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Focusing on Guizhou and Yunnan, two provinces with similar geographies, institutions and natural resource endowments, this paper asks why provincial leaders adopted markedly disparate economic strategies. Using data from the early 1980s to 2003 gathered from fieldwork and secondary sources, it focuses on three political factors purported to explain differences in provincial policy: (a) constraints and opportunities from central authorities; (b) characteristics of the provinces; and (c) attributes of individual provincial leaders. I argue that while the center constrains and encourages certain actions and approaches in the provinces, the experiences and background of individual provincial leaders further affects the choice of strategies implemented there. Moreover, once a particular course is set and receives central support, a form of path dependency can encourage the strategy to continue even after the original leaders have departed. While emphasizing the importance of characteristics of local leaders and their relationship with the center, the paper questions the assumptions on which research focusing on elite characteristics has so far been based, and suggests alternative approaches. The results have implications for our understanding not only of these two provinces, but also central-provincial relations and the origins of the economic policies of Chinese President Hu Jintao. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the history of US-China wartime relations, the Stilwell Incident has become 'hard evidence' that the Nationalist Government had no intention of fighting against Japan and would exploit Allied resources to expand its strength. Interestingly enough, Stilwell's successor, Albert C. Wedemeyer, despite taking command in a difficult and awkward situation, succeeded in strengthening the Nationalist armies to fight the Japanese and kept Sino-American relations out of a state of crisis. With the availability of Chiang Kai-shek's newly-released diaries and the Wedemeyer Papers, historians are now in a good position to explore how and why Wedemeyer could successfully fulfill his mission. The basis of Wedemeyer's success becomes clear upon close examination of his perception of and attitude toward the Chinese situation and of his dealings with Chiang Kai-shek, the ongoing offensive of the Japanese troops, and KMT-CCP conflicts. Wedemeyer's case provides insight into the nature of the US-China wartime relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The privatization of urban housing and the subsequent development of a mortgage market have played a major role in the development of China's financial system. This paper explores the history and development of China's urban housing market, its impact on the financial system, and the government's efforts to grapple with new issues that have surfaced alongside these reforms. This paper concludes that although housing privatization has helped strengthen the financial standing of state-owned enterprises, urban residents, and commercial banks alike, systematic weaknesses must be addressed in order to promote sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reads Qiu Huadong's novel, The Troubled Lot and Wang Xiaoshuai's film, Beijing Bicycle in the light of contemporary theories on space/place. It addresses broader issues of the dynamic and dialectic relationship between text/representation and the city, and how the text/representation contributes both to understanding and constituting the city. Through textual readings, the paper addresses how the fiction/film represents new urban spaces in contemporary China, and how urban spaces are produced through socioeconomic forces, global influences, spatial practices, and cultural representation. The paper argues that in representing the new urban spaces, these texts critique the modern city but also contribute to the formation of its diverse urban spaces. The paper also detects an emergence of a 'Beijing discourse' that focuses on depiction and representation of the city's transformation from the historical/political city to the new global/commercial metropolis, of which the two works under discussion are part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the concept of 'soft power', popularized by the work of Joseph Nye, has gained currency in both China and Taiwan. This paper explores how the Chinese and Taiwanese understand soft power and its sources, and how their understanding differs from Nye's formulation. It discusses why this foreign concept has become so salient in the Chinese and the Taiwanese discourse. It also examines the impact of this concept on the external policies of China and Taiwan. The paper concludes by pointing out the limitations of the concept of soft power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of China bills introduced and passed in Congress in 1973-2005. Three important findings emerge. First, many more punitive China bills were introduced and passed in the House than in the Senate. Second, the two congressional parties agreed with each other most of the time on roll call votes related to China. Third, the major events in US-China relations largely determined the ebb and flow of China bills. Negative binomial regression analysis sheds further light on the dynamic of China policymaking on Capitol Hill. A Republican majority in the House facing off with a Democratic president brought about many more China bills. Also, there appears to be a significant gap between public opinion and congressional attitudes on China policy. Finally, the Tiananmen Incident has had a profound impact on Congress, making it much more active and punitive in China policy since then. I conclude the paper by briefly discussing the policy implications of my findings. Only in the case of Communist China has the Congress played a major role over a long period of time to confine narrowly the president's means of maneuver.