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This paper examines the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on China's political influence in international affairs, as mediated by Chinese economic integration with the BRI countries. We propose that the BRI plays a role in influencing partner countries to support China's presence in the international community, and the economic integration of the BRI positively mediates the willingness of partner countries to align with China in international affairs. This paper uses panel data from 147 BRI countries collected between 2009 and 2020, and the difference-in-differences method, to estimate the political influence of the BRI. The results suggest that the BRI motivates partner countries to support the growth of China's influence in international affairs. The results of the causal mechanism analysis indicate that a significant and positive association between the implementation of the BRI and China's influence is mediated by promoting Chinese contracts, trade overseas, and outward FDI. The examinations of heterogeneity demonstrate that BRI countries that are developing, non-landlocked, non-neighboring, having signed the memorandum of understanding or cooperation memorandum of understanding, or lacking a Chinese investment guide are more likely to support China's political presence. This paper concludes with insights into how China implements the BRI to enhance its political ascent in the global order by facilitating economic integration of the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper complicates the classic security dilemma by considering the notions of ontological security and relational deterrence. It studies how the ontological security dilemma has emerged between the US, China, and Taiwan from the relational perspective and how these spiral chains will further develop in the future. The paper incurs the literature on relational analysis to expound on how different ontological security concerns allude to relational deterrence between the three actors. Taiwan's separatism is more of a threat to China's relational self than to physical security because the separatist does not belong to any already agreed relationship. A geometric model and a few simulations yield three unconventional findings. 1) The less advantaged the US military is over China, the less likely armed unification will occur. 2) The US anti-Chinese tendency is irrelevant in determining the probability of armed unification. 3) What may escalate the spiral are China's anti-Taiwan independence and Taiwan's anti-unification. Case sensitivity indicates the ontological sensibilities of a security dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent years have witnessed a significant change in China–EUrope relations, with the EU's strategic positioning of China undergoing a fundamental shift from a "partner" to a "systemic rival." By applying a theoretical framework based on neoclassical realism, the present paper examines the determinant factors leading to such a shift. This study highlights three factors: first, a change in the US's strategy and governance capability; second, the power symmetries between China and EUrope, including salient changes in material strength and marked differences in norms; third, an emergent change in strategic culture, encompassing a striving China vis-à-vis a strategically autonomous EUrope. By following Götz's (2021) insights on neoclassical realist approaches that employ intervening variables as complementary factors, we identify the US factor as the most important international factor in structural terms, while the power symmetries and strategic culture act as complementary factors. The paper concludes that while maintaining engagement, China–EUrope relations will only see further intensified rivalry and contradictions in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the challenges brought about by the devastating COVID-19 pandemic in China and the Chinese government's increasingly stringent regulatory policies, this paper poses the following research questions: During the pandemic and in interactions with the government, why did some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) survive while others were shut down, although most of those that survived were small and medium-sized NGOs? In addressing this question, this paper delves into the strategies adopted by small and medium-sized NGOs to cope with COVID-19. Using data drawn from three years of field observations and research in six major cities in China, this paper finds that four types of small and medium-sized NGOs resorted to different strategies that followed degree of competitiveness and scope of main business. The scarcity of resources resulting to the pandemic plunged NGOs into a competitive survival posture; thus, the strategies for the four types of small and medium-sized NGOs achieved three levels of effectiveness, namely good, medium, and poor. The findings of this paper shed significant light on the diversity and complexity of the survival and development of NGOs under the authoritarian regime of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely argued that China has prepared for launching cyberwarfare against the United States for long time. There are two reasons for this. First, the revolution of cyber technology changed the offense-defense balance, which will lead to frequent cyber conflicts. Second, with the relative decline of the United States and the rising up of China in recent years, there has been growing concerns about a Thucydides Trap between the two great powers, and cyberwar is very likely to happen. However, except for disputes on cyber espionage, China showed restraint on the offensive use of its cyberpower. This paper argues that China's strategic thinking on cyber offense, defense, and cyberwarfare has been evolving over the past decades. Through content analysis of official documents and academic writings, this paper sheds light on the recent discussions and development of China's cyber offense and defense strategy. With China's gradual access to the global Internet and extensive participation in the international economic division of labor, maintaining the stability of global cyberspace is of greater significance to China, and the cost of launching cyber warfare is higher and higher. Such findings help avoid miscalculation and maintain strategic stability between China and the United States in cyberspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores cycles in innovative outcomes corresponding with the timing of political turnover. Using data on local government officials and firm level innovation activities in China, firm innovation is found to be negatively associated with a turnover of local political leaders. We examine several potential explanations and find evidence supporting the premise that political turnover reduces firms' incentives to innovate until the uncertainty is resolved. This paper also indicates that local political turnover significantly inhibits firms' research and development investment, government subsidies, and expansion decisions, leading to less innovative outcomes. Moreover, reductions in innovation are greater in cities with higher levels of government expenditure or intellectual property rights trials, or in smaller firms or non-state-owned enterprises during the rotation of local government leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China has risen as an advanced technological society, a new type of Orientalism—Digital Orientalism—has likewise emerged. Using historical materialism, this paper details these developments, including China's change from a civilization-state to modern nation-state and