Search

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is poised to profoundly reshape the regional geographical landscape. While existing communication studies on BRI have focused on the official and media narratives to frame the initiative, the overall orientation of the topic in academic circles is not well understood. By conducting a bibliometric literature review, this paper addresses this gap by answering the research question: How is the BRI reflected in the academic literature? In the review, we divide all academic studies on BRI into four cohorts (studies from scholars based in China, in Quad countries, in the rest of the world, and cross-collaborating scholars) and use structural topic model to understand the themes and trends on BRI scholarship from scholars from these regions. Our results show that scholars in different cohorts understand BRI differently, specifically, with China-based scholars projecting ideas of development, growth and sustainability, while Quad-based scholars mostly focus on the geopolitical impact, security implications and debt sustainability of BRI. The findings also show a divergence between popular narratives on BRI and academic research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crises constitute ideal opportunities for authoritarian leaders to promote certain narratives, shaping reality in their favor and crafting their own preferred storylines about current events. In other words: they serve authoritarian leaders on a silver platter the opportunity to instrumentalize these unforeseen circumstances to gain domestic political legitimacy by promoting strategic narratives. The COVID-19 pandemic was no exception in this regard. Ever since its onset in early 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was among the most active actors worldwide seeking to capitalize on the global crisis for legitimation purposes. Whether applying narratives of governance supremacy, portraying the People's Republic of China as a "global savior," or promoting emotionally appealing nationalistic narratives, the regime used the pandemic as a window of opportunity to rebrand its international role and enhance its domestic legitimacy. When observing the CCP's communication style over the course of 24 pandemic months (2020–2022), however, major shifts become apparent regarding the main narratives crafted in communication with national audiences. Based on this, the paper focuses on the role of such narratives for legitimation claims. Using exemplary media articles collected between the outbreak of the pandemic in China in late 2019 until the harsh Shanghai lockdown in spring 2022, it thus traces the narratives employed by Chinese state elites and explores how they are intertwined with nationalism and broader power claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As President Xi Jinping expands and deepens his mark on the Chinese political system, how should scholars assess the impact of his administration on core institutions such as the police? This article employs a mixed methods approach by combining data from interview research with text analysis of ministerial level documents to explore reforms and rhetoric in the public security bureaucracy during the first six years of Xi's tenure. The timing, nature, and practical execution of police reform shed light on the priorities of the Xi administration and its ability to make changes to the police bureaucracy and enforce law and order in Chinese cities. The paper assesses key policing reform rhetoric using Jean-Paul Brodeur's framework of high and low policing to analyze which areas of policing have received the most attention and in what ways. Ultimately, I find that preferences for "high policing" style stability maintenance reforms supersede concern for "low policing" activities such as crime-fighting, resulting in the further politicization of policing in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating poverty is a worldwide problem, but China has recently made major achievements in poverty alleviation. By the end of 2020, 832 nationally designated poor counties had all been lifted out of poverty within five years. Why do some poor counties perform better in poverty alleviation? This paper leverages a unique county-level dataset of 832 nationally designated poor counties in China and uses discrete-time event history analysis to understand the relationship between political institutions and poverty alleviation. We find that the presence of a county party committee secretary concurrently holding a higher rank position above the county level significantly increases the odds ratio of accomplishing poverty alleviation tasks. Previous studies have emphasized the important role of empowering people in democracies for poverty reduction. This study shows that empowering key governmental actors in authoritarian regimes can help them increase their bargaining power and improve the performance of poverty alleviation. In addition, this paper echoes the research on political institutions of authoritarian systems and deepens the understanding of the importance of the higher-ranking institution of Chinese officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies focusing on China and Russia, whose relationship is of key importance to the configuration of the international system, have been evolving dynamically in various disciplines. We analyze the evolution of this research by focusing on the fields of International Relations and Area Studies. This novel bibliometric study employs Biblioshiny, AntConc, and VOSviewer to analyze 947 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection, focusing specifically on 266 publications in International Relations and Area Studies. While mapping research on China and Russia over the last three decades (1990–2019), we identify the main trends regarding the annual distribution of papers, document types, dominant journals, collaboration networks between countries, and the most productive authors. We also establish prevailing research themes resulting from keyword analysis and their respective growth over time, as well as the density of the most frequently used terms and methods employed in the selected research fields. Finally, we identify fruitful avenues for further research, while also demonstrating how the bibliometric approach can inform and