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Generally speaking, Laoshe is a writer who tended to incorporate heavy local color into his own works. However, there is an important phenomenon in China’s literary history that Laoshe intentionally abandoned his depiction of Beijing’s local color in his writing in the early period of the Anti-Japanese War and stopped writing in his most skilled Beijing dialect. It’s not until around 1943 that Laoshe restarted to bring Beijing’s local customs into his novel writing. In this paper, the author tries to interpret this literary phenomenon by analyzing the reasons why Laoshe reused local color in his 1940s writing. In the final part of this paper, the author concludes that the reason why Laoshe abandoned Beijing’s local color in his writing in the early period of Anti-Japanese War is that he worried that the depiction of a certain region might not reflect the new image of Chinese people in Anti- Japanese War thus couldn’t encourage the whole nation. However, in around 1941, with Laoshe started to regard local color as an effective carrier and means of narration, the application of Beijing’s local color again became the most important characteristic of his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of urban and rural segmentation caused by the household registration system, the migrant population is divided into three categories in this paper: rural-to- urban migrants, inhabitant migrants and urban-to-urban migrants. This paper finds that the vocational choice of urban-to-urban migrants is better than rural-to- urban migrants and inhabitant migrants. The influence on vocational choice of migrant population is different. The main factors include the basic demographic attributes and social attributes. Furthermore, Restrictions on the inhabitant migrants and urban-to-urban migrants’ employment choice are few. At the same time, the employment situation of rural-to- urban migrants in urban areas has not been improved. There is a kind of invisible threshold in the labor market to restrict the vocational choice of rural-to- urban migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in China’s fertility since 1970s has been affected both by socioeconomic development and family planning, after 1990s the influence of family planning has been overwhelmed by that of socio-economic development. It was through birth control policy at national and provincial levels that family planning has been regulated and implemented. How and to what extent does two-child policy that has been implemented in recent years affect China’s fertility? This paper makes an analysis of the effect from perspectives of lifetime fertility and period fertility of Chinese women, based on national population census and sampling survey data. The main findings are that two-child policy provides a wider and freer policy environment for women to have their children which helps to delay the downtrend of the lifetime fertility rate of women cohorts. The way in which socio-economic factors exert influence on fertility may change but need time to take shape under the new policy environment. The paper also finds that the two-child policy has significant influence on the birth of the second child, but the influence has not been strong enough to revitalize the period fertility level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Anti-Japan War, three important Chinese modern poets, He Qifang, Bian Zhilin and Ai Qing have visited Yan’an. They also wrote and published their Yan’an experiences. There are significant differences among their writings about Yan’an. Scholars interpreted the differences as independent literariness or politicized literature. The paper argues that the literariness or the independence of poet is not a suitable frame for the issue. Three kinds of traditions of Chinese modern poetry shaped the way of the three poets’ very different acceptances of Yan’an in their writings and activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the speed up of population aging, Chinese family burden for the aged supporting are increased. Analysis the population size, age structure and developing trends of the elderly who can not take care of themselves is the basis of the study of the problem of aging. This paper uses the data of 1% population census and CFPS 2010 of Peking University to study the situation and characteristics of the elderly who can’t take care of themselves. Through the computer micro-simulation model of family parent-child structure, to predicts the population size and structure of the elderly people who can't take care of themselves in the future. The main results is, the total number of elderly people aged 60 and above who can not take care of themselves was 5.76 million, accounting for 2.60% of the elderly population, increased of 531.4 thousand compare to 2010. In 2015, there were 3.05 million elderly people without spouses living independently in China, increased about 11% over 2010. Among the male elderly who can't take care of themselves, the proportion without spouse is more than one-third, reaching to 37.72%, while that of the female elderly who can't take care of themselves is close to two-thirds, reaching to 64.48%. The total population of elderly who can’t take care of themselves in China will exceed 14.5 million in 2050, more than 2.5 times that in 2015. In 2015, the total population of the elderly without children and unable to take care of themselves is about 213 thousand. It will reach about 1 million in 2050, and the population size will be more than four times that of 2015. In 2015, the population of elderly people with one surviving child who can not take care of themselves exceed 1 million. It will exceed 5 million by 2050, which is more than five times of 