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Despite discussions about China's rise as a global manufacturing titan and the world's third largest trading economy, few notice the unevenness of China's integration into the world economy. While some Chinese export producers have shown signs of climbing up the global value chain, most others are still trapped in a downward spiral of "race to the bottom" competition based on cheap prices. What accounts for this local variation despite the availability of cheap labor throughout coastal areas? Based on comparative case studies, the paper finds that contrary to the expectation of both neoclassical economics and state-led development theory, export upgrading was neither a natural product of market competition nor a sheer outcome of deliberate government promotion of capital-intensive investment. Rather it resulted from the complex interaction between foreign capital on the one hand and local export institutions that took root before the entrance of FDI on the other hand. While local institutions heavily influenced the direction and the magnitude of FDI's impact on local export activities, the influx of FDI at a particular period also revised the institutional arrangements governing the behavior of local governments and export businesses. This produced intended and unintended effects on the likelihood of ruinous competition or export upgrading. The paper concludes that in a transformed eraâ??one in which outsourcing and offshore production has increasingly segregated the source of proprietary knowledge from manufacturing, one should go beyond the pure focus on the amount of capital-intensive exports and high-tech investment, and should devote more attention to the important role of social coordination in overcoming ruinous competition and in nurturing the indigenous capacity for innovation and upgrading. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 30 years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has transformed itself into a major actor in the international economy. This paper considers the extent to which China's growing economic power translates into political influence over the foreign policy priorities, behavior, and perceptions of its economic partners. I test quantitatively whether different types of economic exchange with China are correlated with a particular country's leadership travel to China, that country's willingness to recognize China as a market economy, and its public perceptions of China. Findings are mixed, but suggest on balance that bilateral economic ties are more closely correlated with behavior (recognition of China as a market economy) and public perceptions than they are with priorities (leadership travel to China). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa has embarked on a new phase of capitalist development, powered in large part by Chinese investment. After three decades of stagnation, the continent as a whole is witnessing growth rates of five percent per year and becoming once again a focal point of geopolitical dispute. This paper will focus on the Sino-African relationship and ask two questions in particular: what is China's strategy in Africa? And what is its likely developmental impact? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China has become increasingly market driven, decentralized, andpolitically heterogeneous, the control and management of policy isbecoming transformed. Although bargaining has always been present inChinese politics, more recently the media, nongover ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the One Country Two Systems concept, China, keeping its socialist system (with Chinese characteristics), allows Hong Kong?s capitalistic system and way of life to continue. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is to exercise a ?high degree of autonomy?, with ?fifty years no change?. Deng Xiaoping, China?s paramount leader, who heralded China?s opening to the world in 1979, held that this could be a model to resolve international relations problems left over by history. In early 2005, HK once again topped the Heritage Foundation?s annual index of economic freedom, for the eleventh year. Yet HKSAR has seen tensions, with mass demonstrations. The State Department?s Country Report on Human Rights Practices ? 2004 suggested it ?has been tested severely this year?. And Amnesty International?s 2005 Report noted ?a mainland ruling in April restricting Hong Kong?s freedom to push ahead with political reform heightened concerns about an erosion of human rights in Hong Kong.? Clearly the 1C2S concept as practised in HK is under challenge. It raises the question: has China managed HK?s return well or not? The nine years of experience offers a glimpse into China?s foreign policy and how HK fits into China?s scheme of things as a rising global power. Much as China guards jealously its sovereignty over HK and fears HK is being used as a base of subversion by foreign interests, notably the United States, HK is a matter of international concern. Since HK has been running an open economy, and as China is increasingly integrated into the international community, the interactions among the three levels ? the sub-state actor, the sovereign and the international community ? present opportunities as well as dilemmas. Specifically, the paper seeks to elucidate the origins of the 1C2S concept, to examine its application in HK thus far, and to identify the factors affecting its success (or failure). In fact, the 1C2S concept was designed in the first instance by China to re-unify the ?renegade? province of Taiwan. HK is supposed to demonstrate to Taiwan that all would be well under Chinese sovereignty. Yet, President Chen Siu-bian categorically stated that Taiwan is not HK. Beijing?s passage of the anti-succession law has rattled cross-straits relations, yet the visits by Lien and Soong, the opposition leaders, to the Mainland represented a class united front play of Beijing to isolate Chen and raised hope for some kind of accommodation between Taiwan and the Mainland. The paper will conclude with a discussion on the implications of the HK experience for Taiwan. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the One Country Two Systems concept, China, keeping its socialist system (with Chinese characteristics), allows Hong Kong’s capitalistic system and way of life to continue. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is to exercise a “high degree of autonomy”, with “fifty years no change”. Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader who heralded China’s opening to the world in 1979, held that this could be a model to resolve international relations problems left over by history. In 2007, HK once again topped the Heritage Foundation’s annual index of economic freedom, for the thirteenth year. Yet HKSAR has seen tensions, with half a million people demonstrating on 1 July 2003 against a draft security bill. The first HKSAR Chief Executive (CE) was so unpopular that he had to resign, and the second CE Donald Tsang was a senior civil servant left over from the British colonial days. He is quite popular in HK, and has the support of Beijing,. He was re-elected in 2007 for a full five-year term. As HK’s economy grows, social tensions are lower, but Beijing refuses to let the HK people elect the CE and the whole of the legislature directly. The overall question remains as the 1C2S concept as practised in HK is under challenge: has China managed HK’s return well or not? HKSAR will celebrate its tenth anniversary on 1 July 2007. The decade under Chinese rule offers a glimpse into China’s foreign policy and how HK fits into China’s scheme of things as a rising global power. Much as China guards jealously its sovereignty over HK and fears HK is being used as a base of subversion by foreign interests, notably the US, HK is a matter of international concern. HK could be seen within the context of China’s international relations: is China undergoing a “peaceful rise” or a threat to the international community, particularly to US interests? Since HK has been running an open economy, and as China is increasingly integrated into the international community, the interactions among the three levels â€" the sub-state actor, the sovereign and the international community â€" present opportunities as well as dilemmas. Specifically, the paper seeks to elucidate the origins of the 1C2S concept, to examine its application in HK thus far, and to identify the factors affecting its success (or failure). Not to be forgotten is Macao, which was returned to China on 20 December 1999 after four and a half centuries of Portuguese administration, also under the 1C2S policy. Fuelled by its casino industry which outstripped Las Vegas in 2007, the seeming economic boom was shattered by a policeman firing five shots at an anti-government demonstration on 1 May 2007. The glaring income inequality is under sharp focus. Yet somehow Macao, rather than HK, has become more a bridge between the Mainland and the “renegade” province of Taiwan. Significantly, the 1C2S concept was designed in the first instance by China to re-unify Taiwan. HK is supposed to demonstrate to Taiwan that all would be well under Chinese sovereignty. But independence-minded President Chen Siu-bian categorically stated that Taiwan is not HK. Beijing’s passage of the anti-succession law has rattled cross-straits relations, yet the visits by opposition leaders, and Beijing’s courtship of KMT leader Ma Ying-jeou represent a classic united front play of Beijing to isolate Chen and raised hope for some kind of accommodation between Taiwan and the Mainland. The inclusion of Taiwan in the US and Japan security zone has alarmed Beijing... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the continuing underside of globalization as it has been manifesting for Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong since the 1990s. It argues that hyper-modern, "techno-muscular" global capitalism (Global Restructuring I)is actually reliant on low-wage and highly sexualized and racialized labor (Global Restructuring II) which serves the comopolitanites in GI, service that is enforced by traditional constructions of culture, religion, and family. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most striking in international political economy in 1980s and 1990s is that China went through three kinds of transitions smoothly, i.e. from a command economy to a market-oriented one; from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial one; and from a non-WTO nation to a WTO one, without leading to catastrophic turmoil or collapse compared to former socialist countries in East Europe and the Soviet Union. Around China’s successful transition and its robust economic growth, there have appeared two opposite schools: one is convergence school, which views China’s economic growth as the natural consequences of its “reform and open door” policy aimed at ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ market economy by incremental institutional adaptation and adjustment; another is experimentalist school, which argues that China’s robust economic growth is one part of an unique process with deliberate institutional design, or with somewhat institutional innovations such as “two track price system”, although without clear and coherent target, sequencing and pace. In this paper, we try to seek linkages between domestic institutional