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This study used the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to explain stability and change in China's national birth control policy from 1980 to 2015. We found that policy remained stable, despite internal and external changes to the relevant subsystem, from 1980 to 2013. The stability was explained by the dominant advocacy coalition's mobilization of considerable resources to defend its policy core beliefs. Policy changes in 2013 and 2015 were caused by a combination of external and internal perturbations, in addition to policy‐oriented learning and advocacy by two expert‐led minority advocacy coalitions. The case showed that the openness and plurality of China's policy processes had increased over time but were still limited in comparison with those in Western democracies. The case analysis confirmed two policy change hypotheses and suggested a mechanism for policy change: a hierarchically superior jurisdiction is more likely to impose a major policy change when it learns that the change is an adaptation to internal and external perturbations and that adopting the change will serve the jurisdiction's political interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between geographical leadership mobility and policy isomorphism is rarely discussed in the extant literature. We argue that the geographical leadership mobility encourages local executives to converge their development experiences in their original working jurisdictions and their current positions. The distinct Chinese political personnel system provides an ideal environment that allows researchers to examine the isomorphic effects of geographical leadership mobility. This research builds a dataset of local social spending between 1998 and 2011 as well as a database of the leadership mobility history of provincial executives in China. Results of the spatial panel analysis (SPA) demonstrate that the geographical leadership mobility (i.e., horizontal, top‐down, and bottom‐up) of governors stimulates the regional isomorphism of provincial education and health care spending. The empirical findings affirm the effectiveness of the effort of the Chinese central government in narrowing the regional inequality of social welfare provision through the geographical mobility of local leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time dimension has not attracted enough attention in policy process research in China, yet speed is the most distinctive feature of China's recent development. This article, based on observations of China's policy practices, proposes a new research perspective for understanding how the Chinese government has been able to address policy challenges in an era of rapid transition. The approach adopted by the government allows decision makers to respond quickly to serious problems with a truncated decision‐making process, and then implement the decisions through a more gradual deliberative process. The article examines China's coal‐mining industry reform as an empirical case to illustrate how this governance approach has been used to achieve major policy reform, namely property rights reform for coal mines, while simultaneously maintaining stability, regulating production safety, and stimulating industrial development. The article concludes with a discussion of the broad implications of this pattern for improving the effectiveness of public policy both in and outside China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the changes in china's political and economic aspects. It mentions the concepts like modernity and modern that originating in the Western European experience and also focuses on the beginning of modern Chinese history along with different phases of Chinese modernity with a variety of historical and contemporary factors and with the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The article highlights the description of Shanghai, China's aspect of politics, democracy, and community. It mentions the changes of Shanghai's urban spaces that changed tremendously over the past twenty years and also highlights a change in its transportation rights along with its public spaces as large squares and gathering spots.

The article presents an interview with a scholar of Lu Xun, Wang Xiaoming. It mentions his views on a series of public discussions around the politics, economic and financial topics; and also focuses on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with corrupt officialdom or with a positive identification with the nation.

An introduction is presented in which discussed several issues on topics the changing politics of the Shanghai municipal government along its services; its challenges towards economic reformation and highlights its transformation in political life revolutionary period.

China is highly concerned about its global image and is thus increasingly active in promoting itself globally. The most prominent and most controversial tool of China’s global image management is the Confucius Institute (CI). Launched in 2004 to introduce Chinese language and culture globally, CIs are normally joint ventures between Chinese and international universities, and are partially funded by the Chinese government. These close links with official China have raised concerns about their aims and have triggered heated debates about their intentions. While proponents describe CIs as a benign instrument of cultural exchange, critics define them as the propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party. This paper provides empirical evidence related to these debates as it critically engages with the actual content CIs present to their audiences by analysing internal work reports from 50 CIs in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The paper outlines the specific narratives CIs present to global audiences and finds a clear agenda to present an apolitical version of China by emphasising elements of traditional Chinese culture and mostly avoiding controversial political topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores his role as an anthropologist in the protests in Hong Kong, China which started with the proposal of an extradition bill by the Hong Kong government in February 2019. Topics discussed include conflict of the extradition bill with Hong Kong's own legal system when it was returned to China in 1997, possible impact of the extradition bill on anthropologists, and the active participation of anthropologists in these protests.