direct developments on China and Russia studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wave of volunteerism and popular participation in disaster relief activities after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in authoritarian China has attracted much academic attention. Existing literature leverages the erosion of state capacity, the moral symbolism and emotions of disaster relief, and civil society's ability to provide crucial public goods and services to explain this popular mobilization ([12]; [15]; [22]). However, these arguments do not satisfactorily explain why sustained, self-organized non-state activities were concentrated in few sites across the region most affected by the earthquake. This paper investigates the lingering puzzle of uneven grassroots activities through the lens of spatial theory. I argue that conditions favorable to popular mobilization were mediated by the creation of large and accessible public spaces in the form of emergency shelters, breaking the ordinary cellular spatial order which enhances state control through partitioning, surveillance, and securitization. Public spaces open to all increased contact among citizens, enabled coordination and collective activities, and created new common symbols and histories, thus facilitating sustained and self-organized popular activities. To test this theory, I conduct a most similar cases comparison between two prefectural-level cities, Deyang and Mianyang, in Sichuan province. I demonstrate that despite the similar lack of civil society organizations before the earthquake and similar needs after the earthquake, Mianyang saw more sustained grassroots activities due to the presence of large, dense, highly visible and accessible emergency shelters, while Deyang's distributed emergency resettlement strategies better maintained the cellular spatial order that left few sites for sustained popular activities. This paper seeks to understand the spatial nature of popular mobilization and aims to address a so far understudied element of civil society formation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to characterize China's approach to global economic governance during the Xi Jinping era, and to provide details on how it is playing out. One finding is that China has moved away from the period of "hiding one's strength and biding one's time" and is now acting in a more norm-making and agenda-setting role in which it is seeking largely incremental change. Another finding is that China is doing these things through a variety of global governance forms such as inter-governmental organizations with a fairly highly degree of formality, looser international organizations that have weaker implementation capacity and unilateral initiatives which put China very much in a leadership position. Findings are based on an examination of major activities of the Xi period, including hosting the G20 leaders' summit in Hangzhou, China, joint creation of new multilateral development banks, and the Belt and Road Initiative. The paper also touches on motives for China's activities, including hedging against adverse developments in the international system, greater wealth, and a global power vacuum that has arisen with the rise of nativist and populist movements in the West, and possible constraints to the realization of China's objectives such as slowing domestic economic growth and a backlash against China's globalization, which could intensify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voting in China's grassroots elections is more of a ritual than a right. For most citizens especially in the urban areas, the results of the local elections have little effect on their lives. Indeed, despite the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) campaigns to get the vote out in local elections, voter turnout is relatively low especially among younger voters. Beyond local political campaigns to remind citizens of their duty to vote is the community pressure and engagement. How does community interaction influence voter turnout in authoritarian grassroots elections? That is, are more socially engaged citizens more likely to vote in ritual elections? Moreover, does community engagement mitigate the age gap in voter turnout in grassroots elections in China? Scant literature exits on the relationship between community interaction and ritual voting in authoritarian regimes. Using the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey, this paper finds that community interaction plays a significant role in voter turnout. In addition, young people, who interact with neighbors, are just as likely to vote as the more socially connected older residents. The results have important implications for political behavior as well as for the grassroots elections in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to address the development of China's narrative power during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on world order. It argues that in the post-pandemic world, the emergence of the authoritarian sub-order would be prompted by China's more proactive narrative power, given that the climate of opinion is ambiguous when faced with the uncertainty of the pandemic. (This does not imply the end of the existing liberal order; instead, it features the coexistence of both orders.) To understand how China's narrative power has encouraged the emergence of the authoritarian sub-order to coexist in parallel with the dominant constitutional order, the article first reviews the existing literature concerning the changing world order. In this section, it also briefly defines and differentiates between the constitutional and authoritarian orders, what defines world order, and what distinguishes authoritarian from constitutional liberal order. Second it looks at the theoretical grounding. The nature, role and power of narratives are explored. Ideas about strategic narratives and the economics of attention are discussed. This theoretical background paves the way to examine China's narrative power during a pandemic. Lastly, it switches to the Chinese perspective to address its support for the plurality of orders and its awareness of the strength of narrative in influencing dominant ideas. It looks at how China's narrative power has been exercised from three perspectives (formation, projection and reception). Here, it