adjustment and international forces to explain the roles of China’s government in managing its transition and maintaining its successive economic growth.Four parts are included, part I focuses on what kind of roles the government has played in the transition from the command economy to a market-oriented economy by scrutinizing the evolution of two developmental paradigms and their smooth transition. In part II, we examine the correlation between industry policies and economic growth, and evaluate successes and failures of industrial policies through listing pivots of China’s automobile industrial policies and electronics industrial policies. In part III, we put the industrial policies in a broader context and explain why these kinds of industrial policies did work, or in some sense worked very well in promoting China’s economic growth in past two decades, and what kinds of challenges the policies has to face in the future. The final is concluding remarks, in which we point out some possibilities and challenges that China’s government is likely to confront in its attempt to foster further a market-oriented economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explain why economic growth and liberalization have not led to substantial political reform in China. Specifically, it explores the declining interest in democracy among ChinaÂ’s major urban socioeconomic groups. Bringing together the conclusions of the comparative literature and the empirical findings of China scholars, I suggest that a groupÂ’s attitude toward democracy hinges on how economic reform has affected its (1) material conditions and future prospects; (2) political relationship with the ruling Chinese Communist Party; and (3) social status. More broadly, this analysis indicates that the emergence of capitalism has different consequences in socialist versus non-socialist states. In addition, it shows that support for capitalism cannot be assumed to coincide with, much less cause, support for democracy. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia and China have emerged from the transition to global capitalism without embracing the liberal values and institutions of the leading Western powers, leading some to suggest that a new anti-American, authoritarian axis will come to dominate the 21st ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s resumption of the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong (HK) in 1997 under the One Country Two Systems (1C2S) concept which allowed HK’s capitalistic system and way of life to continue while China would keep its socialist system (with Chinese cha ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study situates the development of relations of super-exploitation of industrial workers in post-reform China in the context of the global restructuring of manufacturing industries. It argues that insofar as a race to the bottom exists, it is relative, both in terms of patterns of uneven industrial development on a world-historical scale and the effects of specifically capitalist class relations of exploitation and domination are having on the conditions of work and employment confronted by industrial workers under global capitalism. Contrary to the implication of the some interpretations of the NIDL and the race to the bottom, the world is not converging on the basis of a uniform leveling down (or a uniform leveling up as apologists for globalization suggest), but is actually experiencing a process of intensified uneven development, which is transforming class relations between wage-workers and their capitalist employers North and South. A nuanced interpretation of the race to the bottom is proposed, and some implications for our understanding of contemporary working-class struggles international labor solidarity are then considered. Fundamentally an outgrowth of the bedrock of capital accumulation, the contemporary restructuring of global capitalism embraces and yet differs in important respects from trends posited by theorists of the NIDL. I hope that contrasting these two analytical frameworks may provide both a point of entry for analyzing global restructuring and an opportunity for developing an alternative conceptual framework to account for contemporary corporate restructuring on a worldwide scale and its impacts on processes of working-class formation, international labor relations, and the course of development of the capitalist world economy more generally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese perspective is required to better understand the China?s foreign policies. China fundamentally changed its national strategy in early 1970s. During the Cold War era, the U.S. and Japan were enemies of China. However, China has acknowledged the U.S. as its strategic partner, and normalized its diplomatic relations with Japan in 1972. After the normalizations, China have developed its political and economic relations with the U.S. and Japan economically and politically. Recently, tension between China, and the U.S. and Japan have increased. On the other hand, after the open policy of Deng Xiaoping in late 1970s, China adapted capitalistic economic development strategy; it seems to be very successful. However, China still holds Marxism-Leninism as its fundamental national ideology with Maoism. On the other hand, Chinese Communist Party has officially opened its membership to Chinese capitalists.To understand and correctly explain the China's national behavior, a unique Chinese perspective based on a new Sino-centrism is required. The new Sino-centrism is a combination of Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, and traditional Sino-centric thoughts. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]