An introduction is presented which discusses political leadership changes and governance in China.

The article discusses modern Tibet, China in the imagination and fantasy of Han Chinese from the 1930s through the early 21st century, including the depiction of the sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso in Chinese popular culture. The politics surrounding the Chinese government's relations with Tibet are discussed.

The fall of Suharto's regime brought substantial changes in relations between Indonesia and China, and unleashed diverse perceptions of China. Reasons for these changes include the changing nature of Indonesian politics, Indonesia's position in between the US and China, and the direct results of China's policy and behaviour. In turn, sectors of Indonesian society, Indonesian business communities and the government have reacted differently and at different times to China and its growing influence. This article explores the inherent variability of Indonesia's relationship with China over the last fifteen years, which has emanated from different perceptions of Indonesian stakeholders toward China's rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles rocket scientist Qian Xuesen, noting his role in promoting systems engineering in Chinese politics. Topics include Qian's learning about the application of systems engineering to policy problems during his time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, the role of systems engineers in the design of the Three Gorges Dam, and the connection between a smart cities initiative and a social credit system in China.

This article explores the building of urban socialism in the port city of Dalian from 1945 through the mid-1950s. Hailed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949 as “New China’s model metropolis,” this former Japanese colonial city was occupied by the Soviet military until 1950. Postwar geopolitics situated Dalian and its residents at the forefront of implementing Soviet-inspired reforms that led to an image of Dalian not only as a vanguard city of the People’s Republic, but one intimately connected with the larger socialist world. The article argues that Dalian’s postwar geopolitical position as a Sino-Soviet space led to a cross-pollination of attitudes, actions, and policies that differed from much of the urban scene throughout the People’s Republic of China. It sheds new light on how the complex decolonization process of the early Cold War brought a Chinese city more closely into the Second World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I show that far from consenting to be bound by institutions and rules of the Pax Americana, China is already working to recast the international order in ways that favour its interests, not those of the United States. The US foreign policy establishment does not grasp this, and, instead, has invested the idea of a 'rules-based, institutionalized' international order with a talismanic quality. It claims that rules and institutions are politically neutral, and, ipso facto, beneficial for all. However, in international politics, who rules makes the rules. Rules and institutions reflect the distribution of power in the international system. A power transition is taking place in the early twenty-first century: US power is in relative decline and China is rising quickly. No international order--not even the Pax Americana--lasts forever. The liberal world order cannot survive the erosion of US hegemonic power. It is this structural change, not Donald Trump, that threatens the post-Second Word War international order's survival. It requires a huge leap of faith to believe that a risen China will continue to subordinate itself to the Pax Americana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese development finance flows provided to African recipients have gained a lot of attention for their volume and nature, representing an alternative approach to development. It is the aim of this article to examine the observance of principles of China's development model, the Beijing Consensus, through China's Official Development Finance delivered to Zambia between 2000 and 2014. Due to a lack of information published on development finance flows by the Chinese government, the author uses AidData's dataset, media, and government reports to verify the nature and amount of finance flows provided and their allocation in the country. The analysis demonstrates that apart from the "non-interference principle", all the principles are observed when their adherence is limited to the purpose of the delivered projects. However, their observance is at the same time undercut by characteristics of the process of projects' implementation and their allocation. There are also other Chinese activities further undermining the adherence. Although these activities are not directly associated with China's ODF-like finance delivery to Zambia, they influence the successful observance of the examined principles in a negative way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the emergence and evolution of direct elections (DE) for officials at township-level government in China using social evolutionary theory. The explanations provided by existing research using modernization theory or rational choice theory are not sufficient for fully understanding innovation and change of grassroots democratic institutions across China as a whole. This paper argues that the experiment of DEs at the township level is an institutional reform driven by external forces. Under the pressure of financial crisis, a small