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s National Plan on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development pointed out that all the more than 50 million rural poverty under China's current poverty line will be lifted out of poverty by 2020. Health poverty alleviation plays an important role in population development and anti-poverty in poverty-stricken areas. Based on the special survey data of 2017-2018, this paper analyzes the health status, multi-dimensional poverty and the implementation of health poverty alleviation policies in Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang. The results show that multidimensional poverty generally exist in rural households in the three provinces. Health statuses of the poverty-stricken households were poor, and the incidence of multidimensional poverty is high. The health infrastructure in Xinjiang is the worst. China's health poverty alleviation project has taken effect, but the multidimensional of poverty brings new challenges to health poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of economic globalization, the scale and diversity of international migration are increasing sustainably. International migration has an important influence on the development in both sending and receiving countries, and continues to be one of the most important issues worth researching. The present paper reviews the migration policies in leading immigrants receiving countries, discusses and analyzes the scale, the flow of movements, the composition, as well as the characteristic of emigrants from China, and makes an exploratory attempt to investigate the impact of migration policies in immigrants receiving countries on international migration from China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earliest English translator of the Ming fiction Xiyouji or Journey to the West is claimed by scholars to be Samuel I. Woodbridge, an American missionary to China, who published his translation in 1895, under the title The Golden-Horned Dragon King, or The Emperor's Visit to the Spirit World. This paper demonstrates that the original text of Woodbridge’s translation is neither a so-called Chinese literary pamphlet edited by Samuel Wells Williams, nor Xiyouji, but the third book of the “Thirteen and a Half Sacred Books”, a series of scripts of Tongzi Drama in Nantong, Jiangsu Province. The title is “Yuan Tiangang Predicts Rain and the Beheading of the Dragon King,” and the manuscript kept by a Tongzi actor named Hu Xiping is closest to the one used by Woodbridge. Although the “Sacred Books” and Xiyouji both contain stories about the Dragon King being decapitated for transgressing Heaven's decrees and Tang Taizong's visit to the Underworld, there are huge differences as to specific plots and image of characters, and Woodbridge was familiar with both of these works. In order to enable the missionaries to better understand the working of the Chinese mind and inspire them to convert the Chinese heathens, Woodbridge chose to translate the “Sacred Books” instead of Xiyouji, and making full use of the original story, presented an image of China as a country of political corruption, moral depravity and religious ignorance by means of the translation proper and the paratexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates an emerging social phenomenon in Taiwan: the new unemployed cohort ("Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training", or "NEET"). Taiwanese college students are surveyed through a questionnaire from three aspects of "personal growth life," "family education and life values," and "schooling and employment environment" to examine NEET or Non-NEET tendencies and characteristics of these highly educated young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party prescribed that 1957 Rectification Movement below the county level should pay attention to the socialistic education rather than anti-rightist. While there was not an anti-rightist movement below the county level, rightists were accused. The paper combines the qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze forty-three cases of rightists in the Industry, Transportation, Finance and Trade System of County L. It is found that "reactionary" statements constitute the main factor in defining a rightist, among which the relationship with the leaders of organization is the most important factor. Personal attitudes, history problems and daily performance are the important reference. And no obvious correlation has been found between family background and level of punishment. The research provides a local and grassroots case which differs from those studies of elite rightists. The masses no longer dared to dissent and blindly followed the orders of superiors after the grassroots rectification. This planted a hidden danger for the later problem of an overflow of the "left heavy route". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the political trust of the "Post-80s" and "Post-90s" generations of young people in Hong Kong. The Age-Period-Cohort model is employed to examine the independent effects of age and cohort on political trust using data from longitudinal surveys conducted biannually from 1998 to 2014. The findings demonstrate that, with regard to political trust, age and cohort have an independent explanatory power. First, the relationship between age and political trust is curvilinear. When individuals reach the age of 21 to 30, their political trust declines. After the age of 30, their political trust grows. Their political trust is greatest when they reach the age of 56 and above. Second, people who were born in the 1980s or 1990s have a higher level of political trust than those born in earlier decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there