Showing papers in "China Journal in 2011"

An emerging civil society: the impact of the 2008 sichuan earthquake on grass-roots associations in china

Abstract: The western China, especially near the Wenchuan region witnessed a terrible earthquake in the year 2008, which led to some severe damage in the country Several interviews and studies are conducted to explain the impact of this Sichuan earthquake on the development of the various grass-root associations present in the country

Uneven Policy Implementation In Rural China

Abstract: Several theories are employed and analyzed to study the central-local relations existing in China, which in turn helps in understanding the unevenness that exists in the implementation of different policies in the rural parts of the country. The applicability and effectiveness of the application of different measures for enhancing the situation are also discussed.

Strikes in China's Export Industries in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: Several Chinese and Vietnamese instances are analyzed and compared to explain the nature, causes and underlying factors that lead to the strikes in the Chinese export industries. The labor laws, relation between the government and the official trade union and the minimum legal labor standards are shown to be the some of the main causes of such strikes.

Regime Inclusion and the Resilience of Authoritarianism: the Local People's Political Consultative Conference in Post-Mao Chinese Politics

Abstract: The past decade in China has witnessed the persistence of authoritarian rule, with political institutions shaping bargaining between the dictator and his ruling coalition. Some of the different factors contributing to China's endurance of authoritarianism are highlighted.

Working-class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-less in Urban China [Book Review]

Abstract: Review(s) of: Working-class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-less in Urban China, by Jack Linchuan Qiu, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2009. xvi + 303 pp. US$37.00/ 27.95 (hardcover).

Allies of the State: China's Private Entrepreneurs and Democratic Change

Abstract: Allies of the State: China's Private Entrepreneurs and Democratic Change, by Jie Chen and Bruce J. Dickson. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. xii + 220 pp. US$45.00/£33.95/euro40.50 (hardcover). Jie Chen and Bruce J. Dickson have produced a thought-provoking and wellwritten book that examines the potential democratic tendencies of the controlling managers of China's large private enterprises. Based on thorough surveys of hundreds of entrepreneurs in five different provinces, they come to a sobering conclusion: "China's capitalists are unlikely to be agents of [democratic] change because their support for the current regime is stronger than their support for an alternative democratic political system" (p. 158). Yet they also note that, if the Chinese Party-state fails to address serious issues that affect private entrepreneurs' lives, such as official corruption and policies that discriminate against private businesses, this support for the current regime could evaporate (pp. 159-60). After an admirably concise and illuminating history of the private sector in China since 1978 (Chapter 2), Chen and Dickson approach their conclusions from several different angles. Chapter 3 looks at the "embeddedness" of Chinese private entrepreneurs within various government institutions, such as the CCP, national/local people's congresses and political consultative committees, and state-sponsored NGOs like business associations. They find a very high level of membership in all these organizations - some arresting statistics are that 37.8 per cent of surveyed entrepreneurs were CCP members in 2007 (p. 41). Likewise, 18.2 per cent and 20.7 per cent respectively of surveyed entrepreneurs were members of people's congresses or political consultative committees (p. 54). These high figures should be less surprising when we find that significant numbers of Chinese private entrepreneurs were actually former government officials (19 per cent), and a majority of them previously managed or worked for state enterprises (51 per cent) (p. 35). Indeed, these kinds of statistics suggest that the use of the term "private entrepreneurs" to describe many of these people may be misleading. Chapter 4 analyzes the sensitive topic of support for democracy among China's "capitalists" (which may be a more accurate term). Chen and Dickson use two different kinds of questions designed to distinguish between support for further democratic reforms within the current one-Party system, which is widespread among the surveyed entrepreneurs (p. 73), and support for a multiparty democracy with its greater tolerance for dissent and contention, which is much weaker among entrepreneurs (p. 76). While such conclusions might be expected here, given the political embeddedness of many of the respondents, one could challenge these results on two fronts. Firstly, the questions in the second category are clearly loaded: for example, "if a country has multiple parties (hao ji ge zhengdang), it can lead to political chaos" (pp. 74, 167). Why not instead ask whether a country should have two main parties (as in the US), rather than "multiple parties" with their built-in connotations of Italian-style political disorder? Other questions in this part of the survey are similarly weighted towards the contentious and negative aspects of democratic change, for example, "public demonstrations can easily tum into social disturbances and impact social stability and should be forbidden" (p. 76). Second, apart from the question design, the interpretation of the survey results given here could also be challenged. For the above question on multiple parties, 28 per cent of respondents disagreed that this would lead to political chaos (p. 74). In other words, over a quarter of surveyed capitalists appear to believe that "multiple" political parties are not harmful. …

