributing greatly to the escalation of collective actions. This article focuses on a core group of Beijing activists behind the organization, expression and participation of homeowners' associations. Relying on data collected from interviews, documents and participatory observations conducted over a period of more than two years, we were able to pin down the socio-economic, social and political backgrounds of these leaders, as well as their attitudes, objectives and repertoire of actions. We describe leaders as falling into a two-by-two typology that is defined by a motivation dimension and an activeness dimension. Depending on his or her goals and approaches, a protest leader can be variously viewed as a political actionist, a frustrated changer, a double harvester or a tiger rider. These different types of leaders are all in one way or another promoting socio-political changes in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers news briefs related to China's domestic and international political affairs. A keynote speech for the 90th anniversary celebration of the Chinese Communist Party was delivered on July 1, 2011 by Chinese General Secretary Hu Jintao. On September 29, 2011, China launched the space lab module Tiangong-1. From August 2-9, 2011, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi made diplomatic visits to countries including Poland, Albania, and South Sudan.

Between 1991 and 2001, Qian Xuesen, China's leading missile expert, was given an array of honourable titles by the state, followed by eulogistic narratives by the media and his biographers. This article analyses three forms of Chinese narratives about Qian: commendations from the state, stories told by his biographers, and Qian's self-presentation. It aims to show that although the CCP showered Qian with compliments seemingly because of his contributions to China's national defence and space programmes, the real reasons were Qian's political fidelity and the Party's aim to build a role model for intellectuals to emulate. The article demonstrates that Maoist practices of “hero construction” and using history for the present persist in the post-Mao period with some variations, and that the writings of “unofficial history” are heavily influenced by official history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a chronicle of events related to internal developments and the foreign relations of China for July-September 2010. Internal developments discussed include central government appointments, military exercises in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, and growth of the gross domestic product (GDP). International developments include visits to China by South African President Jacob Zuma, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a collision between a Chinese fishing boat and a Japanese patrol boat, and China's opposition to European Union (EU) sanctions on Iran.

Can one man dominate the Chinese Communist Party? This has been a much debated issue in the field of Chinese politics. Using a novel database that tracks the biographies of all Central Committee (CC) members from 1921 to 2007, we derive a measure of top CCP leaders' factional strength in the CC. We show that Mao could not maintain a commanding presence in the Party elite after the Eighth Party Congress in 1956, although the Party chairman enjoyed a prolonged period of consolidated support in the CC at a time when the CCP faced grave external threats. No Chinese leader, not even Mao himself, could regain the level of influence that he had enjoyed in the late 1940s. Our results, however, do not suggest that a "code of civility" has developed among Chinese leaders. The Cultural Revolution saw the destruction of Liu Shaoqi's faction. Although violent purges ended after the Cultural Revolution, Chinese leaders continued to promote followers into the CC and to remove rivals' followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China has instituted a variety of reforms to its hukou system, an institution with the power to restrict population mobility and access to state-sponsored benefits for the majority of China's rural population. A wave of newspaper stories published in late 2005 understood the latest round of reform initiatives to suggest that the hukou is set to be abolished, and that rural residents will soon be "granted urban rights." This article clarifies the basic operations of the hukou system in light of recent reforms to examine the validity of these claims. We point out that confusion over the functional operations of the hukou system and the nuances of the hukou lexicon have contributed to the overstated interpretation of the initiative. The cumulative effect of these reforms is not abolition of the hukou, but devolution of responsibility for hukou policies to local governments, which in many cases actually makes permanent migration of peasants to cities harder than before. At the broader level, the hukou system, as a major divide between the rural and urban population, remains potent and intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wave of large-scale demonstrations from 2003 to 2006 has given rise to a new pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and raised important questions about the political activism of the Hong Kong public. This study aims at achieving a better understanding of the cultural underpinnings of Hong Kong people's protest participation (and non- participation). Following a tradition of constructivist analysis which sees culture as a set of shared and more or less structured ideas, symbols, feelings and common senses, this study examines how participants in the prodemocracy protests make sense of their experiences and the ongoing political and social changes in Hong Kong. It shows that the 1 July 2003 demonstration has indeed empowered many of its participants, but feelings of efficacy became more complicated and mixed as people continued to monitor changes in the political environment and interpret the actions of others. At the same time, beliefs and ideas that can be regarded as part of Hong Kong's culture of de-politicization remain prevalent among the protesters. The findings of the study allow us to understand why many Hong Kong people view protests as important means of public opinion expression and yet participate in them only occasionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments are responsible for dealing with many of the instances of resistance in China, and an important mode of response which they use is suppression. This article examines the rationale behind local governments' use of this mode of response. It shows that Chinese citizens who stage resistance are in a weak legal position because their actions often violate the law or government regulations. Given local governments' discretion in interpreting citizens' action, suppression becomes the option when concessions are difficult to make and citizen resistance threatens social stability, policy implementation or local officials' images. However, suppression has not stopped popular resistance, and it remains a channel through which citizens defend or pursue their legitimate rights in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a commentary on the role of the courts in China's political system. The author believes that it is appropriate to deal with the issue by focusing on the central question of whether the role of the courts in China's political system has changed as a consequence of reform. He also presents his ideas regarding the possible tests for evaluating judicial reform.