is a debate among scholars on the issue whether the CCP will maintain its upward resilience that has been attained since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown or has begun a trend of decaying toward ultimate distinction. On the one hand, Andrew Nathan, a political scientist at Columbia University, among others, has argued that, despite the numerous severe challenges, the authoritarian Communist regime has successfully found a way out in how to survive in the new era. British scholar Martin Jacques goes so far as to argue that the CCP has been constructing an advantageous "civilization state" on the basis of the Confucianism as opposed to the declining "nation state" in the West. On the other, while acknowledging the achievements of the CCP, political scientist Minxin Pei points out that China's prosperity is not sustainable and will inevitably decay once the economy starts recession. This paper examines three major cases of the administrative litigation such as "The Virgin Prostitute," "Wang Peirong vs. Local Government," and "The Waitan Garden" all of which occurred in the new century and have attracted national attention. This paper argues that there is no doubt that the CCP has made certain headways in protecting people's right. Yet, all three cases show that the progress has been quite limited and much needs to be done before people could challenge governmental misconducts. The linchpin to improve the administrative litigation and avert a downturn in the fate of the CCP lies in no other than the hands of the CCP itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entering this century, structural shift of the world economy has proceeded. Developing countries in East Asia have attained outstanding growth surpassing other regions in the world for the last half century, and China today spearheads it. The growth in this region from the 1960s to 1980s was led by the newly industrializing economies such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. However, leading countries now change to China and others. In this paper, we try to understand the shift of the growth mechanism from NIEs model to potentially bigger market economies (PBMEs) model for the further development of the world economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China today is still a developing country, although it has risen as a superpower, which makes China a developing superpower, an interesting phenomenon. Being both a superpower and a developing country simultaneously is the most salient feature for the contemporary China, and one of the most important differences between China and other superpowers that have existed in modern world history. Two related concepts are discussed in this paper, superpower, which is about comprehensive national power, and hegemony, which is about how a country uses its national power. The characteristics of developing superpower determine that China even as a superpower will have some introversion, and can have less friction with the existing world order and powers, including countries with hegemonic power. In addition, the geopolitical priorities of China and the United States are also different. The ways of using super power for a superpower country can be hegemonism, moralism (kingly way), or people's doctrine. China should choose moralism and people's doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a preliminary theory about the effect of agricultural Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the host country using the case of cross-strait agricultural cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan. Currently land is allocated through integration in all the cross-strait agricultural co operations. Given the fact that land provides social security to Chinese peasants and the fact that the agricultural FDI is very different from the industrial FDI in terms of their respective demand for land, this paper finds that the land allocation mode through integration in the cross-strait agricultural cooperation will bring great risks to mainland Chinese society. We suggest that mainland China to adopt the networkization as an alternative mode of land allocation based on an analysis of the cost-benefit of these two modes of land allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the evolution of land system in modern China and shows that since the implement of the household contract responsibility system in rural areas in 1978, the reform of land system have stagnated in general. On one hand, local government is over-relied on land finance, making the population urbanization far behind the space urbanization and the intensification of contradictions among industrialization, urbanization and farmland protection. On the other hand, farmers' land rights have been seriously destroyed with small-scale land management and the difficulty of income increasing. Hence, the group-resistance events occur frequently and the demand of land ownership is rising. Based on the comparison of various reform suggestions, this paper proposes a program of multiple ownerships of land and gradual reform. It stresses that the construction of multiple ownership should be based on principle of public and non-public interest, and the state-owned land should also be multiple owned by central and local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first part of the Introduction the author explains why he accepted with great delight and appreciation an invitation extended by Modern China Study to act as guest editor of this special issue. The Introduction then argues why this special issue singles out the current land system and the Hukou system (the rigid Household Registration System)as the two roots of the three agrarian issues after briefly summarizing the seven