The Great Migration: Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia

Abstract: The Great Migration: Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia, edited by Xin Meng and Chris Manning with Li Shi and Tadjuddin Noer Effendi. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2010. xvi + 262 pp. £69.95/US$ 125.00 (hardcover). The Great Migration: Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia represents a milestone in the study of Chinese migration. After two decades of research on the largest migration in human history, the authors seek to contextualize this process by contrasting it with rural-urban migration in Indonesia. Moreover, their carefully constructed data set offers the potential to study the evolution of this dynamic process over time from a variety of perspectives, much as the Mexican Migration Project did for international migration from Mexico to the United States. What makes this edited volume unique is that it is the first output of the Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia (RUMiCI) project, which will collect and analyze longitudinal data on migrants in two very dynamic countries in Asia. This volume not only sets up the baseline data but, in the five chapters on Chinese migration, carefully analyzes that data using sophisticated econometrics to address important and contemporary social issues. This is, in itself, an important contribution to migration studies. What it promises to contribute through annual surveys, some with the same respondents, is icing on the cake. The Great Migration has three unique components. First, it contrasts the migration experience of two of the three largest developing countries in the world, China and Indonesia. The differences between patterns of migration in these countries are striking: China has one of the world's most restrictive migration policies, akin to guest-worker programs in other countries. Chinese migrants cannot easily change their legal residence to the city, and if they do so they lose their land in the countryside. The consequences of this policy are familiar to readers of The China Journal - migrants work in jobs that urban residents will not take, they maintain a residence in the rural area and continue to work their land unproductively, they usually leave their school-age children at home when they come to the cities, and they intend for the most part to return to their rural home to retire or start a business. The macro consequences of this system are large gaps between the earnings of migrants and urban residents, and between rural and urban areas. Indonesia, by contrast, has a relatively open policy, and migration there began much earlier than in China. Migrants work in the informal sector and live in undisguised slums, which the Chinese policy is designed to avoid. These very different migration policies provide a natural experiment on the costs and benefits of relatively free migration. The second component is survey design. The China portion consists of three separate surveys, a Rural Survey of 8,000 households in ten provinces, an Urban Survey of 5,000 urban residents in 19 cities, and an Urban Migrant Survey of 5,000 households in fifteen cities. It is the last that is unique, for it avoids the usual sample frame of registered migrant households and focuses instead on the places where migrants work. In randomly selected areas in each city, a census of all businesses was conducted and a random selection of migrants from each chosen to interview. …

Learning to Serve: Urban Youth, Vocational Schools and New Class Formations in China

Abstract: The lives and experiences of a group of young people enrolled in vocational education in Jiangsu Province in order to arrive at a better understanding of the processes of class formation in contemporary China are discussed. Vocational schools provide both an ideological and institutional framework for the formation of new social classes.

Uyghur-Han Earnings Differentials in Urumchi

Abstract: Several researches and studies are being conducted to analyze the existence and the various underlying factors that lead to the income inequality gap between the Uyghurs and the Han Chinese people. Discrimination is shown to be the main factor that has led to the discussed inequality. The article also analyzes the different measures that can be taken by the government for the minimization of these inequalities.