its transition from a technical state to an advanced technological society, closing the technology gap that had left it vulnerable to foreign aggression and continued forms of international dominance and hegemony. It reviews and develops theories associated with technological societies, and how these relate to technophobia generally and the rise of Sino(techno)phobia specifically. It then theorizes three distinct but overlapping trends or themes in Orientalist depictions of China over the past two centuries: 1) 'classical' Orientalism, first theorized by Edward Said; 2) 'Sinological Orientalism,' described by Daniel Vukovich; and now 3), 'Digital Orientalism,' which was first introduced by Maximilian Mayer. This paper develops analyses associated primarily with the third theme, investigating contemporary developments in the context of China as a rising power and how scholars and other nations have responded in turn. It argues that China appears to have surpassed others now as a technological society, including the US, with China's response to COVID-19 as a clear example, and with clear implications for China's national advancement and global position vis-à-vis the United States particularly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence on the incentive role of personnel control in China in the twenty-first century. Employing the city-level turnover data of political leaders in China between 2000 and 2018 and utilizing the fixed effects ordered logit model, we find that the likelihood of promotion of local leaders rises with their economic performance. This relationship holds more firmly in the municipal party secretary. The probability is also found to decrease with the economic performance of their immediate predecessors and neighboring cities. This finding is robust to various robustness tests. We interpret the finding as evidence that the relative economic performance (peer effects) also contributes to the local political turnover, in particular within a province. Moreover, after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, a material change in the personnel arrangement within the party arises and this promotion mechanism shows a dynamic change. Our study sheds some light on the growing literature emphasizing the relationship between political turnover and economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is poised to profoundly reshape the regional geographical landscape. While existing communication studies on BRI have focused on the official and media narratives to frame the initiative, the overall orientation of the topic in academic circles is not well understood. By conducting a bibliometric literature review, this paper addresses this gap by answering the research question: How is the BRI reflected in the academic literature? In the review, we divide all academic studies on BRI into four cohorts (studies from scholars based in China, in Quad countries, in the rest of the world, and cross-collaborating scholars) and use structural topic model to understand the themes and trends on BRI scholarship from scholars from these regions. Our results show that scholars in different cohorts understand BRI differently, specifically, with China-based scholars projecting ideas of development, growth and sustainability, while Quad-based scholars mostly focus on the geopolitical impact, security implications and debt sustainability of BRI. The findings also show a divergence between popular narratives on BRI and academic research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crises constitute ideal opportunities for authoritarian leaders to promote certain narratives, shaping reality in their favor and crafting their own preferred storylines about current events. In other words: they serve authoritarian leaders on a silver platter the opportunity to instrumentalize these unforeseen circumstances to gain domestic political legitimacy by promoting strategic narratives. The COVID-19 pandemic was no exception in this regard. Ever since its onset in early 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was among the most active actors worldwide seeking to capitalize on the global crisis for legitimation purposes. Whether applying narratives of governance supremacy, portraying the People's Republic of China as a "global savior," or promoting emotionally appealing nationalistic narratives, the regime used the pandemic as a window of opportunity to rebrand its international role and enhance its domestic legitimacy. When observing the CCP's communication style over the course of 24 pandemic months (2020–2022), however, major shifts become apparent regarding the main narratives crafted in communication with national audiences. Based on this, the paper focuses on the role of such narratives for legitimation claims. Using exemplary media articles collected between the outbreak of the pandemic in China in late 2019 until the harsh Shanghai lockdown in spring 2022, it thus traces the narratives employed by Chinese state elites and explores how they are intertwined with nationalism and broader power claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating poverty is a worldwide problem, but China has recently made major achievements in poverty alleviation. By the end of 2020, 832 nationally designated poor counties had all been lifted out of poverty within five years. Why do some poor counties perform better in poverty alleviation? This paper leverages a unique county-level dataset of 832 nationally designated poor counties in China and uses discrete-time event history analysis to understand the relationship between political institutions and poverty alleviation. We find that the presence of a county party committee secretary concurrently holding a higher rank position above the county level significantly increases the odds ratio of accomplishing poverty alleviation tasks. Previous studies have emphasized the important role of empowering people in democracies for poverty reduction. This study shows that empowering key governmental actors in authoritarian regimes can help them increase their bargaining power and improve the performance of poverty alleviation. In addition, this paper echoes the research on political institutions of authoritarian systems and deepens the understanding of the importance of the higher-ranking institution of Chinese officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As President Xi Jinping expands and deepens his mark on the Chinese political system, how should scholars assess the impact of his administration on core institutions such as the police? This article employs a mixed methods approach by combining data from interview research with text analysis of ministerial level documents to explore reforms and rhetoric in the public security bureaucracy during the first six years of Xi's tenure. The timing, nature, and practical execution of police reform shed light on the priorities of the Xi administration and its ability to make changes to the police bureaucracy and enforce law and order in Chinese cities. The paper assesses key policing reform rhetoric using Jean-Paul Brodeur's framework of high and low policing to analyze which areas of policing have received the most attention and in what ways. Ultimately, I find that preferences for "high policing" style stability maintenance reforms supersede concern for "low policing" activities such as crime-fighting, resulting in the further politicization of policing in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identity is the cognition of citizens regarding to which political community they belong, and the tendency to accept the political, cultural and ethnic values of the state. Previous studies have found that