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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]

With China’s economic rise and in particular its massive international trade surplus with the rest of the world, the exchange rate of its currency has come under increasing scrutiny in the new millennium. Based on a critical review of existing International Political Economy (IPE) theoretical approaches on exchange rate politics – theInnenpolitikapproaches and the international-domestic interaction approach – this paper argues that two-level game theory is a suitable tool for explaining the development of China’s exchange rate policy. By specifically examining the external factors and domestic sources of China’s exchange rate policy, this paper develops a complete analytical framework in which China’s central decision makers are understood to strive to reconcile international pressures and domestic bargainers when making decisions on exchange rate policy. After offering a theoretical review, revision and synthesis, the paper provides an empirical study of China’s 2005 exchange rate reform to specifically show how international factors played an agenda-setting role in China’s exchange rate policy making and how China’s domestic politics determined the pathway of the exchange rate reform in July 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the formation of overseas Chinese communities in cities constitutes a major trend in reform era China, conceptualisations of the relationship between the overseas Chinese and China remain divided. The overseas Chinese are seen either as temporary migrants with little attachment to the country or as inescapably connected to China through native place. This paper aims to move beyond this dichotomous understanding by examining the processes of place-making among overseas Chinese Christians in Shanghai, one of China’s major urban centres. It draws on ethnographic research conducted within a Christian network and illustrates how these Christians negotiated the forces of global capitalism, state regulations, and an indigenous Christian trajectory to construct a religious territory and centre Shanghai as home. By showing how they understand their place as Christians, this paper argues that economic restructuring in the reform period enabled the emergence of cities as new centres where the overseas Chinese are making a place for themselves. It contributes to the literature on the overseas Chinese and China by redirecting attention from the native place as the locus of overseas Chinese attachment to the city as a new centre of belonging.  [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the conceptual overlaps between transnational return migration and immigration by drawing on a qualitative study of Mainland Chinese return migration from Canada. The paper argues that reframing return migration as a distinct type of immigration draws attention to the citizenship vulnerabilities experienced by “middling” returnees who are not privy to the preferential treatment given to highly skilled returnees. They come to be considered as “foreigners” in their homeland because they have naturalised elsewhere. The paper also explores the double diasporic identifications of Mainland Chinese returnees from Canada; it highlights the tensions and fissures manifested in secondary diasporas, particularly in light of China’s growing prominence in international business, foreign diplomacy and cultural exchanges. The paper suggests that social encounters that marginalise such migrants in Canada are reproduced in China. The returnees navigate such encounters by mobilising their transnational affiliations to different national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Celebrity philanthropy in mainland China is a recent phenomenon that has attracted both media publicity and public controversy. Despite its visibility, few data exist regarding how widespread the phenomenon is, and whether it has been growing over time. This paper addresses this gap, using a sample of entertainment and sports celebrities obtained from publicly available sources to answer three key questions. What proportion of celebrities in mainland China engage in philanthropic activities? When did they become involved in philanthropic activities? With what kinds of philanthropic causes and organisations are they connected, and in what capacity? The paper reveals that, in a very short period of time, mainland China’s top celebrities have become just as involved with philanthropic causes as their North American counterparts. The rapid rise of celebrity philanthropy has been correlated with a series of natural disasters and the explicit encouragement of government authorities, offsetting the absence of a tradition of private charitable activities in the People’s Republic of China since its founding. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with the cultural politics of agency, and explores the relationship between cultural form, migrant experience and social change. It traces the emergence of a range of literary forms in south China and how these new cultural forms provide hitherto unavailable space to contest the state- and market-driven narratives, which tend to linkdagongmei’s (rural migrant women’s) sexuality with inexperience and vulnerability on the one hand, and criminality, immorality and incivility on the other. The paper suggests that these newly emerging cultural forms present alternative perspectives on the practical circumstances, moral rationalities and emotional consequences that condition and shape migrant women’s sexual experience, and for this reason, they constitute important points of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper shows how wuwei (effortless action) and associated concepts drawn from Daoist thought are applied in analyses of the Chinese market economy and state-economy relations published in recent issues of social science and Communist Party journals in the People's Republic of China. Such use of traditional concepts partially displaces