China's New Economic Policy under Hua Guofeng: Party Consensus and Party Myths

Abstract: (ProQuest: denotes non-USASCII text omitted) At the 1958 Chengdu conference Deng Xiaoping emphasized that economic policy was a matter of methodology, of jumping high to grab the fruit In this, his mindset was close to Mao's In the reform period, Deng didn't know much about the economy; he just knew he wanted fast development - Vice minister in a key economics ministry in the 1980s1 The [April 1979 meeting that approved setting up Special Economic Zones (SEZs)] was not Deng Xiaoping' s [meeting] - Hua Guofeng was in charge After Hua' s approval of Guangdong's proposal, [Guangdong leader] Xi Zhongxun returned and reported: This is what Chairman Hua said, not what Deng Xiaoping said The worst thing in our Party is not to speak of Zhao Ziyang or Hua Guofeng, just to speak of one person for good things [Deng Xiaoping] and one person for bad things [Hua Guofeng in the context of 1977-78] Is this Marxism? I don't think so - High-ranking leader of Shenzhen upon its establishment as an SEZ2 In the PRC narrative of economic policy during the late 1970s, Hua Guofeng is depicted as advocating a reckless leftist approach to growth with outdated Maoist concepts, while Deng Xiaoping is credited with setting China on its new course of "reform and opening" (gaige kaifang ) The prevailing view in Western literature on China fundamentally accepts this myth of Dengist hagiography, and adds the interpretation that policy developments were part and parcel of a succession struggle between Hua and Deng and their assumed factions or coalitions In the most incisive statement of this analysis, Joseph Fewsmith argued that "reforms emerged as part of the struggle for power against Hua Guofeng and the wing of the party that he represented" and that Deng and his allies "formulated an approach to the economy as part of the attack on Hua"3 In this article, we offer an alternative interpretation of initial post-Mao PRC economic policy,4 arguing that a power struggle did not influence evolving economic approaches in 1 977-7 8,5 and that on all key dimensions - the overambitious drive for growth, a newly expansive policy of openness to the outside world, and limited steps toward management reform - Hua and Deng were in basic agreement The focus of our analysis is the top leadership, specifically Hua, Deng and Li Xiannian, the leader responsible for the work of the State Council and the economy This is not to argue that they alone determined economic policy, nor that their broad consensus prevented conflict and debate within the relevant bureaucracies and among economic specialists, but Hua, Deng and Li were decisive in setting policy directions and driving the process forward in 1977-78 In addition, we give attention to Chen Yun, the enormously prestigious leader who was the economic architect of the successful First Five-Year Plan in the 1950s, and who subsequently engaged in rescue missions at Mao's behest in 1959 and 1962 before being shunted aside by the Chairman as "always a rightist" Chen was on the sidelines with very limited influence on economic policy until the Third Plenum, but regained his status as a Party vice chairman at the November-December 1978 central work conference preceding the plenum This was linked to his intervention on non-economic issues Once restored, however, Chen soon played a critical role in the economy Brief sketches of the key actors are in order The essential difference between Deng and Chen Yun was temperament, with Deng's boldness contrasting with Chen's caution This contrast was captured vividly by a senior Party historian who observed that Deng "lifts heavy things as if they are light, while Chen lifts light things as if they are heavy"6 Moreover, although a remarkably savvy politician who was not averse to advancing his personal interests, Chen was renowned in CCP circles for focusing on viable policy In contrast, as Benjamin Yang has observed, Deng "was an expert on nothing - except politics" …

China's pragmatic security policy: the middle-power factor

Abstract: The article presents a complete analysis of the various international security policies that are being adopted by China, with respect to the two middle-powers, namely Australia and South Korea. The various policies that are adopted by these countries towards China are also analyzed.