national identity is heterogeneous at the subnational levels. Why do people hold different degrees of nationalism and patriotism in the subnational units? In this paper, we offer a political economic explanation of national identity, which links the state capacity with political attitudes. We employ a nationalism-patriotism framework to decompose the concept of national identity, then use the supervised learning approach to measure nationalism and patriotism based on a massive number of Weibo posts dating from 2011 to 2017. Automated text analysis shows that the state capacity plays an important role preventing the national identity from being weakened by globalization and the diversity of social information. Specifically, with the progress of China's globalization, multiculturalism and various information have crossed the national boundaries, which undermines China's national identity. In order to maintain this identity, the Chinese government utilizes its redistribution capacity to reinforce both nationalism and patriotism, and also its information capacity to strengthen nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is no secret that EU member states cannot come to terms on a unified China-policy. Most studies on EU-China relations come to the conclusion that disagreement exists and that this fragmentation is utilized by Chinese foreign policy in a kind of divide and rule strategy. However, the question as to why the EU members disagree has not been answered satisfactorily. This paper investigates the reasons for this discord from the perspective of the core-periphery theory. We illustrate how the spatial position of nations within Europe–in a geographical and political sense–shapes their outlook on China. As a case study to illustrate the differences in the outlook on China of among EU member countries, we analyse the discourses on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines in the Hungarian and German press from April 2020 until summer 2021. We argue that these differences have their grounds in the spatial-relational positioning at either the core or the semi-periphery of the EU. Based on our findings we suggest that a sustainable EU China-policy has first to address these differences in foreign policy outlook and then find a common ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sino-U.S. relations tumbled during the Trump Administration. The talk of decoupling permeated the decision-making circle in Washington D.C. Many factors have contributed to the free fall. The roles Congress has played are undoubtedly one of them. Based on the new institutionalist approach, this study provides three analyses of recent China-related legislative activities. First, the historical analysis of legislative data illustrates a surge in congressional activism on China-related legislative activities. Second, the content analysis reveals some of the triggers in the deterioration of bilateral relations in recent years. Third, the political analysis of the critical congressional players and the structures and procedures Congress created provides some insight into the domestic and political logic of the congressional crusade against China. Finally, the paper ends with assessing the impact of the surge in Congressional activism on the new Biden Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies focusing on China and Russia, whose relationship is of key importance to the configuration of the international system, have been evolving dynamically in various disciplines. We analyze the evolution of this research by focusing on the fields of International Relations and Area Studies. This novel bibliometric study employs Biblioshiny, AntConc, and VOSviewer to analyze 947 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection, focusing specifically on 266 publications in International Relations and Area Studies. While mapping research on China and Russia over the last three decades (1990–2019), we identify the main trends regarding the annual distribution of papers, document types, dominant journals, collaboration networks between countries, and the most productive authors. We also establish prevailing research themes resulting from keyword analysis and their respective growth over time, as well as the density of the most frequently used terms and methods employed in the selected research fields. Finally, we identify fruitful avenues for further research, while also demonstrating how the bibliometric approach can inform and direct developments on China and Russia studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the question of how provincial top leaders' promotion incentive drive their strategies of land approval in China. This question is situated in broad theoretical knowledge of politicians' incentives and behaviors for career advancement. In view of promotion rules in China, we make officials' age a proxy for promotion incentives. Then based on the fact that land is essential for economic growth and the power of land approval is largely in provincial governments, we establish a theoretical framework to uncover the relationship between provincial leaders' age and their strategies of land approval. With detailed information of provincial leaders and data of land approval areas of 30 provinces in China from 1999 to 2014, we identify an inversed-U relationship between the amount of construction land approved by provincial governments and age of provincial party secretaries, while not for governors. And the maximum of land approval scale corresponds to party secretaries' age of 57, 2 years before their sensitive age of political career, which can be explained as proactive behavior for upcoming promotion incentives. Furthermore, once the tenure of officials in the same province exceeds 5 years, the scale of land approval will no longer be affected by age. Our study contributes to the existing literature by testing and confirming politicians' strategical behaviors intrigued by promotion incentive and make it more concrete with the case of land approval in China. Furthermore, we provide a political perspective to understand the expansion of construction land in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voting in China's grassroots elections is more of a ritual than a right. For most citizens especially in the urban areas, the results of the local elections have little effect on their lives. Indeed, despite the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) campaigns to get the vote out in local elections, voter turnout is relatively low especially among younger voters. Beyond local political campaigns to remind citizens of their duty to vote is the community pressure and engagement. How does community interaction influence voter turnout in authoritarian grassroots elections? That is, are more socially engaged citizens more likely to vote in ritual elections? Moreover, does community engagement mitigate the age gap in voter turnout in grassroots elections in China? Scant literature exits on the relationship between community interaction and ritual voting in authoritarian regimes. Using the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey, this paper finds that community interaction plays a significant role in voter turnout. In addition, young people, who interact with neighbors, are just as likely to vote as the more socially connected older residents. The results have important implications for political behavior as well as for the grassroots elections in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National power has been an important discriminative signal for the evolution of great power competition and international patterns in recent years, not only in terms of the relative resource scale