Marxist terminology from 'diagnostic economics'. In discussing the use of these concepts in 5 articles published between 2000 and 2008, the economic theory of Daodejing is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the first detailed study of the links between celebrity-fan communication networks and philanthropy in the People’s Republic of China. It explains how the evolution of the Chinese Internet, and especially the rise of social media, has created new spaces in which fans of entertainment celebrities may be induced to engage with philanthropic causes. It then outlines the history of Chinese fan-driven philanthropic initiatives centred on people who became famous through reality-television popular music competitions. Finally, it offers a case study of the initiatives connected to popstar Li Yuchun, and examines the rationales provided by fans in online forums and interviews for their philanthropic engagement. Critics of celebrity-inspired philanthropy highlight its supposedly inauthentic and passive nature. Yet we find that fans actively exploit the forms of sociality that are provided by celebrity-fan communication networks, both to establish virtual participatory communities and to generate social action in the form of non-government-organised volunteering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2007, amateur on-line writer Kong Ergou’s triad novel series,Past Events of the Northeast: Twenty Years of the Triads, became a hit as a piece of network original literature. Five years later, the first volume of the book series was adapted into a network television drama of the same title. Focusing on the television drama, this paper examines three interrelated “dimensions” of the text. The first “dimension” relates to the correspondence between the inception and development of underworld gangs, and the vicissitudes experienced by the Chinese people during the harsh and unprecedented economic and cultural conditions that were introduced during the post-Mao era. A second “dimension” of this dramatic text finds that the nostalgia for and admiration of totalitarian times, together with a postmodern parody and deconstruction of Maoist society and its ideology, are juxtaposed in contemporary popular cultural products such asPast Events, thus demonstrating the complex and obscure emotions of ordinary Chinese people in relation to socialist revolutionary times. The final “dimension” compares the chivalrous spirit espoused by the gangsters with the ever-deteriorating morality and ethical values prevalent in present-day China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, popular protest in China has emerged from a state of near-invisibility. Drawing on a diachronic analysis of news media coverage, this paper traces how a number of major protest events gradually entered the Chinese media’s spotlight and came to be portrayed in an increasingly protester-sympathising fashion over the course of the Hu-Wen administration. It argues that these changes were triggered by structural transformations of the Chinese public sphere, but underlines that deliberate policy choices by the political leadership served as a crucial agent of change. Facing proliferating unrest and an increasingly unimpeded flow of information, the central authorities have gradually shifted propaganda policy from a suppressive to a more proactive approach. They have thereby created critical opportunities for Internet users and investigative journalists to push the envelope further towards protester-sympathising accounts. The development is significant as there are good reasons to surmise that increased media coverage has exacerbated the dynamics of popular contention. Theoretically, it deserves to be noted that non-inevitable choices by an authoritarian leadership have led to an outcome in which media coverage of citizens who challenge the state on the streets has become substantially more frequent and positive than before. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China has been used as a tool by Chinese citizens to intervene in the public sphere and to provoke social change. I therefore propose to look at the phenomenon of Chinese video activism under the umbrella of alternative media. In particular, I take into consideration the “rhizomatic” media approach, which focuses on the interaction of alternative media with authority, the market and civil society. The case studies I present consist of several documentary projects completed between 2004 and 2010 that opened up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local authority, mass media and civil society. The paper claims that documentary films have an impact on audiences, whose members are consequently motivated to engage in discussion and action. I argue that activist video-making in China is reshaping the identity of urban citizens: through filmmaking, urban citizens claim their right to access information and demonstrate their will to participate and intervene in social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Soaring prices for minerals and energy are posing a major threat to the resource security of economies in Asia. As a result, many regional governments have launched new resource security strategies in the last few years. Most recent attention to resource security in Asia has focused on debating whether the Chinese government’s resource policies are mercantilist or liberal. This China-focused debate is too narrow to fully capture the nature of resource politics in Northeast Asia, since the governments of Japan and Korea have also recently launched their own resource security strategies. This paper considers regional-level trends in Asian resource politics by examining the causes, content and implications of the resource security strategies deployed by the consumer governments in Northeast Asia. It argues that growing resource security concerns, combined with a process of competitive policy emulation, have seen the Chinese, Japanese and Korean governments each adopt mercantilist resource security strategies over the