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural reforms have benefited certain groups and marginalized others, creating great disparity in rural China. The welfare situation of childless elderly men, mostly never married, remains little known and largely unnoticed. This study enquires preliminarily into the question of how childless elderly men cope with the changing economic, political, and institutional contexts brought about by the market reforms that started in 1978. With the adoption of a political economy approach to the analysis of welfare resources allocation, and an institutional approach to the analysis of changes in welfare institutions and individual lives, this paper looks into various roles of the state, community, and family in welfare production. The in-depth village study suggests that though the state, community, and family are expected to care for the needy, neither formal nor informal assistance from the community or extended families to the childless elderly is necessarily sufficient, automatic, or forthcoming. Collective land and housing plots seem to be the only resources that the childless elderly have to exchange for care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the capacity of China's central state to control society and implement its policies at the local level, using as a case study the implementation from 1998 of a major policy initiative - 'closing the pits and reducing coal production'. The aims of this policy were to close down many of the TVE (township and village enterprise) mines, thereby ameliorating China's coal safety record, and to reduce output in order to balance supply and demand, thereby improving the situation of the SOE (state-owned enterprise) coal mines. The paper concludes that, despite some success, the state found it difficult to overcome resistance from a powerful coalition of local cadres, mine bosses, workers and farmers who depended directly or indirectly on the mines for their living. It therefore highlights continuing shortfalls in China's state capacity, particularly in situations where the state is trying to control or influence the distribution of economic rents as between different groups in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the analysis of 18 testimonies given by xiagang workers turned entrepreneurs and published in the Chinese press in 2002. It argues that these narratives show the new ‘enterprise culture’, which is being promoted by the authorities. From these testimonies, this paper identifies new ways of thinking, judging and acting that can be said to characterise urban Chinese, now encouraged to draw on their own resources to compete in the open market. It is not just individuals but also the institutions inherited from the time of the planned economy that are having to adjust to the new economy and new society, and take part in the building of the market. The new configuration of the state apparatus and of the relationship between the state and individuals does not mean a less powerful state, but rather new modes of governing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to demonstrate that China's land policy and land law are altered in social interactions between different actors. Such social processes have led to the gendering of rural land tenure practices, but also a highly heterogeneous situation with regard to land tenure. This paper aims to demonstrate that the combined effect of marital relations, kinship, social network and low political representation of women in the community often results in the deprivation of women's land rights and many women are becoming landless. However, our field research shows that there are also cases where women are able to get access to land if they live in communities where land is still subject to redistribution or readjustment, or where women have political representation and gender-awareness training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze the language and concepts framing approaches taken by the Chinese women's movement to women and rural development. Until the late 1990s the language adopted by Chinese women's organizations concerned with rural development was quite different from that of development agencies elsewhere, but since that time it has become increasingly similar. In this paper I ask: to what extent did the earlier language of Chinese women's development activists point to understandings and practices that were different from those of the global development movement? And what might be the significance of the growing convergence between the two? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's reform of government procurement aims to promote greater prudence in expenditure management through introducing transparency, accountability, and competition into the procurement process. The reform can also be construed as China's effort to fulfill its commitment to the WTO. This paper examines the evolution of the reform and measures the success of the reform against three indicators: the amount of cost reduction, the coverage of procurement activities, and the degree of harmonization with the WTO Agreement of Government Procurement. This paper argues that the success of the reform has been limited by an array of factors, including the misconceptions of certain procurement officials and their malpractices in procurement processes, the poor capacities of some local governments in enforcing reform, structural deficiencies in the budget management system, and the lack of political will of both central and local authorities in spurring trade liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China's great leap into space in late 2003 with their first taikonaut reaching orbit and safely returning to Earth, much attention has been given to the question regarding the future of China's space program. Concerns abound about the Chinese military's role in the space program but hope remains that China's space program will follow a path to a peaceful multilateral exploration of outer space. This paper looks at a possible future for the Chinese space program, one in which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) retains tight control over the direction of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapidly growing motor vehicle fleet is changing the makeup of its urban atmosphere. While the two major problem pollutants historically have been particulates and sulfur dioxide, the growth in the number of automobiles has generated substantially increased levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ). This paper examines and values the mortality health effects (reduced premature deaths) from cleaning up these three pollutants. Findings indicate that valued gains from reduced air pollution mortality can average 3% of a city's GDP. Moreover, the growing auto fleet may generate a ten-fold increase in NO 2 -based mortality costs and offset other, ongoing cleanup efforts in many Chinese cities. Specifically, the paper explores how the increasing number of automobiles might diminish or offset environmental cleanup activities focused upon particulate and sulfur dioxide pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the alternative perspective of ‘institutional paradigm’ derived from the work of Douglass North and inspired by institutional economics, this paper explores the PRC's political economy from its formative period to the Reform Era. The author tries to show why State power, with overall control of the economic resources in the planned economy, was not total due to inefficient property rights, in which the State was not able to attain authority and legitimacy, and crises of national security occurred naturally. Economic reform has almost totally reconstructed economic and administrative institutions, but the party-centered State power remains unchanged. This paper shows why and how the State protects State-owned enterprises, which belong to the most influential group as well as being part of the established pillar of power. It also shows that the State protects and inspires non-State enterprises because they can produce maximum production and provide more resources for State power. Thus, the economic transition is full of paradoxes due to these internal conflicts with high institutional costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese government has been promoting organic agriculture as an alternative to the ‘conventional’ agriculture practised in the Chinese countryside. The latter uses increasingly large amounts of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and, as a result, threatens the environmental sustainability of the rural economy. Though absolute numbers of organic farmers remain small, there has been a dramatic increase in their rate of growth since 1995, aided and abetted by the work of the Chinese Organic Food Development Centre (OFDC) in Nanjing established in that year. In 2002, the OFDC gained full international accreditation and recognition, allowing Chinese organic products certified by it to be sold in lucrative markets throughout the world. At the same time, there is a vigorous debate going on inside China regarding changes in property rights over land, with many scholars advocating full privatisation. This paper, through case study research, contributes to this debate in the context of the extension of organic farming in China. It examines current land rights arrangements in nine organic villages in different parts of the Chinese countryside to investigate whether they are conducive to organic agriculture expansion or hostile to it. On the basis of this research, it argues that the extant ‘partially privatised common property regime’ associated with the Household Responsibility System, when combined with appropriate collective arrangements amongst farmers, can be a satisfactory basis for the adoption of organic agriculture, particularly amongst China's poorest farmers. As a result, it concludes that the Chinese government should encourage those collective arrangements rather than risk new forms of instability as well as environmental unsustainability through wholesale land privatisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on survey data from rural Fujian Province of China, this paper shows that economic development, especially village collective revenue, plays an important role in village elections. With economic development and industrialization, collective revenues will increase and differentiated interests will develop among villagers. Village elections are institutional channels for villagers to articulate their interests. The research findings show that it is the collective revenue and the relative living standard of the village compared with other townships within the same county or district that arouse villagers' interests for participation and candidates' motives for campaigning, and thus enhance the implementation of elections. The paper concludes that village-level economic development is crucial for the implementation of competitive elections. With economic development, village committees will control more collective revenues, thus increasing the stakes villagers have in elections. This will result in greater participation by villagers in elections, and in more competitive elections. Increased competitiveness of elections will facilitate changes in the institutions regarding village committee elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that the high competitiveness of the newspapers in Beijing and Shanghai is due to fast economic development in these cities. This research, however, finds that the degrees of newspaper competitiveness in Beijing and Shanghai do not relate positively to their GDP growth rates. While Shanghai's GDP outranks Beijing, the newspaper business in Beijing outgrows Shanghai. This paper argues that under the current Chinese management system, economic impact upon newspapers' development is limited. Only after the government management over media is reformed, can economic factors become a decisive force behind newspapers' innovation and advertising competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of labor legislation on Chinese workers. Primarily based on the author's field studies, especially interviews with workers and investigations of some labor lawsuits, the paper argues that labor legislation had a positive effect on workers—providing them with a useful weapon for self-protection. Workers gradually developed the awareness of the rule of law and the willingness to use legal means in handling their disputes with management and, in so doing, they often succeeded. On the other hand, however, the legal weapon proved too heavy for ordinary workers to wield—they had to encounter enormous and often insurmountable barriers in lodging and winning lawsuits. Despite various problems with the legal system, it is justifiable to say that the elements of the rule of law were emergent in the area of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the handover of sovereignty in 1999 and the exit of the Portuguese administration, pro-Beijing and pro-government interest groups formed by local Chinese dominated Macau's political landscape. The major interest groups may be classified into three clusters: business organizations, labour unions, and neighbourhood groups. This paper examines the significance of interest groups in the enclave's politics and argues that their political power was from extensive grassroots support they received as well as Beijing's united front policies, the government's co-optation strategy, and the quasi-democratic political system. These interest groups also replaced the governor and under-secretaries to become the core of