Shanghai: China's Gateway to Modernity

Abstract: Shanghai: China's Gateway to Modernity, by Marie-Claire Bergere, translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. xxii + 497 pp. US$80.00 (hardcover), US$29.95 (paperback). Do cities have destinies? Shanghai doyenne Marie-Claire Bergere has crafted a new grand synthesis of Shanghai history around this theme. The English title of Bergere' s book both affirms the city's historical mission and recalls Rhoads Murphey's Shanghai, Key to Modern China (1953), which portrayed Shanghai as fertile soil for the transplantation of modem Western commercial, financial and industrial institutions. Bergere's own meticulous scholarship of the 1980s, particularly her acclaimed Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, illuminated the social and economic structures of Shanghai's early-20 -century business class, and examined the ways in which Shanghai's economic dynamism of the early 1920s was built upon traditional Chinese social foundations, not simply upon the dynamism that developed from the transnational flows of trade and ideas that characterized Shanghai's existence as a treaty port. In this fashion, Bergere's Golden Age offered a nuanced critique of both simplistic models of Western influence and those of Marxian class analysis. We may ask, then, how Bergere's current invocation of a "gateway" metaphor builds upon her earlier rethinking of a Western-modeled modernity. Given the explosion of Shanghai studies both outside and within China in the past quarter century, we may ask, as well, how Bergere positions her new Shanghai history in the context of recent studies. In her new book, a survey of the twists and turns of Shanghai's development from the Opium War until the present, Bergere clarifies Shanghai's role in the production of Chinese modernity: "The originality of the town ... lay not in the implantation of a colonial modernity ... but rather in the welcome that its local society had given to that implantation, adopting and adapting it, and turning it into a modernity that was Chinese" (p. 2). Bergere appropriately notes that Shanghai was not "a wretched fishing village just waiting for foreign intervention" (p. 2). Nonetheless, the narrative begins at the moment of implantation, "when Shanghai's destiny was sealed" (p. 3). Bergere affirms Chinese as well as Western agency and mutual commercial cooperation. In this work of synthesis, attentiveness to the former integrates, more than extends, her earlier insights. An eagerness to dispel the excesses of an earlier generation of anti-colonial Chinese historiography leads her to hew to issues of economic development, and avoid theoretical analysis of the semicolonial structuring of the city. The book's judicious conclusion is ambivalent as to Shanghai's - or China's - ability to fulfill its mission and become what Bergere might consider truly modern. The book is structured by four chronological parts that register the political tectonics behind the flows and ebbs of Shanghai development: 1) the late Qing treaty-port years (1842-1911); 2) the pre-war Republic (1912-37); 3) war and revolution (1937-52); and 4) the People's Republic. Parts I and II contain 10 of the 14 chapters, reproducing the focus of the bulk of Bergere's formidable earlier publications (which enrich the current book with their insightful detail). The parts covering 1939 to the present are shorter, and consist of two chapters each. …

Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-Era China

Abstract: Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-era China, by Xueping Zhong. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010. ? + 219 pp. US$57.00 (hardcover), US$27.00 (paperback). Since the early 1990s, Chinese television drama has attracted the attention of increasing numbers of scholars in Chinese studies. There has been a relatively constant output of journal papers or book chapters in English in which individual television dramas are used as sources for discussing current social and cultural issues. However, it is only very recently that Chinese TV drama and its development have been raised to the status of research topics in their own right. Despite the rapidly increasing production and cultural importance of TV dramas in China, their huge popularity among Chinese audiences, and their influential role in helping audiences making sense of rapid social change, television drama has remained an understudied field, especially in English-language scholarship. In this context, Zhong Xueping's book fills an important gap in contemporary Chinese studies. Zhong, a humanities scholar, chooses to focus her study on representation and discourse analysis, and through close reading of television drama texts she produces a more coherent account than previous studies, such as the collection edited by Ying Zhu, Michael Keane and Ruoyun Bai, TV Drama in China (Hong Kong University Press, 2008), and Zhu Ying' s monograph Television in Post-reform China (Routledge, 2008). Zhong uses subgenres (based on different social issues and subject matters) as an analytical category to organize her subject materials by chapter, since "the emergence and development of [these] subgenres is the site at which the relationship between representations and changing state policies, market interests, and cultural and ideological logic in contemporary China that informs 'dramatic creation' can be located and examined" (p. 24). Following Chapter 1, which examines the television motif in three films to underscore the importance of TV drama in mediating contemporary experience, Chapters 2 to 5 select four different subgenres of television drama: emperor dramas, anti-corruption dramas, youth dramas and family-marriage dramas. Within each chapter, Zhong runs through a variety of texts and offers an original yet nuanced analysis of the coexisting but differing discourses that emerge from these subgenres. For example, in Chapter 3, which provides close readings of four television texts, Zhong shows not only the contradictions within the representations of anti-corruption themes in each drama but also the polyphonic interactions between different anti-corruption dramas. Similarly, in Chapter 4, Zhong reveals the ambiguous and often conflicting meaning of youth in the post-revolutionary era through three different types of youth dramas: the fairy-tale quality of dramas scripted by Hai Yan; the ambivalence toward the Mao era's idealism and the post-Mao era's desire economy in postyouth drama (drama focusing on a generation whose youth straddles the Maoist and reform eras); and the heroism in "counter idol" youth drama represented by Soldiers Be Ready (2007). One thread concept that Zhong adopts to tie these distinctive subgenres together is melodrama as a shared narrative mode. …

