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How the link between village elections and public goods investment acts as a version of pork barrel politics in rural China is discussed. Analysis of unique survey data set from almost 2,450 randomly chosen villages shows that provision of public goods increases if village leaders are elected. Their reelection also depends on whether they did more public projects during their terms of office.

The different ways in which the Chinese media can be controlled is discussed. A regime of uncertainty is considered to be a deliberate strategy used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control the Chinese media.

A study was conducted to examine the potential role of civic environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China's democratization. The origins, structures, and functions of these NGOs are analyzed based on interviews with 31 NGO officials. Findings indicate that these NGOs have been less successful in influencing government decisions.

In recent years, China has sought to supplement its traditional use of hard power with soft power, and thus the Chinese government has paid more and more attention to public diplomacy. Chinese governments have previously demonstrated a limited understanding of public diplomacy, seeing it either as external propaganda or a form of internal public affairs, but this has not prevented China from becoming a skilled public diplomacy player. Key aspects of traditional Chinese culture and politics have presented major obstacles for Chinese public diplomacy. In comparison to the United States, China needs an enduring and effective public diplomacy strategy and needs to improve its skills to make full use of the modem media. The peaceful rise/peaceful development policy in Chinese grand strategy has sought to integrate Chinese hard power and soft power to create a soft rise for China. Keywords: public diplomacy; China; soft power; soft rise

What explains the nature of institutional change in post-1989 China? Dominant theories of institutional change focus on economic-rationalist, sociopolitical, or historical causes. Yet they have trouble explaining the pattern of institutional change in China. An alternative legitimacy-based perspective is proposed here that provides a more parsimonious and general theory of institutional change for China and potentially for other cases as well. Keywords: legitimacy; institutional change; social values; democratization; China

Chinese political scenario in 2007 with preparations and negotiations of the Seventeenth Party Congress and the first Plenary Session of the new Seventeenth Central Committee is reviewed. The General Secretary, Hu Jintao's scientific development concept was integrated into the Constitution with the emphasis on building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The shift of the People's Republic of China to neo-liberalism and its accumulation by dispossession, by marketing previously uncommodified activities, rather than the accumulation of capital are analyzed.

The relationship between the turnover of government leaders and economic performance has rarely been studied in authoritarian regimes. In mainland China the reforms of the past quarter century have increased the economic accountability of local leaders. At the same time, there is some evidence that informal and idiosyncratic factors are more likely to operate at lower levels of government. An analysis of a comprehensive panel data set shows that Chinese county leaders are frequently replaced and that revenue growth increases the probability of promotion of county chief executives. Newly installed or minority nationality chief executives are less likely to be replaced. Keywords: government turnover; economic performance; responsibility hypothesis; county leaders; China

The Chinese have begun moving on a liberal-democratic path to freedom, having made a decent start on various measures such as economic growth, governance and rule of law, and are headed on the long march to ultimate freedom and becoming one of the world's largest democracies.

The article elaborates on China is on the path to democracy and political liberalization and the different ways in which this is possible.

JAMES MANN. The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression. VIKING. 120 PAGES. $19.95 The author of two previous books about China--Beijing Jeep: A Case Study of Western [...]

Prevailing economic theories predict that world market integration unleashes centrifugal forces from within and undermines domestic central political authority. Reversing the conventional bottom-up, demand-side approach, this article highlights the incentives of national-level political actors. It suggests that when institutionally empowered vis-a-vis the subnational units, the center will seek to enhance political control over regions thriving in the global market to extract revenues, remedy interregional disparity, and maintain central rule. Through analyzing pooled cross-sectional, time-series data for Chinese provinces during 1978 to 2002, it shows that the Chinese political center has manipulated its personnel monopoly power within the ruling Communist Party to exert a tighter grip over provincial party secretaries, the top officials in the provinces more exposed to the international market. Furthermore, provinces overseen by more controlled party secretaries actually received less favorable terms during fiscal contracting, implying their greater revenue submission to the center. Keywords: economic openness; globalization; central political control; political party centralization; federalism; China

This article explores the impact of organizational involvement on political participation in mainland China. The formal organizations in China today differ in the nature of organization and membership, which in turn lead to different effect on political participation. In contrast with the Communist Party and the 'mass organizations,' the reemerging civic associations have more voluntary and active members. Although providing similar benefits of vertical connections to official access and information as other formal organizations, they uniquely transcend the boundaries of the administrative or work units to bring together people with dissimilar background. Analysis of a nationwide survey data shows that involvement in the Party or mass organizations provides some advantages in participation through official channels, while the constraining effect on unconventional activities did not materialize. Involvement in civic associations significantly facilitates all types of political participation. Keywords: social organization; political participation; social capital; civil society; Communist Party; China

China's economic, legal and political foundations will change as its policy of economic liberalization continues. The possibility of China's move away from Marxism and the revival of Confucianism in its place are discussed.