of the state but also in terms of the efficiency of resource use. Based on the two levels of national resources and conversion mechanisms, this article uses the entropy method to establish national power comprehensive assessment index systems covering 144 countries and 38 indicators from 1990–2020. At the same time, based on power transition theory (PTT), this article uses quadratic assignment procedures to verify the relevance and interpretation of international bilateral relations in the national power gap. The conclusion is that technology and economic elements are especially important for national power, and the conversion mechanism is icing on the cake rather than a decisive factor. The competition among great powers is transformed into nontraditional competition rather than an arms race; the international pattern has gradually developed from one superpower to a multipolar trend, and the global economic and geopolitical center has transitioned to Asia. The rise of China and the recession in the U.S. are factual; as the gap between the two countries' power narrows, their international relations become increasingly tense, confirming power transition theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does poverty relief breed corruption? This question has been examined in several electoral polities, but not in other political settings. This study engages in this academic discussion by proposing a unique corruption mechanism in the case of China. The dual causes of National Poor Counties' unique exit mechanism and long distance from economic hubs create a unique local poli-economic environment, in which local bureaucrats share the incentive to stay in the program, which in turn leads to an intra-elite alliance and more corruption. I test the empirical implication of these mechanisms by first building up a new county-level corruption dataset for 881 low-income counties,and then leveraging propensity score weighting to evaluate the impact of the third wave (2001–2010) of China's poverty alleviation program on county level corruption. The results of this test show some evidence that counties participated in the third wave of the program are associated with approximately 4.4–19.7 percent increase in corruption incidence and 10.5–23.5 percent increase in numbers of convicted persons compared to similar non-participant counties. These findings highlight the importance of proper institutional designs in poverty alleviation regimes to lower the corruption incentive of local bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the determinants of the positioning of secondary states in the US-China conflict over market access for China's Huawei. Our explanations draw on three branches of realism: balance-of-threat theory, patron-client theory, and Hirschman's theory on trade relationships and foreign-policy convergence. For the dependent variable, we assemble a new dataset of the attitudes of 70 states toward Huawei's investment aspirations. We present a series of ordered logit regression models from which three main patterns appear. First, less powerful states seem more acceptive of the Chinese company. Second, those states that rely on US security guarantees tend to be far more rejective of Huawei. Third, whereas trade with China appears to be a factor in the reasonings of other states, trade with the US is not. In sum, the patron-client theory offers the most cogent explanation of the divergence of responses to Huawei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies a time-varying parameter/stochastic volatility vector autoregression (TVP-SV-VAR) model to explore the time-varying property of the link between Sino-US political relations and trade. The results indicate that the association of these two variables appears to be unstable. Sino-US political relations have positive and negative impacts on their bilateral trade, and the impact on Chinese imports is stronger than on its exports. In turn, Chinese imports from the US lead to political conflict, while Chinese exports promote peace. The interaction mechanism may originate from the expectations of the future trade environment caused by trade policy uncertainty. The interactions between Sino-US political relations and bilateral trade at different time points are also investigated. The results demonstrate that the link between these two variables is slightly different, depending on the specific status of the bilateral political relationship (friendly, neutral or hostile). Both China and the US should seek common interests to maintain a stable political relationship, and even with an increasing volume of bilateral trade, the risk of political conflicts should not be neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can village leaders' performance impact villagers' trust in the central government? Using village leader-villager relations at the village level as the explanatory variable, we examine a previously ignored source of public trust toward the Chinese government: face-to-face interactions with local leaders. We argue that, as the party-state's first point of contact with villagers, villagers use their interactions with village leaders as a proxy to determine the trustworthiness of China's central government. By analyzing the latest Guangdong Thousand Village Survey from 2020, we find that when villagers report better relations with village leaders, they also express greater trust in the Chinese central government. We find additional evidence for this relationship through open-ended interviews of villagers and village leaders. These findings advance our understanding of hierarchical political trust in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a vibrant literature on political trust in China. However, a closer examination of this large literature points to no clear consensus on the measurement and sources of such support. To contribute to this literature, this study is to explore the magnitude, forms, and sources of political trust in urban China. In this study, we explore an alternative approach to the study of political trust, which treats political trust along two straightforward yet distinct dimensions: horizontal and vertical dimensions. Based on this approach, we find that people's political trust in urban China varies vertically, across different levels of government institutions (e.g., central and local governments), while it changes little horizontally, among different government institutions at the same level. Moreover, we find that the formation of political trust in each level of government institutions — along the vertical dimension — is shaped by a distinct combination of sociopolitical factors. We also explore some important theoretical and political implications from our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassroots elections of rural village heads and urban community directors are an important public arena for social-political participation of Chinese citizens. Analyzing the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2017) data through the models of GSEM (general equation structure modeling) and fulfilling the robustness check via IV (instrumental variable) method (including IV-Probit and 2SLS-IV models), this article examines the direct and indirect effects of personal networks on voting participation after 2012 under the leadership of Xi. We find that people with greater amounts of network resources and higher frequencies of social eating with network members have a higher likelihood to participate in elections. As to mediating effects, the two measures of personal networks pave the way for people to participate in formal networks of associational engagement, which in turn increase their participation in