mainly tackles how China has used its narrative power to spin the pandemic to its advantage in the reorganization of world order: improving its international image and advocating the authoritarian order as an alternative. China has been building its narrative along with its changing strategic diplomacy – from restrained and low-profile to proactive and assertive. In the conclusion, some reflections on China's narrative power and the implications for world order are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By employing discourse-historical approach and corpus linguistics, this paper examines media reports to analyze the Chinese official discourse in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. The results demonstrate that a paradox of globalism and nationalism has been simultaneously reflected when reporting the global pandemic. Based on a polarizing discursive construction of positive "self" and negative "others," on many occasions, the globalist and nationalist arguments have been closely intertwined and complement each other to reinforce the legitimacy of the ruling party at home and the international reputation of China under the leadership of the ruling party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Chinese scholars, media, and writers have long reported a noteworthy rural-urban difference in political participation, the meaning of this divergence to China's local democracy remains underexplored. This paper explores the different patterns of electoral participation between rural and urban residents. I argue that the rural zeal in elections is due to VC governments' strong capacity to mobilize loyalists to vote in state-controlled elections, while voter apathy in urban elections is resulted from the RC governments' lack of the equivalent power to cultivate loyalist voters. Using Chinese General Social Survey 2013 to test the argument, I find evidence that shows that in VC elections rural people are more likely to vote in state-controlled elections than are urban residents. In addition, villagers' electoral participation has nothing to do with their democratic consciousness but is significantly associated with Party membership. In contrast, urban turnout is highly correlated with democratic consciousness but not Party membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese central government has embraced the internet as a new channel for public service provision and has encouraged local authorities to innovate in this field. However, when the progress over the last decade is considered - as seen through the scores in annual benchmarking of local government websites - innovation appears very hard to sustain. Most localities experience a decline at some point in time. It is a conundrum why and how some cities can continuously enhance their online presence, while the majority experiences decreasing scores at some point. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the sustainability of e-government innovation by Chinese local governments. In this paper, we apply an exploratory case study design. We analyse both qualitative data and quantitative indicators of 22 prefectural-level cities to identify drivers and constraints on sustainable innovation. Among the key findings are that user focus, long-term planning, and an organizational culture based on political control promote sustainability.Provincial-level governments, in contrast, appear to have little impact on the continued performance of the municipalgovernment websites. These findings are summarized in the conclusion along with suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have been wary about social desirability of approval in authoritarian countries, namely, the tendency for people to overreport their regime support. Few have studied the social desirability of dissent, the reverse tendency for people to underreport their regime support. This paper argues that social desirability of dissent exists among Chinese university students because 1) the Chinese government has loosened its control on speech, 2) Chinese university students experience peer pressure to be aloof from the government, 3) blatant propaganda gives regime supporters a negative image, and 4) open expression of regime support may associate one with the infamous Fifty Cent Party. We conducted an implicit association test (IAT) among 306 Chinese university students and found distinct social desirability of dissent among them. We also found that the effect of social desirability of dissent is stronger among firm regime supporters identified by the IAT than among weak supporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is a critical region for analyzing China's economic statecraft. Following the Monroe doctrine, Latin America has long been seen as part of the sphere of U.S. influence. For the purpose of studying the effectiveness of China's economic statecraft I will focus on two countries that stand on opposite extremes: Brazil and Mexico. Both countries happened to be important target states (strategic partners) of China's economic statecraft in the region, albeit for different political and strategic goals. In this paper I will compare the different domestic political and economic conditions, interests and institutions in these two countries to explain why China has made greater progress in projecting its economic power through trade and investment to pursue its political goals with Brazil, but has not succeeded in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By exploring the CECC's political prisoner database and employing three ARDL times series models and two OLS models, the paper finds that China's party-state has been dealing with political cases through depoliticization, politicization, and criminalization within and without the judiciary. The author argues that these strategies employed by China's party-state are a function of China's modernization, domestic conflicts, and the urgency to sustain political stability. Unlike what happened in the Western history where depoliticization was usually followed with democratization, China's depoliticization has been strategically utilized to justify the Party's rule over China mainly through its judicial system. China's politicization, as a fundamental political strategy, has been often applied to handle those political threats such as Falun Gong