papers that are included in this issue. The author then made detailed comments on some of the papers, especially the ones by J. Cai,T. Cheng,and G. Guo, before devoting the last part of the introduction to discuss the key issue of how to keep a coordinated and balanced growth between rural and urban areas. The author uses the East Asian Model to demonstrate that China's glaring rural-urban income disparity is a result of the long delay in reforming China's land system and Hukou system. The author further argues that unless China thoroughly and swiftly reforms its land system by allowing the privatization of land ownership, and its Hukou system by allowing free rural-urban migration and settlement, the already conspicuous rural-urban income disparity will continue to get worsened, and China will continue to drift away from the path of shared growth represented by the East Asian Model toward the path of growth without sharing represented by the notorious Latin American Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the "power seizure" stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), there were different levels of armed conflicts which happened in all parts of the country. This phenomenon of power seizure mainly occurred among mass organizations and most of them were initially incidental armed conflicts. As the struggle for "power seizure" accelerated, all armed conflicts also rapidly escalated. The scale of the conflict was evolved from rival mass organizations' violent fights to battles between military units, the usage of weapons were upgraded from sticks and stones to machine guns and cannons, and the conflict areas spread from the inland military regions at the outset to important strategic positions of remote areas in later stage. How did these violent conflicts lead to thousands of people being killed? Why did they develop into such a large scale? Who were behind the scenes to manipulate the conflicts? And what relationships existed between the conflicts and the PLA armed forces of "supporting left"? This paper starts with the above questions to investigate the most violent conflict in Guangxi during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It also reveals the cover up relating to the fact that more than 100,000 people were killed during the stage of "power seizure" and at the creation of all levels of Revolutionary Committee in Guangxi province in southern China. This paper contributes to uncovering the truth and the reasons of armed conflicts during the Cultural Revolution, which is still deliberately covered up by the Chinese Communist Party today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is one of the major issues that hinder the national governance and national development of Mainland China. Scholars of development studies in China have paid much attention in this issue. Also, the Chinese government tries to impose effective control to prevent corruption from damaging Communist Party rule. Taking these factors into account, this paper is going to present, through analysis and induction, all of the possible factors which have resulted in China's political corruption. These corruption factors, though complex and diverse, can be categorized into two major types: intrinsic and extrinsic. This paper also reckons that "the existence of a solicitous margin", "a weak monitoring and countering mechanism", "opportunistic cost of lesser corruptive act", "the motivation of government pillage", "the absence of a positive official motivation system", and "the disturbance of a negative motivation system against corruption" are among the major intrinsic variables which have led to government officials' political corruption, while "administrative monopolization" is an extrinsic variable which has exacerbated the problem of corruption. If, in fact, they are indeed the key factors leading to corruption within China, then finding solutions to them could be a feasible way to curtail the government officials' corrupt practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-strait relations, which are always fraught with tension, with the potential for escalation into open conflict, were eased after President Ma Ying-jeou was inaugurated. Significantly, President Ma recognized the 1992 Consensus, which served to integrate Taiwan and Mainland China in relation to economic interests and trade. The signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) allowed cross-strait relations to proceed to the next stage. Consequently, Mainland China proposed political consultations and the signing of a peace agreement. This paper argues that the greatest obstacle to military cooperation and mutual political trust between Taiwan and Mainland China involves the issue of sovereignty. This paper suggests that easing relations and cooperating on a political level is more difficult when Mainland China and Taiwan employ realist thinking. However, cooperating and reconciling politically in cross-strait relations would be possible if both sides would employ constructivist thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After years of development, Women's visual arts have increased in aspects of its genre or quantity. Women's spirituality related creative works have also provided audiences with more varieties of thinking and dialogic modes. Especially, since 1990s, major joint art exhibitions in Taiwan have pioneered and expanded the exploration, the content of Women's visual arts and their aestheticism. An observation on the exhibitions in three major official museums in Taiwan (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum) reveals the fact that the attempts and efforts of Women's visual arts to expand new models and formats have formed important directions, and have thus constructed an