elections; however, people with higher values in the two personal network measures tend to have lower levels of institutional trust, which in turn hinders voting participation. In comparison, the positive effects are more powerful than the negative ones, so on the whole, personal networks are acting as an important conducive force for grassroots election participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many researchers have extensively studied the distributive politics of legislatures in liberal democracies, only a few have examined the role of those legislatures outside of liberal democracies in the geographical distribution of public resources, and their findings have been inconsistent. Based on an original dataset of 75,797 deputy proposals of China's National People's Congress from 2008 to 2017, this article first reveals that when deputies from a particular province submitted more proposals about constituency interests, it usually resulted in more central fiscal transfer payments to that province. However, a province whose relevant proposals were signed by more deputies usually received fewer fiscal resources. Deputy proposals can influence governmental policymaking to a certain extent, but deputies are discouraged from mobilizing bottom-up collective action. This study further indicates whether and how legislatures outside liberal democracies influence public resource distribution and sheds light on the limitation of such influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollutants allegedly originating from China have become a thorny issue in South Korea. Despite a neutral view of the topic on the part of the South Korean government, recent public polls show a high correlation between the air pollution issue and negative sentiment toward China. How has the media reported on China regarding air pollutants in South Korea? What is the effect of media reports on air pollution on anti-Chinese sentiment and foreign policy attitudes? By examining news headlines and Twitter data in 2015 and 2018, this work finds that media reports blaming China for air pollution doubled during the 2015–2018 period. Discourse surrounding air pollution also shifted: negative sentiment directed at both the Chinese government and the Chinese people increased in 2018 compared to 2015. In addition, an original online survey experiment shows that China-blaming articles have a causal effect on increasing related resentment, particularly toward Chinese people, and that this effect is moderated by age group. Such articles have also had negative effects on foreign policy attitudes via increased anti-Chinese sentiment; greater hostility toward the Chinese people is found to have a causal effect on reduced support for strengthening relations with their country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the 'age of conspiracism', the harmfulness of conspiratorial narratives and mindsets on individuals' mentalities, on social relations, and on democracy, has been widely researched by political scientists and psychologists. One known negative effect of conspiracy theories is the escalation toward political radicalism. This study goes beyond the exploration of mechanisms underpinning the relationship between conspiracy theory and radicalization to focus on possible approaches to mitigating them. This study sheds light on the role of counter-conspiracy approaches in the process of deradicalization, adopting the case study of anti-China sentiment and racial prejudice amid the Covid-19 pandemic, through conducting an experiment (N = 300). The results suggest that, during critical events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, exposure to countermeasures to conspiracist information can reduce individual acceptance of radicalism. We investigated two methods of countering conspiracy theory, and found that: (1) a content-targeted 'inoculation' approach to countering conspiracy theory can prevent the intensification of radicalization, but does not produce a significant deradicalization effect; and (2) an audience-focused 'disenchantment' method can enable cognitive deradicalization, effectively reducing the perception of competitive victimhood, and of real and symbolic threats. This study is one of the first attempts to address causality between deradicalization and countermeasures to conspiracy theories in the US-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2016 China's policies towards North Korea appeared to undergo considerable short-term change, increasingly distancing itself from its neighbour and instead supporting the international community's response. Existing research has focused on long-term policy change and given little importance to short-term changes in policy, or has drawn on realist and constructivist theories which expect consistency and struggle to account for these changes. This article took an identity discourse approach to understanding the 2016 short-term changes in China's North Korea policy. It used quantitative computer assisted text analysis methods to measure changes in the dominance of different identity discourses related to North Korea that are produced on the Chinese Internet. It found that around 2015–2016, a previously more dominant "revolutionary" identity discourse lost dominance to a "stakeholder" identity discourse. The article argues that this change made possible the shift in approach to North Korea at the start of 2016 and indicates ways the short-term policy changes at this time may contribute to longer-term change in China's behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and how do the American political elites react discursively to China as a rising power? Do they depict it as an economic or military risk? What role do discursive references to China play in the US populist discourses? Relying on the thematic and critical discourse analysis of all the American presidential debates, this article explores the way US politicians portray China throughout three eras marked by distinct global power configurations. Several types of discourses have been identified. In contrast to the belligerent rhetoric of the early Cold War, when China was framed as a major military threat, after 2004, presidential candidates started referring to Beijing as an economic rival. By 2008, the emerging bipartisan consensus centered on China as mainly a trade competitor. By contrast, populist narratives in 2016 and 2020 stood out because they included emotional appeals and inflated the risks of the Sino-American rivalry to mobilize voters. In doing so, the populists sought to forge coalitions in favor of protectionist policies among those voters, who were employed in manufacturing sectors facing growing international competition. The anti-China mentions reached a peak during the 2020 debates amidst the pandemic when the populist candidate used biased language, relying on tropes resembling the 19th century racist "yellow peril" rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been increasing its permeation of the social sphere through party-building in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in recent years. In this study, we explore the impact of this party-building on NGOs' access to government funding using a party–state–society framework. From the analysis of a dataset drawn from the China Foundation Annual Report from 2019 to 2020, we found that the establishment of party branches in NGOs significantly increased their levels of government funding. Among NGOs that had already established party branches, the number of party-building activities was not associated with increased government funding. A further cross-regional comparative analysis found that party-building had a greater