last decade. Furthermore, the competitive nature of these mercantilist strategies is acting to intensify political and economic competition for resources between the Asian region’s three main economic powers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In China, although “general interest” magazines can be said to have existed during the Maoist and early post-Maoist eras, Western-style magazines that promote a consumerist lifestyle came into being and gained widespread popularity only in the past two decades. Among them, an entire group of titles consists of localised Chinese editions of internationally popular lifestyle magazines. This paper explores the interaction of global trends and influences with local cultures and realities in men's lifestyle magazines published in China. In particular, it discusses the Chinese “variations” of the Western “new man” and “new lad” types of male image. Despite the superficial similarities with Western images, critical readings and quantitative studies of the verbal and visual content of these magazines reveal some distinctive “Chinese” features. As a form of popular culture, the men's lifestyle magazine lends expression to the fantasies, desires and needs of “new rich” men in China. With consumerism and aspirationalism at the centre of its ideological construction, it serves as an interesting site of negotiation between what Lisa Rofel calls the two aspects of “cosmopolitanism with Chinese characteristics” – namely, a self-conscious transcendence of locality and a domestication of cosmopolitanism by way of renegotiating China's place in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The past three decades have seen the resurgence of China's civil society through the blossoming of NGOs that campaign for various marginalised interests, including environmental protection. Many studies have examined the co-evolution of the Internet and China's civil society. This paper examines the role of the Internet in strengthening grassroots environmental activism, taking into consideration the corporatised character of Chinese NGOs. Through a detailed ethnographic case study of a leading grassroots environmental group, the Global Village of Beijing (GVB), I argue that Internet technologies effectively empower resource-poor activists in their self-representation, information brokering, network building, public mobilisation and construction of discourse communities. The Net therefore contributes to the nascent formation of a green public sphere in China by fostering a discourse that counterbalances rapid economic development. Also discussed here are issues that hamper this process, including resource limitations, the fragmentation of online discourse communities, and the marginalisation and “caging” of environmental discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the adoption and roll-out of a 100 Per Cent Condom Use Program (100% CUP) in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It first details the initial implementation of a 100% CUP in Thailand and explains how this created a framework for action in other developing countries. It then examines the implementation of pilot programs in China. We conclude that governmental authorities in the PRC now actively target designated high-risk populations such as female sex workers in order to combat the spread of sexually transmissible infections and HIV/AIDS. This has resulted in the introduction of new legal frameworks and the use of widespread media publicity to promote condom use and safer-sex strategies. However, the more effective implementation of a national 100% CUP in China requires attention to the problems associated with the legal and social marginalisation of female sex workers, which is reinforced by police-led crackdowns on prostitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by reviewing the ancient Chinese worldview, one imbued with cultural particularism wherein the Middle Kingdom identified itself as the centre of the universe. I then distinguish the ways in which historically the Confucian East and Christian West have respectively exerted cultural hegemony. I next analyse China's rebuffing of liberal democracy, and how the CCP's retention of one-party rule has generated concerns about its legitimacy. I conclude by showing that China and America each possess moral traditions - specifically Confucianism and Jeffersonian Deism - that have overlapping outlooks. Both maintain a worldview that disavows extremism. Based on this broader philosophical-religious analysis, I argue that contentions over liberal democracy notwithstanding, China and America share moral ideals vital for confronting some of today's exigencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on newly available sources, this article explores the 'Moscow faction' (or 'Moscow returnees') in the Chinese Communist Party of the 1920s by focusing on the professional revolutionary path of one leading returnee, Luo Yinong. It provides a new perspective on the problems faced by the Moscow returnees, such as Luo, who combined party-building with efforts to instil Bolshevik (Leninist) norms into local party organisations, as well as in the minds and political practice of would-be Communist revolutionaries. By tracing the formation of Luo's networks and their management of CCP work in Shanghai, the article illuminates the dynamic relationship between the Moscow-trained cadres and their local Communist organisations. Contrary to the common perception of events in this period, the new archival evidence shows that the Moscow returnees ultimately failed to transform the CCP into a centralised organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, against the backdrop of multiple anti-Japanese protests in China, the rise of Chinese nationalism has been much debated. By taking the 2010 and 2012 Sino–Japanese crises over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands as a case study, the article applies discourse analysis to media articles and interviews to ascertain the Chinese government's propaganda