number of county-level political elites challenged existing thinking and initiated this institutional innovation. The diffusion, continuation and subsequent breakdown of this innovation was the result of the interactions between the external actors of local political elites, the central government, and public opinion led by media and scholars following major fiscal structural changes. Our research finds that during the period of continuation, it is the central government who plays the most pivotal role amongst the external actors and continues to determine the future evolution of this institutional innovation. This paper concludes that a social evolutionary approach has strong explanatory power regarding analyzing institutional changes around local elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special economic zone (SEZ) programs in China have played a major role in the Chinese political economy. To examine SEZs, I address three questions. Are zones effective? What are the origins of SEZs? How do zones evolve? I argue that the origin of zones is under-theorized. Examining zone enactment is necessary for studying land-use patterns and urbanization. We must also pay closer attention to the level of analysis and evolution of zones over time. Clarifying the level of analysis will improve our understanding of the distribution of preferential policies across China. Understanding zone evolution will help scholars and practitioners assess when and how SEZs are an effective economic policy tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite playing a key contributing role in China's economic reforms and the Party's regime durability, there has been a noted reduction in local policy experimentation. Using semi-structured interviews with policymakers in Beijing, Zhejiang and Shenzhen, we find that although recentralization efforts at the central-level are impacting local officials, a great deal of variation in policy experimentation outcomes still exists. Thus, the puzzle motivating this study is how do local officials react to these institutional changes to decide whether or not to engage in local policy innovation? Our study offers three potential explanations for why local officials vary in their willingness to continue policy experimentation: (1) the ineffectiveness of the vertical reward and punishment systems operated by the Party-state; (2) differing base preferences of local officials; and, (3) the presence of a cohort effect. These factors 'filter' institutional changes to result in variation at the local level. As such, we find strong support for an evolutionary process predicated on individual preferences interacting with institutional incentives such as the evaluation system and the networked-structure of cadre knowledge. Although some officials are still conducting policy experimentation, the overall reduction in innovation strongly suggests that potential solutions to governance problems remain trapped at the local level, and that the central government might lose this 'adaptable' governance mechanism that has contributed to its past economic and political successes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government system of China has been well known for its ability to mobilize its local leaders through career incentives. Does this system also encourage local policy innovation? This paper tests the relation between career advancement and local policy innovation with a self-compiled dataset on local innovation and local leaders' career paths in 16 deputy-provincial level municipalities. We find a strong positive relationship between reported local policy innovation concerning economic issues and local leaders' career advancement from 1980 to 2008, while the relationship between the number of innovations in other policy areas and promotion is insignificant. This finding deepens our understanding of both the promotion system for Chinese local leaders and motivations for local policy innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies on political connections have empirically estimated the effects of connections on firm value, we still know relatively little about how political connections are formed, or about how the formation of political connections affects the way politicians influence firms. I address these two questions by examining recent cases in China in which two powerful politicians-Bo Xilai and Chen Liangyu-were removed from office. I show that Bo's removal only affected nationally connected firms, while Chen's fall only affected locally connected firms. I argue that this difference should be explained by their different career paths: Bo was a national politician, whereas Chen spent his whole career in local government. There is strong evidence that firms were betting on Bo and hence lost market value after his fall. These findings have important implications for our understanding of state-business relations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the significance of Sino-American diplomacy in 1973-1979. It discusses the role of the National Council on U.S.-China Trade, a bilateral trade established by major American corporations including Cargill Inc., Chase Manhattan Bank, and Boeing Co., which spearheaded the U.S. pursuit of Chinese oil. Also discussed is the three ways in which oil helped advance Sino-American relations namely American businessmen's fascination on China's potential as an alternative to Middle Eastern oil, the shift of American interest to Chinese imports of U.S. petroleum technology, and oil as a symbol of the U.S.-China strategic partnership.