effect on NGOs' access to government funding in non-eastern regions of China than in the eastern region of the country. Our findings point to an implementation paradox of the current party-building campaign in China's third sector: the CCP has increased the presence of party branches, but it is unclear whether this party-building campaign has actually strengthened the Party's control over the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are political elites embedded in both civil and political domains? I studied 246 Chinese political elites who also served on nonprofit foundations' boards from 2011 to 2015 and conceptualized a framework to understand the state-nonprofit relationship before 2015. The political elites can build horizontal connections with foundations, helping the party-state reach nonprofit actors. They can also build vertical connections with political groups, helping foundations access political resources. The dual-role elites' connectedness with foundations and in the polity varies by their primary positions in the political system. Effective communication between the state and nonprofit actors requires elites to have strong connections in both the civil and political domains, but the situation in China is far from ideal—those embedded in foundations are disconnected from the polity, and those connected in the polity are marginalized in foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how provincial top leaders' promotion incentives drive their strategies for eco-environmental performance in China. Economic growth, a short-term interest, should be integrated with ecological sustainability, a long-term interest, for sustainable development. We used green efficiency and green total factor productivity as proxies for eco-environmental performance. We then utilized a generalized ordered logit model to analyze the relationship between eco-environmental performance and position change among provincial officials in China. For provincial party committee secretaries, the short-term political performance achieved by supporting and investing in non-green economic practices served only to prevent their demotion, as promotions were obtained via improving green efficiency; however, for provincial governors, improving green efficiency can both reduce the risk of demotion and increase the probability of promotion. After the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law in 2015, improving green total factor productivity can more efficiently reduce the likelihood of demotion among provincial party committee secretaries while enhancing the effects of eco-environmental performance on position change among provincial party committee secretaries. Our study improves the single-oriented, super-efficiency data envelopment analysis model to optimize the process of solving both input- and output-oriented problems simultaneously and realizes efficiency ranking for eco-environmental performance among provincial officials. Furthermore, this finding deepens our understanding of both the promotion system for Chinese local leaders and motivations for eco-environmental performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent micro-level research on government institutional reform emphasizes the importance of taking charge behavior in the context of institutional reform. This study constructs a structural equation model from survey data of 823 civil servants in Longgang, China, based on the theory of planned behavior, to examine the impact of workload and non-economic rewards on civil servants' taking charge behaviors in the context of institutional reform. Results confirm the difference paths of workload and non-economic rewards on taking charge behavior and the embeddedness of community mechanisms in government internal governance. The findings of this study are theoretically and practically relevant as they offer new perspectives into the triggers of continuous reform and the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of workload and non-economic rewards on taking charge behavior in the context of institutional reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The answer to the oft-asked question of state-civil society relations and the latter's role in environmental governance in China seems to be "in the eyes of the beholder." A number of discrepant accounts, narratives, and theories continue to be offered by China scholars and experts, largely due to methodological reliance on a snapshot of a given space and time. This article takes a different approach. Based on a more nuanced longitudinal analysis, we show that there have been at least three kinds of relationship between the Chinese state and environmental civil society in the last few decades, each defined by a distinct institutional field. The dynamics of these institutional changes have been anything but linear or predetermined. This article contributes to the existing debate by offering a more systematic and analytical account of the nature of state-society relations in China's environmental governance. Findings also point to the need for more dynamic and evolutionary, rather than static, analyses in future scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses how and why individual complainants with limited resources can relentlessly challenge a muscular state and what consequences the process delivers. In order to work the system to minimize inherent disadvantages, some complainants go to great lengths to identify shortcuts, to demean themselves, and then to find an appropriate outlet to cut their losses, while others remain stuck in the agonizing process, ending up as resolute idealists, unreasonable profit seekers or anti-social individuals. While complainants are empowered by the positive signals from the state, the negative aspects of the system can also subtly transform them, making them cynical or extreme. Their resistance, born out of life experience, thus carries some features of rightful, routine, and everyday resistance, but is distinguishable from them by other key aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results reported in this article, on local implementation of mixed-ownership reforms and the corporatization of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOE) in the period 2008–2017, confirm that political and economic factors determine the possibility, objective, and pace of SOE corporate restructuring. With a starting point in a comprehensive review of the literature on Chinese SOE reforms in the late 1990s and early 2000s, hypotheses on the effects of 1) market supporting institutions, 2) fiscal and financial stability constraints, and 3) social stability constraints on state sector ownership reforms were identified. Industrial economy statistics found in province-level statistical yearbooks were used to test the continuing relevance of these hypotheses and to provide the basis for an updated analysis of the ownership structure of local state-owned enterprises in a new phase of SOE reforms. Most of the firm-level findings reported here are consistent with those of previous studies. However, in contrast to earlier stages of SOE reforms, we find that fiscal pressure on local governments no longer functions as a driver of local-state-sector ownership restructuring. The analysis implies that the Chinese government's current SOE reform strategy, which this time focus on mixed ownership, is mainly relevant for high-performing SOEs located in rich provinces with well-developed market-supporting institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does authoritarian propaganda change in response to public criticism? Do counterarguments compel regimes to shift their narratives? The literature on