Beyond Repression and Resistance - Christian Love and China's Harmonious Society

Abstract: This article looks at Christianity as an official source of morality in contemporary. Specifically, this article examines the role of love as a social force in today's China with particular focus on the role of "love" as a motivational force in social reconstruction and welfare work. It argues that the use of the term in the discourse on the Harmonious Society in general and in the context of charitable work in particular, despite the official emphasis on Confucian values, has strong Christian roots. A close analysis of official and intellectual writings on the Harmonious Society, academic writing on China's "moral crisis" as well as Chinese Christian writing in a variety of contexts show how "love" has emerged as a new concept or, perhaps more pertinently, as a new term to inspire and motivate people to take part in the building of a new society. The article concludes that the use of the term "love" in today's official discourse not only constitutes a tacit acknowledgment of the importance of Christian values as formulated in a Chinese Christian theology, but also an attempt on the part of the government to control the meaning of "love". By recognising the importance of the concept and adopting it, it can also shape its definition.

"the heart says one thing but the hand does another": a story about emotion-work, ambivalence and popular advice for parents

Abstract: The author employs a story-based approach for analyzing the impact of emotion-work of the parents on the balancing of the liberal norms of parenting that are promoted by the Chinese government. The various things that should be kept in mind by the parents for good parenting are also discussed.

Corporate Governance and Financial Reform in China's Transition Economy

Abstract: Corporate Governance and Financial Reform in China's Transition Economy, by Jing Leng. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009. xvi + 304 pp. HK$390.00/US$52.50 (hardcover), HK$220.00/US$29.95 (paperback). The improvement of corporate governance in China, especially in its generally inefficient but still large and protected state sector, is important for the country's economic future and vital if China is going to succeed in creating multinational companies capable of holding their own against their tough competitors in the global Fortune 500. The big challenge for China is to change from being a passive producer for foreign global giants to having successful, high income companies of its own that can compete successfully in world markets. So far, China's cautious, step-by-step approach to corporate governance reform, just as with its post-Mao economic reforms across the board, has worked much better than the "shock therapy" of rapid mass privatization pursued by Russia, despite many problems. That is the core message of this book by Jing Leng, a Hong-Kong-based law expert educated in China, Japan and Canada. The way in which privatization was carried out in Russia resulted in incentives to loot, massive self-dealing by insiders and widespread asset stripping by managers - all of which was enabled by an institutional vacuum which imposed few restraints on corporate boards, whose governance record was appalling. While China has not been immune to such abuse, Leng says that Beijing made use of the trend towards globalization and its entry into the WTO in 2001 to implement gradual structural reforms in its state enterprise and financial sectors, of which corporate governance reforms were a key element. WTO entry was, for China, an external lever to constrain the policy options of government and to push forward market-oriented reforms, in particular corporate governance reforms of SOEs and state banks, through shareholding restructuring and public listing in domestic and overseas markets. For the major SOEs, this was a process of corporatization rather than privatization, Leng argues, as Beijing's goal for these companies was mixed ownership in order to harness market disciplines to improve their performance, while retaining majority ownership for the Party-state (in some 30 per cent of Chinese listed companies overall). Mixed ownership was a way for the state to manage its assets better and to improve the performance of its SOEs as "national champions" so that they could compete globally, while retaining state and Party control over core national assets. She points out, however, that the split share structure necessitated by this approach has caused fundamental problems in the Chinese stock market, including a catalogue of corporate governance failures, many of which are listed in her book. It was not appropriate for China simply to import global best practices from developed market economies, Leng says, because the operating foundations for such practices were not yet present. Instead, China made use of local solutions or local "institutional innovations" which, though transitional and imperfect, were useful in the early stages of the reform - and a manifestation of Deng Xiaoping's axiom of "crossing the river by feeling the stones". From China's experience, Leng develops in this book a dynamic theory of corporate governance that stresses proper sequencing and pacing of reform at different stages of development in an economy in transition. She concludes, however, that the path towards a market economy is not a universal "one-size- fitsall" prescription. Policy-makers must accommodate country-specific conditions in designing their transition strategies. Leng reviews the history of China's enterprise reform, the "zhua da, fang xiao" policy of keeping state control over the larger companies while selling off the smaller SOEs, and the bitter debate over management buyouts in 2004 which resulted in tougher oversight and greater transparency to avoid the under-pricing of state assets. …