The standard approach to China's environmental management, fragmented authoritarianism, assumes the existence of state, corporations, farmers, and consumers. New social actors now populate the Chinese landscape, however. One such actor is the network we call the China water machine; others comprise the networks and coalitions that oppose the China water machine's operations. These actors play out their operations and conflicts within socioenvironmental regions like Yunnan. All three (China water machine, oppositional groups, and socioenvironmental regions) are interpreted as assemblages. After contrasting assemblage and the hydrosocial cycle, the article demonstrates how assemblage theory can guide empirical research, by describing the emergence of the China water machine, its membership, and its effects. This machine involves corporations, universities, international institutions, and arms of the government, tasked with identifying and framing what are water management issues, formulating standardized procedures for tackling those issues, and then constructing solutions. These cooperative activities of government and other actors cannot be identified as “Chinese,” as they partly depend on institutions and corporations domiciled outside China; together they render the standard theory incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Namibia's Husab uranium mine is the Chinese government's largest investment in Africa to date. This article develops a theoretical framework of hybridity to analyse the (geo)political and ecological implications of China's rising global influence in uranium mining. Drawing on multiple-methods fieldwork, the article explains how Husab has resuscitated Namibia's uranium industry and facilitated the political goals of both Chinese and Namibian leaders. Husab's materialisation of "South-South solidarity," however, also appears to be deepening the marginalisation of minority communities near uranium mines. Far from paradoxical, this uneven distribution of benefits and costs is as intertwined with nuclear geopolitics as it is with the materiality of uranium mining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is an important tool for local governments to attract investments and promote local economic growth in China. Based on panel data of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2012, this paper employs spatial panel data models to examine the strategic interaction among local governments in industrial land supply and to indentify its possible sources. The empirical results show that there exists strategic interaction among local governments in industrial land leasing price. Local governments’ industrial land leasing price is significantly impacted by the action of neighbouring cities. They mimic each other – in terms of industrial land leasing price to attract outside investments. Empirical evidence reveals that the strategic interaction comes from both yardstick competition and resource flow effects. Local governments react more to their neighbours’ industrial land leasing price during political cycle periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of Arctic studies is becoming increasingly rich in empirical material across a broad array of topics and relationships, encompassing multiple international actors, both littoral and extra-regional. This article reviews three recent books on the Arctic, focusing on the evaluation of the potential for conflict in the region. Climate change will have long-ranging repercussions in the Arctic, where complex situations and choices will loom large, creating scope for international tensions. The scholarship demonstrates that there is much 'old' in the 'new' narratives of the North but at the same time posits that the region has been significantly less confrontational in the post-Cold War era than many observers predicted. Yet the Arctic is not hermetically sealed from other regions: international developments as well as the foreign policy ambitions of individual states, sometimes as remote as China, have been affecting emerging governance arrangements. In combination, the 'spill-over effect' of international crises and efforts by individual states to engage in sovereignty-enhancing exercises risk reducing cooperation among the states which have until now managed to maintain stability in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author explores whether the growing presence of Chinese financial assistance is decreasing the bargaining power of traditional donors vis-àvis African governments. The article relies on data from an original survey of high-ranking donor officials working in multiple African countries, as well as case-studies of Chinese engagement in three diverse African country contexts: Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania. It finds that claims of a 'silent revolution' in development cooperation due to China's increased involvement in the region are overstated. Among donor officials, there is far from consensus that China is decreasing the bargaining power of their agency. On the contrary, evidence from Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda suggests that traditional development aid continues to play an important role and that, in practice, China rarely directly competes with traditional donors. There are, however, two important caveats to this claim. First, when China and traditional donors do directly compete-for example, on infrastructure projects-many recipient governments prefer assistance from China. Second, given China's interest in expanding markets and acquiring natural resources, countries receiving higher amounts of Chinese official finance are likely to have lower rates of aid dependence. As a result, financing from China is likely to be correlated with a decline in the bargaining power of traditional donors, even if it is not causing such a decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on authoritarian regimes argues that they provide public goods in order to prevent rebellion. This essay shows that the ‘threat of rebellion’ alone cannot explain Chinese party-state policies to extend public goods to rural residents in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of policy making, it argues that China’s one-party regime extended public goods to the rural population under the influence of ideas and policy options generated by policy communities of officials, researchers, international organisations and other actors. The party-state centre adopted and implemented these ideas and policy options when they provided solutions to external shocks and supported economic development goals. Explanations of policies and their outcomes in authoritarian political systems need to include not only ‘dictators’ but also other actors, and the ideas they generate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The different agreements on oil and natural gas signed by Russian and Chinese companies testify to the profound changes in the oil and gas policies of both Russia and China. We stress the importance of the contractual norms which structure the energy interdependency of the countries involved. As there is no international multilateral framework able to manage energy supply security, the way the countries involved construct their energy interdependence to an extent defines models of sectoral governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The relative durability of the growing alignment between Russia and China is perhaps the central question regarding this relationship. This article examines the degree to which cooperation and policy coordination have become institutionalised between these two states through the creation of a complex and self-reinforcing network of bilateral and multilateral agreements. Grounded in the literature on treaty nestedness and utilising social network analysis, this article examines 154 bilateral Russia–China agreements and 54 agreements and declarations signed under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay aims at comparing social inequality in Russia and China and how it is perceived by the urban population. The study from which evidence is drawn was conducted through a common methodology of representative surveys of the adult population in two big cities—Shanghai and St Petersburg. The investigation shows that although people in Russia and China have broadly egalitarian attitudes, there are significant differences in the way in which Russians and Chinese regard the current system of distribution. Attitudes to social inequality are much more complicated than a direct link with the objective social situation would suggest. Egalitarian attitudes are connected not only with the actual incomes but they are very powerfully affected by subjective assessments of the distributive system. The essay argues that behind a tendency towards the convergence of political regimes in the two countries at the present time there are different patterns of legitimacy based not only on economic achievement but also on the attitudes of the population, which the ruling elites use in seeking to strengthen their monopoly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on findings of a study on Shequ, or community, construction and service development in urban China, as of January 2017. It states that Chinese government has a prominent role in regulating societal development, and mentions that purposes of shequ construction like fortifying the power of local governments. It notes that sheq was created by Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) and mentions community development in Shenzhen, China.