authoritarian propaganda focuses on how propaganda affects public opinion but not vice versa because scholars rarely expect public opinion to change propaganda. Through text analysis of the Chinese state media's reporting on human germline gene editing, this study illustrates the mechanism of a case where authoritarian propaganda changed its own discourse and responded to public opinion. Responsive propaganda emerges when the benefits outweigh the costs of shifting discourse. Possible conditions for responsive propaganda include public opinion crises, opinion crises leading to risks of social unrest, and low costs of shifting positions. Responsive authoritarianism entails not only responsive policies but also responsive propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplaces are a primary setting for many people's political learning and participation. It is, therefore, academically and practically meaningful to assess how workplace experience shapes employees' political efficacy. This article employs multiple linear regression models to empirically analyse the relationship between perceived workplace autonomy and political efficacy based on representative national survey data from China. It then addresses potential self-selection bias and endogeneity problems through various approaches, including propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage instrumental variable (IV) estimations. The findings reveal that the extent of perceived workplace autonomy has a significantly positive correlation with both internal and external political efficacy. Moreover, the results demonstrate that under contemporary China's sociopolitical circumstances, the correlation patterns between perceived workplace autonomy and external political efficacy differ significantly between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, highlighting the moderation effects of job sectors. However, the moderation effect of job sectors does not apply to the correlation between perceived workplace autonomy and internal political efficacy, indicating that distinctions exist between internal and external political efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores authoritarian responsiveness in the digital era using data from China's most popular Internet forum. In addition to some limited evidence of the nature of the complaints and the public attention they attract affecting responsiveness, we find that government responsiveness in China depends more on local leadership style and bureaucratic factors such as when the complaints are posted and the specific agencies that deliver the responses. Our findings suggest that, when responding to citizens, the Chinese government is often driven not only by concerns over threats such as collective action or legitimacy erosion, but by cosmetic needs to project a responsive image to please superiors or appease the public. The cosmetic nature of such responsiveness explains why local authorities respond to mundane complaints that are not particularly threatening and why bureaucratic dynamics across regions, sectors and levels of government agencies significantly shape delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxieties about China's growing data power have begun to drive geopolitical and technological competition. Yet, the size of Chinese data power is unclear. Most assessments are unsystematic. Drawing on Barnett and Duvall's fourfold power taxonomy and insights into the stack-layers of information technology, this article develops a new conceptual framework. Using the concepts of compulsory, institutional, infrastructural, and productive data power, we assess how China exercises different forms of data power and what shapes and limits the increase of Chinese data power. The study concludes that China's data power is less grandiose than often assumed. The Chinese state wields influence and obtains desired outcomes predominantly through compulsory and institutional data power operations. But by contrast, infrastructural and productive dimensions remain limited, largely due to China's high compulsory and institutional data power. The intricacies of China's case demonstrate the complexities of power research in the age of datafication as different forms of data power evolve in tension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on political and historical sources and on the analysis of Chinese presence within international organizations, this article aims at showing the evolution of the Chinese Internet governance model. Namely, this study highlights the Chinese shift from a status of a norm taker to that of a norm maker. This research argues that China began to be engaged in the global governance discussion of the Internet from the first years of its Internet history. Because of its historical relations with China and its impact on domestic Chinese Internet history, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was considered the ideal international organization to govern the global Internet. The present article confirms this through the analysis of Mr. Zhao Houlin's strategies before and after his election as Secretary General of the ITU. Finally, in line with the rationale of the present special issue, this research argues that the Chinese role in the global Internet governance debate does not reverse its status quo of the global Internet governance. Whereas, given China's engagement in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), engagement suggests a collaborative attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political leaders in China regularly launch anti-corruption campaigns to win public support. But how are anti-corruption signals perceived? We use event study to examine the case of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign – an unprecedented effort in China to fight corruption. Contrary to expectations, we find that for the firms with connected officials later investigated, the initial anti-corruption signals – speeches from the top leadership and earlier crackdowns on other senior officials – did not decrease their stock prices. We argue that the perceived high costs of following through and repeated campaigns in the past paradoxically nurtured cynicism. We exploit the case of Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua – the two officials who were alleged to be involved in the power struggle and whose downfall had circulated widely since 2012. We find that when the targets of earlier crackdowns were connected to Zhou or Ling, the stock prices of the firms went down only if their connected and later investigated officials were in the same faction; the stock prices of the other firms, however, went up. We interpret the results as investors' misperceptions of the campaign in the beginning. Our findings suggest that even real efforts in campaign-style enforcement can be dismissed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a multivariate framework and the most recently available data that include numerous African countries, this investigation has produced the first extensive statistical evaluation of China's image in Africa based on China's various economic relations with Africa, including aid, trade, FDI and contracts. We find that China's economic development assistance, contracts, and to some degree, trade with African countries contribute to a positive image of China in Africa. In addition, we find that people in African countries of a smaller population, poorer livelihood, less open economy, and better governance tend to have positive views of China's political and economic influence. With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese economic activities in recipient countries have been increasing. The