practitioners and political/civil rights fighters, who are unable to be publicly criminalized and trialed but can be penalized with covert judicial and/or extra-judicial means by the Chinese government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper links China's pattern of infrastructure lending to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with China's own development experience in this regard. It raises the question whether Chinese infrastructure investments in LAC have the potential to promote sustainable development in the region. The paper consists of four parts. Part 1 outlines China's massive domestic infrastructure construction projects as a specific development strategy which has contributed considerably to the country's rapid internal development, but has simultaneously given rise to complex dynamics of social and environmental risk. Part 2 assesses the strategies involved in China's infrastructure investment in LAC. Part 3 identifies key actors involved in China-LAC infrastructure cooperation and how they relate to different ways of financing infrastructure projects. Part 4 focuses on policy guidelines for managing the social and environmental risks of infrastructure projects. The paper concludes that more research, more capacity-building, and new forms of multinational development cooperation are needed to strengthen the social and environmental policies associated with China's infrastructure investment in LAC countries, to help uphold existing social and environmental standards, and to extend project benefits more effectively to local communities and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tries to analyse the roles played by three categories of Chinese actors (the state, enterprises and quasi-government organizations) involved in China's engagement in Latin America to develop economic ties with the region. The first section focuses on the role of the state (the Chinese government) which has maintained a strong focus on the 'top-down-design' in Sino-Latin American economic cooperation by issuing a set of policies and undertaking a number of practical measures. The second part of the paper analyses the role of Chinese enterprises including both state-owned and private ones by analysing two cases of Chinese enterprises which on the one hand, implement government policies and on the other sometimes act as pioneers. In the last section, through the case study on the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) which is one of the few quasi-government organizations involved in China's foreign economic cooperation and also, without doubt, one of the most influential. Its role as platform for economic cooperation has been acknowledged by the 'top' (Chinese goverenment) and the 'bottom' (enterprises) in China and by Chinese enterprises and their counterparts in Latin America. The paper shows that none of the Chinese actors can take the place of the other in the economic cooperation between China and Latin America; instead, the roles of the three different categories of Chinese actors are complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the landmark volume The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Leib and He eds. ), a growing number of theoretical and empirical studies in the context of China have advanced our knowledge of deliberative democracy in comparative settings. This paper aims to discuss the recent development and prospects of deliberative democracy in China, with particular focus on the approach of a deliberative system that has not been adequately addressed in the context of China. This paper proposes an analytical framework for the concept of deliberative capacity building in the context of contemporary China. The paper analyses three dimensions of deliberative capacity building: social capacity, institutional capacity; and participatory capacity of a deliberative system. The three dimensions lay particular emphasis on the public sphere, empowered space, and deliberative actors respectively. The multi-dimensional framework considers deliberative capacity building as a process by which the three dimensions synergize and evolve with each other to produce a functional deliberative system incorporating isolated deliberative practices. The multi-dimensional analyses suggest that deliberative capacity building is critical to democratization in China, as it produces a stronger public sphere, more effective government responsiveness and improved participatory competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the likelihood of China’s legitimation as the global hegemon during an era of relative U.S. decline. Using Rapkin’s ( 1990 ) legitimacy deficit framework, the author tests China’s prospects for international legitimacy through the analysis of Chinese leadership at the United Nations (UN). While China’s recent exponential increase in contributions to UN peacekeeping and the UN regular budget signal growing Chinese global leadership, their consistent focus on regional interests, as displayed in UN Security Council and UN General Assembly debate and discussion, indicates the absence of an internationally supported agenda. In concluding, this paper asserts that recent Chinese legitimation efforts through UN leadership have been stonewalled by an inability to provide an international agenda with globally held values and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some countries more effectively respond to crises than others? This paper compares China's relatively effective response to the 2002-3 SARS outbreak with Taiwan's relatively ineffective response, focusing on three variables that constitute China's 'authoritarian advantage' - centralized decision making powers; public support; and, relations with the mass media. The paper rejects a fourth explanatory variable specific to the Taiwan case - membership in international organizations. Drawing heavily on the Taiwan example, the paper concludes by suggesting options for overcoming the authoritarian advantage in pandemic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s distinctive set of stock market institutions was introduced in 1990. Among the characteristics of China’s stock markets was a strict separation between different categories of investors. Listed companies issued different categories of shares to state shareholders, domestic