Looks at the two dimensions gaining empirical and theoretical significance in China, which is harmonization with international laws and institutional reshuffling. Attempt of Beijing to standardize its regulatory and legal regimes; Plan of many localities to change laws and regulations which provide benefits to investors, insulate the economy from competition and perpetuate the informal power of local officials; Resistance of sectoral bureaucracies in giving up the power and privileges they enjoyed under China's semi-reformed planned system.

Examines the importance of the Legislation Law passed by the National People's Congress (NPC) in China in March 2000. Attempt of the NPC to rationalize the country's legal system; Role of law in creating balance of power in China's lawmaking arena; Analysis of the importance of citizen participation in the legislative process.

Presents several documents relating to the political and economic affairs in China.

Presents a record or register of facts concerning China arranged in the order in which they happened. Internal developments; Foreign relations.

Offers a sociological perspective on the rise of and crackdown on the falun gong (FLG) in relation to the social, cultural, and political context in China. Sociological nature of the FLG based on the NRM literature; Suggestion that the FLG can be understood as an NRM with characteristics comparable to those in Euro-American contexts in the 1950s to 1970s; Effect of the interaction among the political implication of Chinese history of NRM, the social canon of social stability since 1989, the organizational nature andmobilization power of the FLG, the strong ideological commitment of FLG followers and the overseas support of the FLG leader on the strong-handed crackdown of the group.

Examines the features of fiscal decentralization in China. Proliferation of arbitrary charges; System of vertical bureaucratic control; Target responsibility system; Autonomy-reducing effects of unfunded mandates and legislated expenditures.

Discusses the state and society in urban China in the wake of the 16th Communist Party Congress. Correlation between Jiang Zemin's "three represents" and the various separate social groups making up the cities at the turn of the 21st century.

Discusses leadership change and political development in China. Nature of the Chinese political system; Political reform of the economy; Political institutionalization.

Discusses the interaction between urban government and citizens through the intermediary of neighborhood organizations. Description of Residents' Committees (RC) in the late 1990s; Basic purpose of the RC; Gradual changes happening in Mao-era neighborhood organizations in China's cities; Role of RC as intermediaries between government agencies and individual households.

Examines the rule of law policy in Guangdong, China. Issues concerning a government of laws v. a government of men; Implications of the rule of law for the meaning and process of political change; Importance of institutionalization and power distribution in political analysis; Relationship between the central government and the provinces.

Examines the role of reform programs by the Chinese Communist Party in the expansion of social organizations in China. Context of the Leninist social reordering and controlling strategies; Influence of market reforms on pluralizing socio-economic changes under a party-state system; Implication of social corporatism concepts for policy-making processes.

Focuses on the reasons for China's difficulties in coping with a great power identity. Contradictory approach to foreign affairs that have emerged since the Tiananmen shootings in 1989; Relationships with neighboring states.

Examines four wanyanshu or ten-thousand-word articles circulated privately in Beijing, China that severely criticizes market reform for its deviation from socialism. Third thought emancipation that gave rise to speculations of a political rift in Beijing; Socio-economic and ideological background of the wanyanshu incident; Implications of leftist criticisms for Chinese politics.

Presents information pertaining to politic and government in China, highlighting urban historical information on Shanghai during the Republican period. Questioning the relation between state and society; Economic conditions of Shanghai during the related period; Comparison of Chinese and European cities; Cultural conflicts between China and the West; Additional related information.

Presents information pertaining to China, with emphasis on the economic, political and social aspects of 1911 Revolution and the Qing imperial state. Historical interpretations of the political failure of revolution and state; Information on intellectual reform and cultural destruction of the religious image; What recent research in social and cultural history suggest; Information on the inheritance of the Nanjing government; Characterization of post-1911 politics.

Discusses the stages and processes involved in lawmaking in China. Western policy process models and Chinese lawmaking politics; Agenda-setting; Inter-agency consensus-building; Ministerial interests, bargaining motivations and tactics; Access and consensus-building; Drafting of implementing regulations and implementation.

Studies China's mechanization policy in the post-Mao period of 1977-87. Difficulties on the reversal of the Maoist mechanization policy; Indicators demonstrating the changing priorities assigned to mechanization.