indispensable part of art development in Taiwan. Facing the rapid changes and developments of art scenes in the 21st century, how do Taiwanese Women artists confront the world trend and their situation in life while proposing their own point of view through the artworks? The present paper attempts to sort out the characteristics of Taiwanese Women's visual arts from the angle of Women spirituality. Through a replenishing point of view, the multiplicity to the Women's Arts should be revealed. Through the re-exploration of different Women's arts orient and occident, and reconsider the oppressions and persecutions of female body and mind enforced by the structure of traditional paternal monotheism and industrial science, this paper will provide a spiritual enlightenment to Taiwanese Women's spirituality & eco-political arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a constructed theoretical model, this paper studies the operation of family planning policy in rural China during the post agricultural tax era. Within the current fiscal system, this paper finds fines for over births becomes rural government’s main fiscal revenue, and consequently rural government encourages people to give more births to increase its revenue. Therefore, the population control policy is losing its effectiveness. Through the model, the bargaining power among the fiscal system, rural residents, and rural government is the key to the birth control problem. When the fines for over birth become rural government’s main revenue source, the growth in number of rural births also increases rural government’s total utility, producing the co-existence of high-fines and high-births. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates an emerging social phenomenon in Taiwan: the new unemployed cohort ("Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training", or "NEET"). The author examines how the changing social environment, personal history, family intergenerational relationship, and education contribute to making this cohort isolated and unable to enter the labor force. The paper further discusses the impact of the NEET cohort on the family and the social problems arising from the NEET phenomenon, and makes policy recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized that Taiwanese democrat Wan-chu Lee, a so-called half-mainlander who spent a good part of his career in China, was in general in favor of democracy in his coping with the national issue. However, this paper argues that his understanding of the Chinese nation is primarily a cultural nation and he gave this cultural identity an authentic reading that is not to be transcended by his promotion of democracy. Despite that the prospect for democracy was aborted by the actual development in China, his identification with cultural China never faded away. This paper traces the evolution of his cultural identity and how he was able to stay with it throughout his career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's periodic political changes - from the early twentieth century to the present - have to do with China's inability to adapt to the nation-state system. This in inability is due mainly to two reasons. The first is the authoritarian political system. The other, which is the main focus of this paper, is the size/structure of state. For China, it is hard to apply unitary system to the country's extensive territory, huge population, and complex socio-political situation. Nonetheless, it is also difficult to reject unitary system and replace it with federalism. More importantly, those arguments that advocate the importation of "federalism" fail to recognize the fact that this concept hardly exhibits the complexity of federal states. Therefore, it is imperative to revisit our understanding of China's state structure, rather than simply insisting on either unitary or federal system. China should transcend the debate on unitary versus federal system, and work to establish a state structure that suits its size. At the same time, China ought to construct a concept that reflects the reality of its state structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, both policy cycle and protest cycle oscillate with a ten-year term. This paper addresses the following questions: first, why do the two cycles occur in the same time? Seocnd, why does the protest cycle last either longer or shorter than ten years? The first question is presumed to relate to the "guerrilla decision style," characterized by radical, inconsistent, and self-denial reasoning and acts. This style of decision dominates the direction and the trajectory of collective protests. A couple of variables, "intra-party struggle for leadership" and "the extent of the state's penetration into society", can be helpful to explain the variety of changes of the cycles. Whether strong or weak, they all decide how long the inter-oscillation of the cycles will last. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the integration into the International System, the relationship between domestic and international laws in China is becoming a big issue. In 1997, China amended the criminal law broadly and one of the revisions was to rescind the offence of Counterrevolution and replaced it by the Suspicion of Incitement to Subvert State Power. The reform, however, was still heavily questioned. Although China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to try to comply with the norms of international human rights, it still can't ratify the ICCPR internally. After the implementation of the new criminal law, the Chinese government imposed very strict control over press and citizen's rights, evoking the laws against the endangering state security and subverting state government. This paper argues that in the foreseeable future there will be little possibility to ratify the ICCPR. Furthermore, the government sees no reason to abolish the Suspicion of Incitement to Subvert State Power at time soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