Red Star over the Pacific: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy [Book Review]

Abstract: Review(s) of: Red Star over the Pacific: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy, by Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. xiv + 292 pp. US$36.95 (hardcover).

The history of taiwan

Abstract: The article discusses the various new researches that are being conducted to illustrate the real history of Taiwan. The various stories and facts that make the history even more fascinating are also being talked about.

Students' Ambivalence toward Their Experiences in Secondary Education: Views from a Group of Young Chinese Studying on an International Foundation Program in Beijing

Abstract: Several studies and interviews of the Chinese students studying in an international foundation program in Beijing are conducted to explain the ambivalence that exists in the students with regards to their experiences towards secondary education. The Chinese youth are shown to undergo various sufferings while undergoing their secondary education but consider all these sufferings to be positive and worth it at the end.

Gated Communities in China: Class, Privilege and the Moral Politics of the Good Life

Abstract: Gated Communities in China: Class, Privilege and the Moral Politics of the Good Life, by Choon-Piew Pow. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. [x] + 214 pp. £75.00/ US$125.00 (hardcover). Gated Communities in China contributes to urban studies from perspectives developed in urban geography. Drawing on rich ethnographic research in Shanghai, Choon-Piew Pow examines the moral politics of middle-class place-making in China's commodity housing enclaves, and how privileged social groups residing in Shanghai's gated communities use housing consumption as a form of social distinction by attempting to carve out and defend what are deemed to be their "rightful" private spaces. The emergence of commercially developed private residential enclaves is a phenomenon that can be observed in most Chinese cities today. Where earlier studies on this phenomenon emphasized housing inequality and residential segregation, Pow's study examines gated communities not just as "spatial containers" but also as critical sites of and for the production and consumption of an exclusive lifestyle where nascent middle-class sensibilities and identities are (re)presented, cultivated and lived. According to Pow, housing consumption leads to lifestyle differentiation, a new modem urban identity and status distinction. Furthermore, the middle-class spatial formation will result in class-based cultural reproduction through efforts to obtain and maintain a good life - the territorialization of lifestyle, privacy, private property and civilized moral enclaves, based on members' values, performances and desires. Chapters 2 and 3 detail the theoretical framework and background of the research context. Pow first examines literature on privilege and middle-class territoriality in a defined space, then moves on to discuss the public/private divide in Chinese culture and tradition, and finishes with a review of moral geographies of inclusion and exclusion. Chapter 3 illustrates the economic and social context of the research. Economic reform, suburbanization and housing reform have resulted in the emergence of a new "propertied" middle class, accompanied by the development of gated communities. Not taking for granted that gated communities are the product of urban cultural form or the inevitable spread of an "American-style" urbanism throughout the world, Pow pays attention to the local complexities and contested geographies of the city, as well as to the politics of place-making in Shanghai's gated communities. Chapters 4 to 6 comprise the main body of empirical analysis, illustrating that the territoriality of gated communities is not only maintained through the enforcement of physical space but also operates at a more subtle and ideological level through the mobilization of a repertoire of symbols, values and rhetoric of the good life. Chapter 4 describes the good life as it is constructed in advertisements displaying images of privilege, a lifestyle of distinction, the commodification of family life, security, garden landscape and Western-style architectures. Together with place-marketing strategies and advertisement rhetoric, the Shanghai middle classes consider houses as symbolic capital which enhance and affirm their newly acquired status. …