The author believes that objective of a national strategy should be specific and China must strategize on global scale strategies, which should be clear and not vague. He states that China should focus on moving towards west and discusses ways in which China should deal with various neighboring countries in the region.

Increased interaction within the Pacific region on the part of China that is expected to increase the country's 'soft power' over the other countries of the area is discussed. The impact of China's potential economic, political and strategic motivations on the U.S. is discussed.

China's loss of regime's grip on village cadres and their loss of command by village cadres on peasants is breaking down the traditional structure of organizational control in vast rural areas making village governance and party power increasingly irrelevant. The party-state's organizational control in urban areas have weakened due to market forces thus prompting the reform regime to institutionalize its political control through the rule of law over urbanites.

China has transformed itself from a planned economy to a market society since 1976, a center of capitalist activity, and from an anti-imperialist nation to one of imperialism's strategic partners. Thus, China's revolutionary century was negated by the silence that exists about the Sixties despite the fact that the Cultural Revolution was so central to that tumultuous decade and this fundamental change in attitudes and the eclipse of the Sixties is a product of this depoliticization.

The Chinese government is brilliantly successful in opening up the nation's economy and in enabling China to participate in global economic life. Further, the account of an expert Karl Marx in China begins as China becomes covered with cash machines.

IN 1978, DURING THE THIRD PLENUM OP THE ELEVENTH NATIONAL party congress, Deng Xiaoping initiated a new economic policy that was to have dramatic economic and social effects. Turning his [...]

The 'yellow peril' is rising.... We see the overpopulation of the neighboring nation. They will come here, give birth to multitudes of slit-eyed people and then claim political autonomy.... Even [...]

China's new development strategy seeks to combine populist authoritarianism in the political realm with a shift in economic policy that focuses more on the sustainability and quality to economic growth rather than its speed. Rising social tensions have fed into tightening party control over state and society.

The survey data collected in Jiangsu Province revealed that the assessments of self-government institutions, by rural residents, were more positive than those of the elected leaders. The resident's appraisal of the village leader's performance, beliefs in democratic norms and external efficiency, influenced their thinking towards self-government institutions and elected leaders.

This article questions predictions about China's democratic potential based on rising incomes in the private sector. For private entrepreneurs to constitute a democratizing force, structural theories expect two causal links: first, class formation; and second, collective action. This article examines national surveys of business owners, proposes a typology of entrepreneurs' political behavior, and concludes that class formation has not occurred among private entrepreneurs. The absence of a common basis for identity and interaction challenges the hypothesis that China's new capitalists might engage in collective action to demand democracy. Entrepreneurs should, thus, be examined at a lower level of abstraction rather than lumped into a catchall capitalist 'middle class.' Taking into account the employment background, social networks, and local political conditions of people in apparently similarly situated groups is essential for explaining political dynamics in transitional contexts where the identities and interests of new economic actors are mediated by prereform experiences. Keywords: capitalists; class; democracy; China; socialist transition

A study shows how the middle class in China protects its interests against state and social actors by examining homeowners' defense of their rights. It is suggested that members of the Chinese middle class are largely moderate due to their intention to maintain the political order and limited ability to stage disruptive action.

In order to redress the problems of ideological and political fragmentation, the post-Tiananmen neo-left and neo-right theory is characterized by a new emphasis on central power and normative legitimacy. This change has made the Chinese government stronger.