specialists in China frequently interpreted political resilience of Chinese authoritarianism from the perspective of institutionalization, yet were never concerned with the impact of social protest on the authoritarian rule. What this paper tries to do is to account for, in the context of market-oriented reform, why authoritarian resilience of China has not been reduced but strengthened. Due to the fact that China, like other authoritarian regimes, always has certain flaws, such as the lack of equitable redistribution or ineffective control over grassroots cadres, rulers often face strong discontents from below and political threats generated from the discontents. The role of social protest is to signal political crisis to rulers and by such a signal the rulers adapt to better policies and punish the corrupt or incompetent cadres so that the discontents are alleviated. In the past three decades, the attitudes of major protest groups in China (farmers, migrate farm workers and the laid-off workers in cities) toward the government have shifted from being discontent to giving the government more trust. In China, social protests with low-level mobilization actually facilitate the authoritarian rule, provided that the following preconditions are met: the state has sufficient economic resources; and it can effectively control the cadres in grassroots communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of growing land-losing peasants is becoming a serious problem at a time when China is undergoing rapid urbanization. Because of China current land tenure system, land taking policy, and hukou system, peasants have lost four types of rights to free exit. The land-losing peasants' after becoming landless, are forced to live in urban areas, resulting in so-called "forced-urbanization". This paper shows that "forced-urbanization" leads to inefficient urbanization and social conflicts. These problems can further deteriorate unless the exit rights are given back to peasants so that China can follow the path of market-oriented urbanization meanwhile elevate peasants' human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 21th century's first decade, China has made great progress in social legislation. The Female Rights Protection Law of 2005, the Employment Promotion Law of 2007, the Labor Contract Law of 2007 and the Social Insurance Law of 2010 were passed to regulate a wide scope of labor practices and to provide fair employment, better labor conditions as well as social benefits regarding unemployment, occupational injuries, retirement and healthcare. The Labor Contract Law drew more public attention than any other laws. It invited 190,000 recommendations in the month following the disclosure of its draft bill. Unlike Taiwan's Collective Agreement Law of 1930 governing the practice of collective agreement between unions and management, Chinese Labor Contract Law also regulates collective labor contract's equivalence to a collective bargaining agreement. This paper compares the provisions specifically governing collective labor contracts with Taiwan's Collective Agreement Law. The findings of the comparison are: 1. The laws of both sides governing the agreements or contracts are, in nature, substantially private laws even though China set several compulsory administrative requirements for concluding a valid collective labor contract. 2. The legal concept denoting a Collective Labor Contract or Collective Agreement is a separate concept from the employment contract or individual labor contract and refers to a private contract regulating labor conditions and subject matters regarding labor relations between union and management. The contract will impose civil obligations on the parties and may be litigated due to a breach of covenanted term. 3. With the government's assistance, collective labor contract has been widely established for self-regulating the labor conditions and labor relations in China but a Collective Agreement has not yet become a significant scheme for self-regulating the labor conditions and labor relations in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates the characteristics and transformations of the identities of Hong Kong residents. Various telephone surveys and investigations indicate the dual, hybrid, and flowing identities of the majority of Hong Kong residents despite the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities' effort to promote a national Chinese identity through the so-called civic education. To explore the issue and the reason why there have been dual, hybrid and/or flowing identities of Hong Kong residents, the author formulates research questions, reviews the research literature and telephone surveys on the national identity of Hong Kong, and examines the effects of education policy and measures of national identity since the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of painting in Taiwan in the early twentieth century was first inspired by Japanese art teachers. The new idea of "realistic painting" introduced at the time allowed the discovery of "local colors." However, the Taiwanese painters who employed the artistic ideal of "painting one's intent" were able to escape the limitation imposed by the concept of "local colors." How did the painters explore the artistic styles offered by the new global contexts through the colonization of Japan is an important issue that requires in-depth investigation. This issue is further complicated by painters who were not only influenced by the Japanese arts but also the