the patron-client networks in the political arena. This paper contends that the changing socio-economic environment, along with the advent of foreign casino investors, will gradually turn social support away from the interest groups and undercut their political influence. Balancing their pro-government stance and their role as representatives of their constituencies will therefore become increasingly difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies growth equations to examine the impact of region-specific factors on China's growth in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, this study focuses on investigating the role of capital formation, initial conditions, labour productivity, human capital, openness, infrastructure, foreign capital and economic reform in China's regional growth. It is found that those variables account for 70-90% of China's growth in the past decades. The robustness of the findings in this study is tested by estimating alternative models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS), a proto-ministerial system, was established at the start of the Second Term of Office of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). This paper examines the setting-up of the POAS and reviews how it has functioned during its first year of life. Both the design and implementation of the POAS were characterized by undue haste. The establishing of the POAS intensified the debate on a range of matters as new ministers, senior civil servants and residents have come to terms with the detail of this novel arrangement. Discussions about political reform are set to intensify in the years to come. This article reviews the origins and deeper need for the POAS in Hong Kong before looking at the fundamentals of the new system. The nature of 'accountability' is then discussed prior to examining Hong Kong's experience with the POAS in action during its first year. The article also discusses the potential of the POAS to contribute to Hong Kong's overall political development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which China's 'Fourth generation' leadership might be inclined to place a greater emphasis on nationalist rhetoric both in China's international relations and in domestic policy. It explores two different views of nationalism, namely state-centred and popular. With the decline in the public impact of official ideology, the Party-state has given tacit recognition to nationalism as one potential source of regime legitimisation. However, this article argues that by placing the Party at the centre of the official discourse the state-centred view of nationalism restricts the extent to which the Party-state can mobilise nationalist symbolism in support of its leadership and makes the Party vulnerable to criticism from more popular conceptions of nationalism. The priority given to developing the economy means China's leaders must downplay popular criticism which can focus on the negative consequences of China's growing interaction with the wider world. Under China's 'Fourth generation' leadership this tension may deepen. China's new leadership are unlikely to resort to 'wrapping themselves in the flag' as some commentators have suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rich reforms have resulted in great uneven development in rural China. The gap between the rich and the poor has been widened due to the diversity in the conditions for production and social life in the countryside. This paper probes into an interesting yet complex question: what causes the great economic divergences among villages that are geographically so close sharing similar physical settings and natural endowment;' Answering this question is beyond the scope of a sole economic analysis. Using the case of Dayingjie Township, Yunnan Province, the paper develops an answer based on the political economy approach. It argues that human capital and social networking play important roles in the economic take off of a rich village in the Dayingjie context. As the gap between rich and poor communities widens, localism and weak distribution power at the township level become apparent, indicating a combination of both economic and political dimension in deepening the gap. Finally, extreme concentration of resources leads to the rise of a group of a new rural elite who holds both political and economic leverage. They influence local politics toward profit hunting in favour of the wealthy clan in a rich village. This further leads to an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. The Dayingjie case presents important insights in understanding inter-village disparity in rural China. Whether this story in generalizable in China is still too early to tell, but, by investigating one particular geographic area. This article attempts to direct attention to the political economy of inter-village disparity in China and to stimulate more discussion in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to address the divide between political rhetoric and reality on the question of the impact of the Internet on China. Many politicians and pundits steadfastly promote the Internet as a conduit for democracy, without empirical proof to support their statements. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over information technology and the Internet in China. The Chinese Communist Party is employing a number of approaches to control the Internet, from introducing numerous regulations to encouraging self-censorship, with some success. This paper will examine state-coordinated measures to control the use of the Internet, look at how the Internet could be making CCP rule more effective, and consider the validity of the argument that the Internet represents a threat to CCP rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Suzhou Industrial Park project, a collaborative venture between the China and Singapore governments between 1992 and 2002. The collaboration represented a convergence of the two governments' development strategies. The aim was to jointly benefit from foreign direct investment (FDI) by attracting industrial transnational corporations to locate operations within the Park. To achieve this, the China government invested strong political support for the project, while the Singapore government invested capital and administrative expertise. This paper finds that between 1992 and 1997, the collaboration was relatively successful, as the Suzhou Industrial Park experienced some of the highest levels of foreign direct investment in China. However, between 1997 