While the Silk Route Initiative (SRI) appears to be a novel foreign policy strategy under Xi Jinping's leadership, it is integral to China's periphery policy ( zhoubian zhengce). Arguably, periphery policy is rooted in the Chinese imperial history and has remained a salient aspect of state formation and foreign policymaking of the post-1949 China. Under Xi Jinping, it has acquired a preeminent foreign policy goal. This study puts the SRI in a historical framework and argues for the centrality of periphery in China's domestic and foreign policy. Looking at the SRI from the prism of periphery, while suggesting an essential continuity in Chinese foreign policy and strategic thinking, also indicates that periphery is not simply a frontier strategy. Rather, it encompasses the whole gamut of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Embedded thus in the periphery policy, the SRI is a well thought-out Chinese grand strategy to reclaim its geopolitical dominance in Asia and fulfill the goal of 'China dream.' This strategy, in effect, challenges the US dominance and de-centers it from Asia and helps China to create a Chinese-centered order in Asia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including an evaluation of the military and scientific developments as well as the political and socio-economic condition of China and another about the papers presented in the International Conference on Mainland China which was held on February 8-11, 1966.

The foundation of current legal protection for animals in China is based on the principle of "rational utilization." This utilitarian attitude supports the exploitation of animals through the legal means of resource management. However, through a process of public education and the construction of recent legislation, attitudes toward animals are rapidly changing in China. After the introduction of the concept of animal welfare in China in 1989, preliminary socioeconomic events such as early laboratory animal science, animal cruelty reports, pet ownership, engagement in international trade, and the severe acute respiratory syndrom (SARS) epidemic helped spur a trend away from a purely utilitarian attitude toward more positive associations with animals among members of the Chinese public. This phenomenon will be analyzed through the actions of non-governmental organizations, the media, academia, and international business to influence education and the development of legislation to promote animal protection practices. In addition, recent events will be used to illustrate political realities in China that impede the full promotion of animal welfare protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]