implications of this research shed light on how BRI may be received in the host countries and the likelihood of its success or failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are intentions and how should states decipher them? For scholars, the debate about uncertainty and intentions lies at the heart of international relations. And yet there are theoretical and empirical issues with how scholars have defined, measured, and operationalized intentions to date in the context of understanding China's rise. This article reviews the English and Chinese language literature on intentions and revisionism and presents five propositions that should drive research moving forward. First, a theory of intentions requires a definition distinct from aspirations, motives, preferences, objectives, goals, and grand strategy. Second, states' intentions about ends should be analyzed independently from those about means. Third, assessments of whether a country's intentions are good or bad are subjective and vary based on from which country's perspective the analysis is undertaken. Fourth, states' intentions vary not only by issue area, but also within a particular issue area, just as international institutions, or territorial disputes. And lastly, while there may be uncertainty about intentions, that does not make them unknowable. Embracing these five propositions allow for a more productive research agenda and policy recommendations based on data-driven research instead of wishful thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the WTO dispute settlement system (DSS) has resolved an impressive number of US–China trade disputes. Over the past few years, however, as tensions between the two have escalated over several trade issues, the WTO has been pushed toward irrelevance since the Trump administration. Alleging that the WTO is "a disaster" and its adjudication is very unfair to the US, former President Trump made no effort to hide his criticism of the WTO and its DSS in particular. Is Trump right about the WTO DSS? Based on an examination of US–China WTO disputes and the WTO adjudicators' highly contentious interpretations of the concept of "public body" under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (the SCM Agreement) as an example, this article shows that the WTO DSS is not particularly unfair to the US. While the WTO adjudicators sometimes did not fully follow the positions advocated by the US, they have adhered to generally accepted rules of treaty interpretation and exercised great caution to remain balanced and flexible in reaching their conclusions, especially on ambiguous issues. Though not perfect, the WTO DSS works as it is intended to. Engaging in the reform of the WTO and its DSS, instead of abandoning or marginalizing the WTO, should be a wiser and more practical choice for the Biden administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers how the Chinese government's strategy of relational poverty governance has permitted its gaining control over parts of the country where its authority was fragile. President Xi Jinping's interest in targeted poverty alleviation has led success of this strategy to become a major concern of local governments. Based on fieldwork undertaken in China during the period 2016–2020, the article shows that state-managed political mobilization and rigid bureaucratic governance strategies are not the only means through which political power is exercised; relational poverty governance is another basis of the exercise of state power in rural communities. Mechanisms whereby three levels of state power—symbolic, bureaucratic, and moral—are executed in relational governance are identified. Through practical operations that include emotional interactions, paired assistance systems, and moral supervision, the state regains control in remote areas and strives to achieve successful governance. The article concludes by discussing the policy effectiveness of relational poverty governance and its implications for rural governance in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do studies of land rights in China contribute to the broader discipline of political science? First, the Chinese case challenges orthodox theories of secure, private property rights as a prerequisite for growth and sheds light on the distinctly fiscal roots of urban bias, a phenomenon pervasive in countries making the transition from agriculture to industry. Second, studies of land grabbing in the Chinese case provide a basis for comparisons of state-society relations in authoritarian vs. democratic regimes. While democratic institutions create more openings for aggrieved actors to organize and shape policy, ordinary citizens in both authoritarian and democratic regimes use protest in order to capture a greater share of rents from land. Third, land grabbing exacerbates inequalities; research on the Chinese case in comparative context shows that exclusionary modes of land ownership and limits on full social and political citizenship are mutually reinforcing across all types of regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty alleviation and politics are interrelated in complex ways. Poverty governance is essentially a multi-faceted process of using political power, exercising political authority, mobilizing political resources, running political institutions, and gaining political legitimacy. However, the approach of economics has long dominated current discussions in the literature on poverty reduction, resulting in a relative lack of political science research on poverty reduction interventions. This special issue has gathered together carefully selected articles to examine the politics of poverty governance in non-electoral settings, with a specific area focus on China. Despite focusing on China, this special issue adopts a comparative analytical lens and extends beyond China studies by striving to position China's poverty governance in relation to general theories of political science. This introductory article seeks to expound the motives highlighted in the special issue, identify the literature gap that the special issue aims to fill, summarize the key findings and contributions, and finally suggest some promising new areas of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how poverty identification is operationalized in the Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) strategy in rural China. Using the 2016 "Thousand-Person Hundred-Village" national survey data and multilevel regression analyses, we found that the TPA strategy used a multidimensional approach to identify poor households and register them into the national poverty database. In addition to experiencing income poverty, rural households that suffered deprivations in education, health, employment, living conditions had greater odds of being registered as poor. Households from non-eastern regions as well as those from less urbanized counties were also more likely to be identified as poor. This article uses the Alkire and Foster method to construct a multidimensional poverty measure. We found that using the multidimensional poverty measure achieved better targeting performance of poverty identification than using the income poverty measure only. Households that were registered into the national poverty database—regardless of whether they were income poor, multidimensionally poor, or non-poor—received more public assistance from the government than those who were non-registered poor. These findings provide new insights into rural China's multidimensional poverty identification practice and suggest implications for China's future poverty monitoring and alleviation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]