and 1999, the project faced several problems including the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis outside China and competition from other industrial estates within China. This ultimately led the Singapore government to announce its disengagement from the project in June 1999. This paper concludes with some observations about inter-governmental collaboration as a new form of development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American society's images and perceptions of China have had several recurring themes over the years. In the past, some of these have included the perception of China as a potential market for American goods and as a potential supply of converts for American missionaries. These images changed during the years of diplomatic isolation of the Cold War, turning the Chinese into a vast horde of 'reds', a faceless, invincible mass that threatened all of Asia. In the post-Cold War world, Sino-US relations face an uncertain future. The time is not far off when there will again be two superpowers, and there is the potential for conflict between them. In this new era, it is interesting to examine what images of China have emerged in contemporary American society. The goal of this paper is to do just that. By examining articles about China in four major American daily newspapers, over a three-year period, a rough sketch emerges of how China is perceived to the 'average' reader of these four publications. These images, while interesting in their own right, also provide a valuable benchmark for the direction of Sino-US relations. Overall, it seems that, just as in past periods of rivalry, negative images of China overwhelm the positive. But, before we can conclude that the current relationship is also one of competition, there are also some significant images of a country whose future lies entwined with the US in a partnership, not a battle. If we can take the articles of this study as a representative slice of American society at large, the general trend seems to be one in which, although China is sometimes viewed in a harsh and critical light, there is still hope for the two countries to come together -- or even for China to become more like the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses Pan Wei's proposal for a 'consultative rule of law system' for China, finding it a potentially important step along the path of political reform. China urgently needs political reform to deal with the rapidly mounting problems of corruption, abuse of power, financial scandals, rising crime and inequality, and declining legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. A rule of law, with an independent judiciary and other autonomous institutions of horizontal accountability, is vital if China is to rein in these problems and deliver better, fairer, more transparent and effective governance. However, Pan Wei's proposed system goes only part of the way toward addressing the deficiencies of governance in China, and is therefore best viewed as a transitional framework. To work, horizontal accountability must be supplemented with and reinforced by vertical accountability, through competitive elections, which give local officials an incentive to serve the public good and enable bad officials to be removed by the people. Ultimately, I argue, China can only achieve adequate and enduring political accountability by moving toward democracy. Among the other issues addressed in the paper are the architecture and appointment of a system of horizontal accountability for China; the role of the Communist Party (or its successor hegemon) in a 'rule of law' system; and the timing and phasing of the transition to a rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed a mass change in urban physical structure in major Chinese cities. Such changes could not have been realized without the implementation of economic reform in the urban land system. However, the economic reform measures undertaken in the urban land economy are only partial and gradual. The old socialist allocation system of land for both private and public land users still exists and in some cases such allocation exceeds the market system in terms of land granted. The pricing system of urban land is still not truly competitive as in most cases land users obtain land by means of private treaty grant with the relevant government department. Despite all these weakness in the economic reform measures, the land market in Shanghai, as well as other major cities, seems to have begun a rationalization process with less competitive land uses reallocated to the urban periphery, according to land economics principles. This paper tries to argue that under certain conditions, such as active market activities with open information on transaction details, such a partial economic reform programme could bring initial success to the authority, which will further speed up the gradual reform process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time the Chinese courts were beset by the lack of impartiality and autonomy owning to the heavy political influence exerted by the ruling party, the shortage of well trained judicial personnel and, more generally, the absence of social respect for the traditionally insignificant judicial branch in a primarily administrative state. Thus the existing judicial system is woefully inadequate for sustaining a market economy, as it fails to meet the Weberian conditions for a politically neutral legal system that uniformly enforces the economic relationship forged in market transactions. The uniform administration of justice is further jeopardized in China by the enormous diversity of local conditions and interests typical to a developing state, and by the intimate relations between the courts and local political branches. The necessity of reforming the current court system hardly need any argument, yet how to reform it—especially in a politically feasible manner—is by no means clear. Divided into four parts, this paper is essentially an analysis of the current judicial problems in China and their proposed solutions. First, it presents a preliminary theoretical model for analyzing a judicial system. Next, it categorizes the problems that constitute the 'judicial syndrome' in China. It then outlines solutions that have been put forward to cure the syndrome. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the likelihood that these solutions will actually work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper opens by explaining the political processes that lie behind the definition and measurement of China's urban unemployment. Thereafter, it uses publicly available sources to replicate the inscrutable official urban unemployment estimate for the year 1997. Scholars widely critique the official estimate as under-counting the number of unemployed people, though it is less appreciated that official statistics also under-estimate the number of employed urban people. This paper addresses both deficiencies, unofficially calculating that urban unemployment for the year 1997 was at the rate of 4.5%, higher than the officially stated rate of 3.1%, but closer to the official rate than is often assumed. We conclude by proposing additional research that would enable more precise estimates of China's urban unemployment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of an empirical study of the current affairs program Jiaodian Fangtan , which attracts a daily audience of 300 million. A content analysis of the transcripts of all reports of this program in 1999 shows that although the program is indeed unconventional in its criticism of local cadres, it remains conservative in its subtle and cautious control of the frequency, timing, level, and content of the criticism. Further analysis of the government's media policy shows that in the 1990s, it redefined the primary role of media as agenda-setting, which allows the expression of the people's voice, though priority is still given to the party's voice. To this extent, China's media policy gradually shifted away from propaganda and towards hegemony before the turn of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts with some observations about developments of the post-Cold War era and their impact on Sino–ASEAN and Sino–Singaporean relations. It then surveys the relations between Singapore and China in the 1990s. The focus is on the establishment of official ties in 1990 and the economic interactions between the two sides in the last decade. Having surveyed the relations, the paper examines some of the problems for the promotion of closer cooperation. It notes the difference in the working style of both sides. In this regard, it deals specifically with the Suzhou Industrial Park and highlights the lessons that could be drawn from such a joint venture. The paper concludes by noting that Sino–Singaporean cooperation has been broadened to include defence, cultural and educational exchanges and the relationship will be more realistic and mature in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the earlier political upheavals which culminated in the 1989 Prodemocracy Movement, China has achieved an extended stability in the 1990s. This paper argues that the prolonged stability resulted from a set of changes in China's state–society relations, and much of it was related to the 1989 movement. After the 1989 movement, the CCP veterans selected younger leaders who were both reform-minded and had a Machiavellian sense of politics. This new leadership skillfully managed the economy and contained dissident activities from public attention. Reform and the booming economy also provided many opportunities for intellectuals and students and turned them from the earlier economic 'losers' into the current 'winners'. As market forces penetrated into China more deeply and the state no longer took charge of everything as it used to, the Chinese became less interested in national politics, and political conflicts localized. This paper also argues that although China's state–society relations underwent great changes, the state still bases its legitimacy on performance and is thus intrinsically unstable. A political reform that aims at changing the basis of state legitimation becomes crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on materials from local archives and the author's interviews in Shandong Province, this paper uses case studies in the Luzhongnan prefecture to trace how the rural revolutionaries rose to prominence and to discuss their cultural impact on Mao's urban revolution after 1949. The paper begins by examining the intellectual origin of the Chinese revolution in this region, and then moves to a discussion of the end of political urbanism in the anti-Japanese War and the Civil War. As a result of wartime mass mobilization, peasants became the most dynamic forces in the political arena. Peasant cadres were systematically recruited and trained to run local governments. Eventually, they surpassed the revolutionary intellectuals both in number and in importance. When the CCP came to power, the peasant cadres were assigned to take over urban China. These rural revolutionaries were committed to the mission of creating a 'new socialist man', and rural revolutionary culture became the cultural orthodoxy of the People's Republic of China. This paper explores the nature and characteristics of the political and cultural programs, referred to as 'cultural de-urbanization', launched by Mao Zedong and his rural revolutionary followers in order to remold the urban people's mentality by the rural revolutionary tradition and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how memory is used as a representational paradigm and transgressive aesthetic strategy in three fictional histories (Ge Fei's Marginality, Su Tong's 'Nineteen Thirty-four Escape' and Qiao Liang's 'The Mourning-flag') to rewrite Chinese historical past. The paper argues that contemporary preoccupation with memory and history in literary writings should be seen in a broader sociohistorical context as both reflecting and contributing to the posthistorical experience of contemporary China. The Chinese posthistorical experience is defined here as a profound crisis of Chinese Marxist historicism effected by the rupture between the Marxist philosophy of history and contemporary Chinese reality of uneven development towards modernization. The current obsession with memory and past should also be viewed as part of the rise of historical investigation of the dispossessed social groups such as ethnic groups, women, and social minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 26 case studies, this paper investigates the socio-economic causes of the inflow of FDI and its policy implications in Dongguan. The favourable factors for foreign investors in Dongguan can be categorised under the Dunning's OLI (ownership, locational and internalisation advantages) framework. This paper argues that factors other than policy incentive, such as sub-contractual and pseudo integration, are playing more important roles in attracting the inflow of FDI and