traditional Chinese arts, as some of the Taiwanese painters moved to China after their training in Japan in order to search for a new style that conflates the Eastern and the Western arts. Taking several painters, Liu Jintang, Chen Chengpo, and Guo Bochuan as examples, this paper explores issues of identity, cultural impacts, and stylistic developments of the arts in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its daily expanding population since 1980s, China executed a strict birth control policy which produced significant influence and generated much discussion. This paper focuses on the imbalanced sex ratio at birth resulting from the one-child policy. The authors attempt to explain the regional disparity of the sex ratio at birth using the methods of GIS and spatial analysis, with the county-level city as a unit of analysis and the population census of the year 2000. Research shows that places with the phenomenon have dynamic sex ratios at birth, and the spatial distribution is non-random. Generally, there are high sex ratios at birth in regions with large Han populations, high population densities, high per-capita incomes,large birth orders, and stricter birth control regulations. Notably, the influence of the neighborhood effects is well evident. This means that after controlling socioeconomic and ethnic variables, there are still clear evidence of agglomeration; this may be due to the imitation, learning, and idea diffusion between neighboring regions, or a natural result of location- specific cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an international city, Macao is known to the world not only for its flourishing gaming and tourism sectors, but also for its rich history, religion, and culture. Drawing on empirical data obtained from three consecutive territory-wide household surveys conducted in 2005, 2007, and 2009 respectively, this paper attempts to shed light on the current religious profile of Macao residents. Generally, over half of Macao residents claim to have no religious beliefs, while one quarter of the respondents believe in the Chinese folk religion. About one-tenth claim to be Buddhists or Taoists, while around 5 percent call themselves Catholics or Protestants. An in-depth analysis further shows that female, older, and non-locally born respondents are more religious, while Catholics and Protestants are better educated and have a higher socioeconomic status than other segments of the population. Compared with those of other religious beliefs, Catholics and Protestants participate in religious activities more frequently, are in better health, and are more satisfied with various aspects of life including their family life, household economy, and work. Although over half of Macao residents are not religious, they are similarly self-reliant, family-oriented and, more importantly, respectful of law, order, and social rules. These core values, to a certain extent, mark Macao as a pluralistic society that emphasizes diversity and multi-culturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China has witnessed a surge of incidents of online public sentiments targeting business corporations, forcing the targeted corporations into great crisis. However, the response capacities and countermeasures of the targeted corporations are ineffective at best. A notable exception is a well-known brand Wang Lao Ji, which successfully dealt with two major crises. This paper analyzes Wang Lao Ji's crisis management and identifies its successful factors that may be adopted by other corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data of 606 questionnaires collected in 23 neighborhoods in Beijing in 2008, this paper analyzes the degree, motivation and implications of homeowners' political participation. First, urban homeowners tend to participate in the rights movements. Second, gender, occupation and the level of income have significant influence on homeowners' participation in these movements. Third, as an important part of Chinese middle class, Beijing homeowners tend to support the incumbent regime and to be in favor of the status quo. Most of them are in favor of the social order and economic growth. However, those who have a strong sense of "status inconsistency" and a strong sense of internal efficacy are more likely to participate in rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, urban neighborhoods have seen a rapid growth of protests by homeowners for their "rights." This paper tries to study the origin and development of the rights movements from the perspectives of political process and mobilization structure. Based on field work in several homeowners committees in Beijing, the author argues that the rapid changes of the social structure, mobilization structure and general discourse on the movements contribute to the increase of homeowners' rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper induces three stylized facts about the present situation of the cross-strait relations and Taiwan's political ecology. These stylized facts may be summed up as the deterioration of the Taiwanese people's Chinese national identity. And these problems are to a great extent the result of Mainland China's totalitarianism political system and the low level of livelihood and the underdevelopment of the civil rights conditions in the Mainland as well as the improper policies of the Mainland towards Taiwan. In conclusion, Mainland China needs to reform its totalitarian political system, increase the level of livelihood and the civil rights conditions, as well as improve its policies towards Taiwan. These measures may help to optimize the policies of the Mainland China towards Taiwan and reconstruct the cross-strait imagined communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]