toolbox in shaping the nationalist discourse, as well as to substantiate the defining features of anti-Japanese nationalism. The findings reveal a combination of strategies and techniques that the propaganda apparatus uses, such as the creation of an 'us-versus-them' dichotomy, galvanised inclusiveness, censorship, and 'card-stacking' to mould nationalism. The article substantiates empirically both top-down and bottom-up strains of nationalism, and their interaction through the four key themes of sovereignty, history, mistrust and reactivity. It finds that Japan bridges these strands of Chinese nationalism, but in its absence alternative views of nationalism are articulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the process of China’s transition from a centrally-administered to a more market-oriented economy, financial services have played a very special role, but in a counter-intuitive way: what looks like Western market economics turns out to be a Leninist regulatory model. Even as international financial service providers and regulatory communities are invited to play a role in the creation of a Chinese market in financial services, the Communist Party has strengthened its control of top personnel, the judiciary and the media. The reform of the central bank and the establishment of technically independent regulatory agencies seemed to have taken China down the path of OECD economies. The model of a very specific post-regulatory state with Chinese characteristics, however, has not fully incorporated the notion of private authority. Such an acceptance would pose a threat to the CCP monopoly on political power. The attempt to use only semi-private organisations to develop financial markets undermines the long-term stability of the political and economic order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores China's growing "single economy" through a case study of the date-renting industry, which has, in recent decades, become a thriving part of Chinese society. It first outlines China's changing demographics and the scholarship centred on the rising "single" population. Next, the article clarifies the concept of the single economy and the theoretical approach for this study. It shows that an increasing number of businesses have developed new products and services to target the "single market" in China. Third, the article introduces the research methods for this study. Through a close examination of various date-renting websites, the article identifies the logic of the date-renting industry and the strategic presentation of "date-traders" online. It argues that the boundary between emotions and capitalism has become increasingly blurred as these two seemingly opposing forces are now converging, constituting a unique phenomenon in China's single economy. This manifests as an economically moulded dating culture intertwined with new, intricate social and personal relations – a by-product of China's demographic shifts and rapidly growing market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of "non-interference" features prominently in China's so-called "peaceful rise" and "win – win" approach to international diplomacy. This article contests Beijing's non-interference rhetoric through a case-study analysis of Cambodia. We make two core arguments: first, interference by foreign powers is not limited to actions that challenge a regime's leadership, but can also include the reinforcement of regimes that lack popular support. Second, Beijing's "non-interference" rhetoric is not demonstrated in the context of Cambodia, where it has repeatedly interfered to reinforce Prime Minister Hun Sen's leadership during times of political contestation. To make these arguments, the article offers a historical summary of Chinese interference in Cambodia followed by an analysis of the key domains in which Hun Sen's regime supports Chinese geostrategic interests. These are: support for Beijing's One China Policy and its Belt and Road Initiative; support for Beijing in negotiations with ASEAN; and support for Chinese economic interests. Collectively, we argue that these domains contribute to the advancement of China's "core national interest", and it is therefore a myth to suggest that China has not interfered in Cambodia's domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s emergence as a global development actor has implications for developing countries and “traditional” donor agencies. Its current provision of foreign aid and other forms of development assistance to developing countries throughout the world presents both opportunities and challenges for all actors. At the same time, China’s growing need for natural resources and its policy of securing access through state-led “resource diplomacy” are causing concern. While most scholars and commentators are focused on the “China in Africa” dimension, China’s engagement in the South Pacific region has also been growing rapidly over the past decade and offers some interesting and unique insights. This article examines the dynamics of China’s provision of foreign aid and its quest for natural resources in the South Pacific region, with comparative references to other regions. Drawing particularly upon interviews and site visits in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, it argues that although major commercial resource contracts do appear to be supported by Chinese Government assistance, resources deals are not explicitly part of Chinese foreign aid in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the hallmarks of the Xi Jinping era in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been a sustained attack on civil society, coupled with discursive shifts that attempt to undermine the universality of human rights. This article examines Tibetan language activism in this context, looking at challenges both for and of rights. I argue that the challenge for rights – namely, the state's increasing hostility – is offset somewhat by the slow growth, transnational nature and ample resourcing of the emerging discourse of