Previous research has found evidence that in high-profile cases, political action committees (PACs) sometimes punish members of Congress for voting in opposition to the PACs' interests. This finding contradicts the conventional understanding of campaign contributions as an inducement or reward for voting record or access to a member of Congress. To understand better the dimensions of the punishment strategy, we test whether corporate PACs engage in punishment by examining the pattern of contributions of finance and insurance PACs in the wake of the House vote on granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China in May 2000. Using ordinary least squares regression models, we find support for a punishment strategy of finance and insurance PACs as a result of a no vote on PNTR. The magnitude of the punishment is highest for those members of the House who have the strongest relationship with the PAC. Keywords: political action committees; campaign financing; labor politics; PAC punishment; trade politics

When Hong Kong reintegrated with China in 1997, one critical issue was whether the flourishing center of economic activity with an efficient administrative framework would lose its advantages and become just another city of the People's Republic of China. This article examines the process of managing transition as socialist China tries to accommodate capitalist Hong Kong. With strong forces of globalization at play, both units have had to embark on administrative reforms to make their systems compatible with the demands of the new circumstances. An overview of the reforms they have undertaken reveals that convergence is possible despite markedly different points of departure. However, while the forces of globalization press for increased convergence, the forces of institutional arrangements and history present a major challenge. The balance of the push and pull of convergent and divergent forces will determine the direction and outcome of administrative reforms in China and Hong Kong.

This article provides an angry response to Wang Lixiong's supposed claim that Tibetans participated in the destruction of their own culture during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in his article 'Reflections on Tibet'. The author addresses the issue of millenarian insurgency among Tibetans including peasant revolts in 1969, Communist Party control of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, the colonial attitudes of the Chinese intelligentsia, the destruction of Buddhist temples, criticizes Wang's explanation of Tibetan's response to Chairman Mao, criticizes the fact that Wang is of the Chinese intelligentsia, compares iconography, provides a brief history of Tibet's relations with China, and Tibet's belief system and political reforms.

Conventional analysis of government typically focuses on 'politics,' that is, interests, conflicts or personalities. But governing a country is not only a task of successfully governing its people, but also an administrative task of managing subordinate officials. This is a very relevant issue in a country such as China, with a massive bureaucracy. The top 'managers' of the country - some 30 national leaders - make policies but also manage a large number of bureaucratic personnel. As in business organizations, control problems occur when subordinates have different interests from those of the organization and when the behavior of subordinates is imperfectly monitored. Control mechanisms are designed to minimize such problems by either aligning interests or improving information. This article uses this framework to explain a wide variety of administrative phenomena in Chinese government organizations.

Issues concerning the the often unacknowledged rejection by many Tibetans of their own Buddhist culture during the Chinese Cultural Revolution are examined, focusing on the relationship between those events and cultural conditions in Tibet at the start of the 21st century. Topics include the historical relationship between China and Tibet, since the 18th century, Mao Zedong's military control of Tibet, the flight into exile of the Dalai Lama, and future prospects for defining Tibetan culture.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the post-Mao electoral reforms was semicompetitive elections, including those for local people's congresses. A better understanding of voters' subjective motivations in these elections is critical for explaining and predicting the significant effects of the elections on sociopolitical development in rapidly changing Chinese society. Using survey data collected in Beijing, China, in 1995, we reexamine arguments and findings about voters' subjective motivations reported by Shi (1999a). Contrary to Shi's arguments and findings, we find that people with stronger democratic orientation and a keener sense of internal efficacy are less likely to vote in these semicompetitive elections, while those who are identified with the regime and have affective attachments to the political authority are more likely to vote in the elections. In this article, we present the differences between our arguments and findings and Shi's. Then we draw some important political and theoretical implications from these differences.

The number of women in the Chinese National People's Congress exaggerates the impact of women on Chinese politics. Even though women make up 21% of the Congressional deputies, that are usually in positions subservient to men and are put in charge of issues considered to be less important. The nature of state-derived feminism is examined.

The article characterizes Li Yunhe's actions while administering the contracting agricultural output to households program as not opposed to the Chinese Communist Party and therefore not deserving of him being identified as a rightist. His mistakes were evaluated as originating in arrogance and he has improved his attitude.

The article describes the efficiency, simplicity, and relatively high productivity for 20 years of the contracting to household agricultural policy. The problem of rightist leaders and rich peasants in rural areas being ignored is discussed and the authors demand political rehabilitation.

This article examines the state-building and family policies of China during the reign of Mao Zedong, focusing on marriage registration from 1950-66. Topics addressed include political and social change in China, efforts by the state to detail the lives of its citizens, and popular response to marriage registration.