corporate investors, domestic individual investors, and foreign investors. By 2005, the barriers segmenting China’s stock market had been significantly relaxed. Domestic investors were allowed to purchase shares previously reserved for foreign investors, and approved foreign investors were allowed to purchase shares previously earmarked for domestic individuals. Nevertheless, a crucial barrier remained. An ongoing debate among Chinese academics, investors, and policy makers focused on how to resolve the “split share structure” (guquan fen zhi) in which a minority of shares were tradable while the majority of shares (namely those reserved for domestic corporate and state shareholders) were excluded from the market. The split share structure was blamed for distorting prices and inhibiting development of the stock market. This paper analyzes the policy adopted to address the split share structure. To what extent does this policy change reflect new thinking on the part of China’s market regulators? This paper argues that analysis of policy making in China’s capital markets can help to distinguish between two competing assessments of China’s political economy. One account sees China pursuing a gradualist strategy, slowly but steadily expanding the role of markets. Another account sees China trapped in a semi-marketized and increasingly corrupt development pattern. The implementation of the split share structure reform program provides evidence to support the gradualist account of incremental, but persistent, reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a framework of incomplete contract, this paper shows that for provision of public goods such as medicare and education, pure privatization may not promote competition. On the contrary, the co-existence of public and private provision may enhance de facto competition. Two competitive effects are identified. When consumers are heterogeneous, the co-existence of public and private ownership gives consumers freedom to choose from different ownership, improving allocation efficiency (Tiebout effect). While consumers are homogeneous, the co-existence can promote yardstick competition, squeezing out information rents from both ownerships, improving production efficiency (benchmarking effect). In either case, the co-existence dominates unique ownership. The paper ends up with some implications for China.s medicare and education reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is creating or co-creating new international economic institutions in areas such as trade, development finance, currency settlement and credit rating that parallel those that arose out of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 or are tied to the interests of rich, developed countries. What are its reasons for doing this? What are the characteristics of the new institutions? How do the new institutions relate to the old institutions? Will China's initiatives lead to better global economic governance? This paper attempts to answer these questions. Its main conclusions are that China is trying to create a new international economic order in which its political power is more commensurate with its economic power, its creation of new international institutions is an important part of this strategy, the institutions that China is creating are meant to be open and inclusive and to introduce 'better practices', and it is possible - though not necessarily probable - that China can make a major contribution to global economic governance provided it can overcome operational challenges, skepticism about its intentions and too narrow a view of its national interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese foreign policy is still an undertheorized domain of international relations studies. One puzzle that preoccupies international observers is the impact of leadership changes on Chinese foreign behavior. Based on an in-depth reading of official statements made by China's new political leaders and their first actions in office this paper analyses continuity and change in China's foreign strategy. Following a combined multidimensional analytical approach the evaluation focuses on the interrelation between indigenous (leadership changes, subsystemic challenges) and exogenous factors (global crises, critical junctures) on the modeling of China's international strategy. My main conclusion is that shifts and role changes in Chinese foreign policy should not be misread as the outcome of the latest leadership transition. Most 'changes' that are now associated with the fifth generation have originally been introduced by their political ancestors. As a context-sensitive, historical-reflectivist analysis shows, China's 'new' approach to world affairs stands for a continuing, incremental adaptation of the PRC to socio-economic evolutions on the domestic and the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual discourse on democracy has made important impacts on China's transformation and the Chinese pursuit of democracy. There has been an intense divergence in understanding and interpretation of democracy among the Chinese scholars. In spite of different point of views among scholars in China, there is a growing consensus among them that political reform is the right answer to China's today's problems and democracy is a good thing for China. This paper analyzes the on-gong heated debates on democracy. It reviews the main structure, characteristics, and implications of the debates on democracy among three major schools of thought, namely: democracy with Chinese characteristics, liberalism, and New-Leftism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, China's deliberative institutions have mainly been seen as small-scale mechanisms for controlling local social unrest. This paper explores how deliberative principles in China work at the national level. The case under scrutiny is China's new healthcare reform. Drawing on the existing empirical studies, Chinese-language reports and articles, official document analysis, and on several unstructured interviews with Chinese academics, the article attempts to evaluate the extent to which deliberative democratic principles are present in the process of healthcare policy making. To achieve this analytical goal, it develops and applies five criteria of good deliberation. The analysis suggests that the public