China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Abstract: China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. xxii + 164 pp. US$74.00/ £45.00 (hardcover), US$16.95/£9.99 (paperback). Editor of The Journal of Asian Studies and prolific historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom recently published China 's Brave New World: And Other Tales for Global Times (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) and Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments (London and New York: Routledge, 2009). In an academic career characterized by distinguished service to the profession, this versatile scholar and China Beat blogger now delivers a seemingly light-weight but clever and provocative \"China for dummies\" primer with a balanced perspective on a country where the past continues to link the present with the future. Using 108 questions and answers formulated from several decades of teaching in the United States and from public lectures from around the world, in addition to current secondary scholarship, Wasserstrom expertly guides the general reader to digest Chinese history, politics and popular culture in two sections. The first section, Historical Legacies, takes us from Confucius to Mao Zedong through the chapters on Schools of Thought, Imperial China, and Revolution and Revolutionaries. By placing a 7.9-meter-high bronze statue of Confucius in Tiananmen Square in January 2011, the Beijing regime has anchored Confucius as the icon of Chinese heritage and civilization; it is thus appropriate that 13 of Wasserstrom' s questions refer to Confucius in traditional and contemporary China. Following a chapter on the pattern of Chinese dynasties and the crises and rebellions of the 191 and early 20 centuries, we are invited to consider whether the Chinese Communist Party is a new dynasty. Mao and his connection to China's revolutionary past and mass campaigns, from the Long March to the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, take up about the same number of pages as does Confucius. In assessing Mao's place in contemporary China, Wasserstrom cautions against making comparison to the genocidal horror of Nazism, as the authors Jung Chang and Jon Halliday did in their claim that Mao was worse than Hitler for taking 70 million lives. Such facts are hard to verify; a large number died of starvation; and Mao did not order all those people to be killed. The second section, \"The Present and the Future (From Mao to Now, USChina Misunderstandings, and The Future)\", seeks to gauge the pulse and directions of the administrations of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Wasserstrom corrects a number of popular images of China. …

Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-76 [Book Review]

Abstract: Review(s) of: Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-76, edited by Richard King, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. xii + 282 pp. HK$195.00/US$28.00 (paperback).

The Politics of Rural Reform in China: State Policy and Village Predicament in the Early 2000s [Book Review]

Abstract: Review(s) of: The Politics of Rural Reform in China: State Policy and Village Predicament in the Early 2000s, by Christian Gobel, London: Routledge, 2010. xiv + 215 pp. 75.00/US$130.00 (hardcover).

Accepting Authoritarianism: State-Society Relations in China's Reform Era

Abstract: Accepting Authoritarianism: State-Society Relations in China's Reform Era, by Teresa Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010. x + 253 pp. US$70.00 (hardcover), US$24.95 (paperback). The apparent resilience and durability of the Chinese Communist Party has intrigued scholars, and confounded skeptics who believe that a political system without procedural legitimacy or genuine support from key social groups is doomed to fail. China scholars such as Andrew Nathan, Kellee Tsai and Bruce Dickson have found answers, respectively, in the political adaptation of the current regime and the lack of pro-democracy drive on the part of China's growing capitalist class. Teresa Wright joins the debate with a new argument. Her provocatively titled book, Accepting Authoritarianism, examines the underlying reasons that key social groups tolerate, if not accept, the rule of a one-Party state. She focuses on three sets of factors: state-led economic development policies, market forces related to late-industrialization, and socialist legacies. The interaction of these three sets of factors produces changes in social status, material wellbeing and political attitudes and behavior in China's key social groups in the reform era. Specifically, she points to the rise of social mobility of a large segment of the population, the privileged positions enjoyed by key social groups due to the state's resources and policies, and the widening gap of wealth that has created a social gulf limiting the potential of anti-regime collective action. Wright also argues that the growing responsiveness of the Chinese political system and opportunities for "voice" have reduced the potential for opposition to the regime. With this analytical framework, Wright analyzes the attitude and behavior of China's key social groups toward the ruling Communist Party. For elite groups such as private entrepreneurs and professionals, her finding, which is based on the extensive secondary literature on public opinion surveys in China, reconfirms the mainstream view that China's new social elites have no incentive to oppose the regime. Private entrepreneurs have seen their wealth expand, and enjoy privileged relations with the political elites. Professionals have experienced rapid social mobility and are being courted by the ruling elites as well. Both groups, moreover, are heavily dependent on the state, which keeps control of a large swath of the economy and personnel appointments in the state sector. Less privileged mass social groups also acquiesce in the Party's rule. Workers in state-owned enterprises enjoy privileges that bind them to the regime. Private sector workers have no serious objection to the status quo since they have gained economically under the regime's policy of "reform and opening". …

Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies

Abstract: Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies, edited by Alan Carlson, Mary E. Gallagher, Kenneth Lieberthal and Melanie Manion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xii + 315 pp. £60.00/US$99.00 (hardcover), £19.99/US29.99 (paperback). Research on contemporary Chinese politics has become easier and harder at the same time. It has become easier because of better access to an increasing variety of data, and because the technologies for analyzing such data have become more sophisticated. Thirty years ago, nobody would have dreamt of using satellite images to select field sites or of conducting a quantitative content analysis of thousands of newspaper articles. On the other hand, research has also become more difficult. The digital age has led to a deluge of information on China, while at the same time increased technological sophistication has enabled the Chinese government to steer more closely what kind of information should be available to whom. In some fields, finding useful information has become the search for the proverbial needle in the haystack. This book edited by Alan Carlson, Mary E. Gallagher, Kenneth Lieberthal and Melanie Manion addresses the issue of how to do successful research under these radically changed circumstances, and it does so very well. The organizers and contributors of the book have struck gold, and the timing is nearly perfect. In political science (especially comparative politics), the heated methodological debates that have fundamentally raised the standards of the discipline in the last two decades are arguably winding down. In China Studies more generally, some very useful books have recently reflected on and set standards for data collection and, more specifically, fieldwork in China. The present work can, and does, profit from the ability to incorporate both discourses in its successful attempt to outline the methodological state of the art in the study of Chinese politics. While arguably the value of methods does not depend on the contexts to which they are applied, the question of the suitability of certain methods to deal with the simultaneous over- and under-supply of information remains a fundamental issue for those who study Chinese politics today. The contributors to the book are all political scientists and recognized authorities in their various research areas. The result is a milestone in the methodology for studying contemporary Chinese politics that deserves to be emulated by those conducting research on other geographical and cultural areas. The book is divided into three parts, which are headlined "sources", "qualitative methods" and "survey methods". In their chapters, nearly all contributing authors reflect on the political science methods useful for their research aims, use their own research to illustrate how they can be applied to the Chinese context, and weigh them against other methods. Each of the chapters is of exceptional quality and highly readable. Summarizing the book, Allen Carlson, Maiy E. Gallagher and Melanie Manion illustrate that language skills and local knowledge are necessary, but no longer sufficient, for students of Chinese politics, as the mastery of different research skills has become equally important. This issue is taken up again by Kenneth Lieberthal in the concluding chapter, though from a different angle: he also urges scholars of Chinese politics to make better use of available methods, but at the same time cautions against letting the methods determine their research questions. In the first section of the book ("sources"), Xi Chen sheds light on what kind of "state-generated" data can be found in which archives, how difficult these archives are to access, and how reliable different kinds of data are likely to be. Thereafter, Neil J. Diamant provides additional information on accessibility and contents of archives at different administrative levels and illustrates the usefulness of archival sources for re-evaluating our understanding of Chinese politics. …

Agricultural Modernization and State Capacity in China

Abstract: The central role played by the Chinese government in bringing about agricultural modernization and state capacity in China is discussed. The efforts being made by China to find new sources of agricultural and rural development are highlighted.