maintaining the high level of economic growth in Dongguan. This finding questions the effectiveness of policy incentives, such as tax-breaks, implemented by the Government as a means to attract FDI in Dongguan. The existence of 'Chinese crony capitalism' calls for further improvement in the implementation of laws and regulations in Dongguan and the reduction of bureaucratic red-tape by the central and local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains why rural enterprises prosper in the post-Mao reform era. Based on a case study of Shaanxi province, the paper argues that the institutional arrangements in rural China under economic reforms are conducive to sustained economic growth because the principal–agent problem is alleviated in two dimensions. First, the interests of local government officials and enterprises overlap. Prompted by the fiscal pressures on local governments as a result of the fiscal reforms, particularly the 1994 tax-assignment reform, local governments are eager to promote local industrial growth. Apart from absorbing rural surplus labour and contributing to the provision of communal welfare to local residents, rural enterprises provide local governments with tax and non-tax revenues to finance their expenditure obligations. In return, local governments provide preferential aid to their enterprises in the form of tax and credit privileges. Second, the principal–agent problem is abated by a closer effort-and-reward link for the various parties involved in the operation of rural enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The statistics measuring China's merchandise trade balances with other countries, especially with the United States, have become extremely controversial in recent years, as protectionism has collided with mercantilism. This paper examines the case of the trade balance between Canada and China, focusing on the technical issues that make it difficult to measure trade flows accurately. Two obvious but nonetheless important sources of data ambiguity are processing error and problems of valuation and timing. An even greater problem is that of omission and/or double counting, especially for trade flows that move through intermediate jurisdictions such as Hong Kong. Most difficult of all is the problem of correctly measuring value added, which requires internal corporate data, not just customs records, to resolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of institutionalizing themselves, the Chinese Provincial People's Congresses (PPCs) have used their power in a more assertive manner and even contested decisions from other more powerful institutions, as shown by cases from the past two decades. By presenting a network mode of governance, this paper argues that institutional linkages and reciprocal strategy have, respectively, featured the institution building of the PPCs and their interaction with other power players, and thus the tension between institutional development and the expansion of power for the PPCs was solved. These two goals were pursued simultaneously in the Chinese legislative development. This was made possible by the way in which the PPCs conducted their activities. In their contestation with other institutions, the leaders within the PPCs conscientiously followed a 'Mohe' strategy, i.e. competition-cum-cooperation, and expanded the legislative power without turning other political players into their stumbling blocks. The paper attributes this unique development to the choice-set defined by the changing environment of the political economy under reform and Deng Xiaoping's ideas, the institutional linkages within the system of the people's congresses, and the astute leadership of the political entrepreneurs within the PPCs. This mixture of consultation and confrontation in the interactions between the PPCs and other major political institutions also indicated a change of political governance in China toward a network mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do Chinese media derive the autonomy to practice relatively freely, and how are they deprived of it? By analyzing the case ofSouthern Weekend, this study proposes one crucial factor—the central–local power structure within the Party’s censorship system to explain the dramatic changes of media autonomy in China. It argues that the divergence between the local authority and the central propagandists in dealing with the local media has guaranteed the autonomy of local media practitioners. The autonomy becomes eroded later when the central authority rationalizes thenomenklaturasystem of the regulatory bodies. By nurturing loyal agents at the local level, the central authority successfully eases the tension within the central–local power structure and strengthens its control over the regionally-based media outlets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent increasing socioeconomic and political interactions between mainland China and Taiwan have resulted in a significant number of marriages between the two societies. Why do people cross the Strait to look for a marriage partner? What are the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of such marriages? And what impact do these marriages have on society as well as on the individuals involved? These are the issues we explore in this paper. Analyzing a survey on cross-Strait marriages conducted by the authors, this paper concludes that inter-regime marriages between these two societies predominately involve older Taiwanese males and younger mainland females. The general pattern in these marriages represents an exchange between the intrinsic attributes (age, appearance) of the mainland women and the extrinsic attributes (financial status) of the Taiwanese men. In addition, inter-regime marriages provide a means for mainland women to attain geographic and eventually social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against both conservative and liberal theories of modernization expressed in the “new authoritarianism debate” on the eve of the 1989 Chinese Student Movement. The paper argues that a defensive authoritarian regime, that is a regime that can only rely on and is able to base its survival on performance legitimacy, can lead a successful modernization. Comparing development experiences of historical Taiwan to that of the current mainland China, this paper analyzes the historical background, sources of constraints as well as autonomies of the state power that facilitated the formation of defensive regimes in the historical Taiwan and the current mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The intensifying disputes between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands today have reminded both academia and the general public of the Ryukyu problem. Reportedly, during the Cairo Conference in 1943, Chiang Kai-shek let slip opportunities to recover the Ryukyus, which later resulted in Japanese control of the Diaoyu Islands. Until now, scholarship has maintained that Chiang narrowly missed regaining Okinawa at Cairo, which never again appeared on his agenda. However, a more nuanced historical account can be found in rarely accessed primary resources such as Chiang's diaries and presidential papers, which yield a different conclusion—that he was, in fact, committed to the Ryukyu issue throughout his political career. However, Chiang lost multiple opportunities to resolve the issue as a result of competition with his communist rival, the security dynamics of the Cold War, and his personality. Chiang eventually failed to stop America from returning the Ryukyus to Japan, which, thereafter, generated the Diaoyu Islands disputes and continues to serve as a primary source of nationalist friction today in Sino–Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was accepted by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) as one among other pathfinders, for a comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). Though the TPP negotiations do not include China at the moment, she has declared her interest in the TPP and is paying close attention to it. In fact, many question the likely success of the TPP with China's exclusion from it, given her prominence in the region. To provide insights for leveraging trade opportunities with the TPP economies, China's export potentials with the TPP are empirically tested and compared with those of alternative economic configurations in East Asia which China is a party to, namely the ASEAN+1, ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6. The empirical findings suggest that China's participation in the TPP will offer better market access for final goods, an important trade opportunity that is somewhat limited in partnerships through regional initiatives. Even then, the paper contends that the payoffs to China following the TPP deal remain intangible and at best speculative given the coverage (or substance) and depth of the agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As international pressure on China's policy concerning its increasing investments in Iran grows, the Chinese leadership has to painfully balance its impulse toward energy and economic cooperation with Iran against other important interests, including enhancing its image as a responsible big country. After analyzing the evolution of China–Iran energy relations, this paper tries to answer the question of how China has responded to the intensification of US-led sanctions against Iran, what merits and shortcomings China's attempts to balance or reconcile its interests in Iran might create, and what options China can take to deal with a possible oil crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores why Zhejiangcun's Wenzhou migrants and Wangjing's Chaoxianzu migrants were able to maintain and actively restructure their settlements in Beijing while Beijing's other migrant settlements either disappeared or were forced out from their original locations. Highlighting the role of the Wenzhou model in Zhejiangcun and that of the transnational ethnic ties in Wangjing, this research illustrates how certain rural migrants emerged as a new social group by utilizing their cultural capital based on native-place and ethnic ties and newly found economic power. The present study examines the urban space of Zhejiangcun and Wangjing where alternative sources of economic power and social networks were created and utilized and therefore offers a unique perspective by locating a specifically-founded ethnographic analysis within the general debate on the restructuring of post-reform urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, the relationship between the media and the foreign policy-making process in China has become more interactive and even a typical symbiosis. This paper attempts to conduct preliminary research on this very dynamic and changing relationship in the context of Sino–Japan relations. It argues that the Chinese media helps shape the agenda for foreign policy makers, narrow down the set of policy options, change the pace of policy making and implementation, and influence the direction of the final decision. Yet more often than not, the government still controls and regulates the reporting by the media on foreign policy issues. Once the media is perceived as going too far, the government never hesitates to rein it in through various internal and external mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 1998, the Chinese housing market has played a fundamental role in driving macroeconomic stability and economic growth. This paper attempts to estimate the income elasticity of housing demand in Shanghai based on a household survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2007. We utilize a two-stage model, which integrates analysis of both tenure choice and housing demand. Our findings indicate that both permanent and current income has significant influence on tenure choice in Shanghai, and that owner-occupiers' permanent income elasticity of housing demand in Shanghai is between 0.375 and 0.447. Our research also suggests that migrant homeowners have higher permanent income elasticity than Shanghai natives and that most Chinese households are liquidity constrained with regards to obtaining homeownership. We also find that permanent income elasticity increases with age. Finally, the existence of an urban–rural and regional difference is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will study one of the unique population movements in modern history: the circular movement of students and trainees between China and the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1966. This population movement includes more than 38,000 Chinese who were trained by the leading Soviet Union industrial enterprises, research centers and institutions of higher learning. These returned students and trainees from the Soviet Union captured a considerable number of prominent positions in the Chinese leadership from the 1980s to the 1990s. The explanation of their political impact relies on the domestic country's politics and international context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]