policy process in China is now more inclusive and pluralistic than it was in the past. This arguably indicates that China's political system is moving in a new direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since it was first introduced in the late 1990s, the concept of deliberative democracy has had policy appeal for both Chinese policymakers and scholars. The Chinese government has recently introduced various deliberative institutions in a top-down manner to address diverse governance challenges. Deliberation at the level of civil society, however, has remained largely limited under the Chinese authoritarian regime setting. This paper illustrates how Chinese civil society actors have increasingly exerted bottom-up pressure to attain a greater degree of deliberation, transparency, and accountability in policymaking, by using the case of a series of anti-dam campaigns conducted by environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) over the past decade. Throughout their campaigns, ENGOs have urged both the central and local governments to adopt more participatory and transparent policymaking and examine the potential social and environmental impacts of large dams. They have done so particularly by invoking the very laws and policies that the government has recently introduced. This study suggests that future research on deliberative democracy in China should pay greater attention to non-state actors and their roles in practicing and promoting bottom-up deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate on authoritarian resilience, the importance of persuasion to regime legitimacy has been widely acknowledged, yet a conceptual framework explaining the role of persuasion is still lacking. Against this backdrop, we argue that the framing perspective (Benford and Snow 1988 ) provides a useful basis for such a framework. Drawing on Beetham’s ( 1991 ) legitimacy model, we contend that the ruling elites in authoritarian regimes propagate official frames in a continuous effort to reproduce the belief of the populace in the elites’ leadership qualities and their determination to serve the common interest. In the empirical part of our paper we look at the case of China, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has in recent years reemphasized persuasion as a means of reproducing legitimacy. We then apply our theory in an analysis of the conceptual shifts in the CCP’s frames and ideology, as propagated under its secretary general, Hu Jintao. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many, the future of China's political development hinges upon the role of the newly rising middle class. However, little has been done to empirically examine the characteristics of the Chinese middle class. This paper is an effort to fill in this gap. It shows that, the Chinese middle class pays greater attention to politics and engages more in informal/personal activities in dealing with conflicts with government policies or officials. However, the behavior of the middle class as an aggregate is not significantly different from that of other classes when it comes to political activities that require greater civic engagement or greater courage to confront the political system. The members of the Chinese middle class are not ready to be agents of political development in action although they hold higher democratic attitudes in mind as shown in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western legitimacy theories have mostly focused on the nation-state and the domestic aspects of political legitimacy. However, with the acceleration of globalization, a dimension of legitimacy has come into view that has previously been largely neglected in political science: the international dimension. While the interdependence of nation-states at the global level might put some constraints on the (re)production of legitimacy domestically, it simultaneously allows them to leverage their global standing to gain legitimacy abroad and at home. China is the most prominent example of the growing importance of this dynamic link between internal and external legitimacy. The paper starts with a critical reflection on the prevalent Western legitimacy theories. Based on these reflections, it introduces a new approach which aims to differentiate analytically between internal and external legitimation strategies and to examine the two-level logic linking the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been heated debates on outcome and orientation of China’s economic reforms which started in the late 1970s. Though most of the previous studies on Chinese politics concentrate on the role of elites in policy-making, I argue that the intellectual discourse over policy have become increasingly salient in the post-Mao period. The paper focuses on the following research questions: How and under what circumstances did the New Left and liberals emerge in China? What are the major debates between the two? To what extent have the New Leftists and liberals affected the economic reforms and what change they might bring to the political climate? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural explanations have a long and distinguished tradition in the study of Chinese politics. This paper examines the extent to which standard cultural attributions about the Chinese are supported by survey evidence from the World Values Survey. Moreover, it compares the values and beliefs articulated by the Chinese respondents with those of their Taiwanese, American, Canadian counterparts. Although in some instances the survey data support conventional wisdom, in many other respects they contradict the stylized characterizations often found in the literature. One is therefore led to conclude that cultural attributions should be grounded in empirical evidence, evaluated comparatively, and made with sensitivity to the potential for change and hidden biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to provide an explanation for the socioeconomic foundation which underlies China’s economic miracle. As suggested by the theory of interlinked contract, the transition from a planning economy to a market economy is a multifaceted process. In terms of market dynamics interlinking markets replace specialized markets, while in terms of governance dynamics, interlinked contracts give way to formal contracts. A good match between the markets structure and contractual structure is key to the success of transition. In particular, some China-specific institutions, like TVEs, the financial system and the restructuring of SOEs can be better understood within this framework. Broadly, the whole reform package in China also is in good accordance with the spirit of interlinked contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’ economic boom has produced a surging appetite for fossil fuels, particularly oil. To foster and sustain its economic development, China has taken a series of steps to quench its thirst for energy. The most striking measure is its high-profile oil diplomacy, centering on the goal of gaining more secure national control of overseas oil and gas supplies. Why has China chosen oil diplomacy over directly purchasing oil on the international market? And why does one prefer direct control of oil and gas? This paper attempts to address China’s motivations from the perspectives of both the central government and the national oil companies (NOCs). It is argued that China’s oil diplomacy has been driven not only by the government’s learning skill and strategic concerns, but also by the NOCs’ strong commercial motives to expand business abroad and their management’s personal incentive. Although both actors have common stakes in securing oil and gas from abroad, this by no means can guarantee that the NOCs will obediently follow state orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to understand the development of Chinese television news reporting practice in the reform era and its implications for the socio-political changes in China. Due to the heavy Soviet influence, Chinese television has adopted a TASS style from its very beginning, which places an emphasis on imparting a heavily ideological message and propagating government policies and rules. This practice, however, has been substantially changed during the reform era. Television news reporting in today's China is moving towards the CNN style in both format and content. These changes reflect a more relaxed socio-political environment in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the government and society of the Republic of China's (ROC or Taiwan) have changed markedly in the new millennium, the fundamentals of US policy toward the island remain intact. This study outlines recent developments in Taiwan and shows how they represent challenges to the US. It also discusses American policy toward Taiwan and examines several proposals for change that an American administration may wish to consider. In conclusion, the paper explains why the current policy, albeit contradictory and ambiguous, is in the best interest of the United States. There is a strong possibility that any major change in policy would succeed only in undermining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An armed conflict between Taiwan and China is not unthinkable in the future. For historical, geographical, economic, and diplomatic reasons, Japan would not be able to stand on the sidelines. Relying on three major concepts—national interests, path dependence and balance of power, this paper explores Japan's three possible roles in the event of a cross-Strait conflict. First, Japan could pass the buck, staying out of the conflict as much as possible and providing at most logistical and intelligence support for an American military operation. Second, it could balance power, throwing its weight behind Washington against Beijing. Finally, it could play peacemaker. At the end of the article, the author discusses several key factors that would shape Tokyo's decision-making in the event of a cross-Strait conflict and assesses the relative probability of each option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no obvious and direct correlation between the provincial level of economic development and democratic level of village elections. There is a great disparity in the level of rural democratization and the implementation of village self-governance among and within provinces. The modernization model alone cannot explain why village elections work well in some provinces but not in others. This paper looks at the political elite's ongoing efforts at provincial level to conduct village elections and implement village self-governance in rural China. These efforts include the strategies for crafting village democracy employed by provincial elites: elite cooperation, local legislature, political responsibility, political programming, and the art of balancing party leadership and village elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese fiscal reforms in the past decade have recentralized government revenues, making lower governments more dependent on central and provincial funds. At the same time, decentralization in spending has obliged the county governments to take primary responsibility for financing compulsory education. That vertical imbalance can lead to widening regional gap in education if the central government does not carry out effective redistributive fiscal transfers. This paper examines a data set that includes all the counties of mainland China from 1997 through 2001 and finds that regional economic and budgetary disparities did carry over to education spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that China's foreign policy behavior has been influenced by growing energy dependence. As a major importer, China can pursue energy security through strategies that result in conflict; alternatively, energy vulnerability might lead it toward cooperation with rival oil consuming nations through participation in multilateral organizations and other forums. After outlining the argument for the strategic nature of energy, China's increasing energy dependence is assessed, as are Beijing's efforts to shift China's energy balance. China's energy diplomacy with the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America are examined, and Beijing's efforts toward greater energy security through multilateral organizations are discussed. The evidence supports the liberal hypothesis that economic interdependence promotes international cooperation. Energy demands have accelerated China's rise to global prominence, and appear to moderate conflictual aspects of Chinese foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]