language rights among Tibetans. On the other hand, I argue that challenges of rights – namely, the differential distribution of the "right to have rights" – present a more intractable problem. I demonstrate this by showing how current discourses among Tibetans in the PRC claim rights for some languages but not others, effectively erasing the "right to have rights" of certain Tibetan populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the negotiations involved in the process of Chinese migrants converting to Christianity in Singapore. For many Chinese people, migration involves being exposed to religion for the first time, and for some, it involves them converting to Christianity. In Singapore, the conversion of Chinese migrants to Christianity occurs in a context of "shared" Chinese ethnicity, which can provide both bridges and barriers to the formation of Chinese Christian identities and communities. This "shared" ethnicity causes many Christian groups in Singapore to target Chinese migrants in their evangelisation efforts, which can result in migrant and non-migrant Chinese communities being formed and fractured through religion. Drawing on qualitative data, we use four dialectical pairings – freedom and control, giving and receiving, questioning and authority, community and identity – to understand the negotiations and compromises involved in the conversion of Chinese migrants to Christianity. Through these understandings, we show how conversion often involves reconciling different mindsets, practices and expectations in the transition to Christianity for Chinese migrants in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agamben (1998) famously resurrected the homo sacer figure from obscurity in ancient Roman law. Originally conceived as a heuristic device, this "sacred man" concept has been applied largely in studies of refugees and prisoners. This article makes use of the concept in the more traditionally anthropological arenas of kinship and marriage. Some Miao in China's Guizhou province have been branded as "living ghosts", because their ancestors allegedly betrayed their village to pillaging rebels. We argue that this branding might have reflected not so much the betrayal, but rather longstanding socioeconomic and political tensions between the Miao and neighbouring ethnic groups. As such, we regard the living ghosts' origin story more as a social justification of ontological (un)cleanliness that we call "sociodicy of (im)purity". Lastly, the ghosts' collective wealth and political influence prevent their complete descent into Agambenian bare life, so this article enriches our understanding of how the homo sacer concept operates empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article contributes to the literature on the international preferences, behaviours and interactions of small powers in relation to great powers. It examines the foreign policy choices of Southeast Asian states in response to China's energy diplomacy through two case studies: the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea. Southeast Asian states have different interests and priorities and have attempted various forms of what Ba and Kuik refer to as complex "engagement and constrainment" in coping with China's pursuit of energy security. Smaller Southeast Asian powers, by drawing on support from other powers (including the United States and Japan), have adopted different forms of hedging and resistance strategies in response to China's oil-diversification plans in the region. The article examines the institutional, structural and domestic dimensions of Southeast Asian hedging strategies, arguing that these are far from uniform across the region. Ultimately, the article demonstrates that strategic competition between great powers provides new opportunities for and constraints on smaller powers as they pursue strategic autonomy, with implications for the Asian regional security order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links two political forms that emerged at roughly the same time: the small group (xiaozu) and the mass-party. In the tumultuous early Chinese republic, activists considered different possibilities for organising the relations between individual, society and the state. The historiography has by and large focused teleologically on the mass-parties that emerged – the Nationalist Party and Communist Party. By contrast, this article demonstrates that at roughly the same time (1919–1921) activists experimented with small-scale organisations that could form the basis for an ideal society. Such experiments included the New Village Movement (Xincun yundong), the Work Study Mutual Aid Corps (Gongdu huzhu tuan) and the Garden of Morning Light (Xi yuan). The experiments were widely reported and gripped the imagination of many. Interest in these experiments was not limited to future members of one political party or the other. Ultimately, large mass-parties came to dominate Chinese politics, due in part to Comintern intervention, yet terms and concepts associated with the small groups resurfaced and helped shape later Communist policies aimed at the masses. This article suggests therefore that the ascendance of mass-parties over small groups was not inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When ethnic Chinese are forced by war or racial discrimination to be repatriated to China, do they finally find home? Do they feel nostalgia about their former lives? This article describes the repatriation of the overseas Chinese from Malaya (now Malaysia), Indonesia, Vietnam and India and their re-establishment of home at the Yingde Overseas Chinese Farm in Guangdong. The discussion is organised around the idea of home as a process. The returnees' perceptions of home are shaped both by their lives at Yingde and by their memories and experiences of migration. Recreating certain intimate cultural ways of life is essential to making the state farm a home to the returnees. We also show how transformations in international politics and local conditions have impacted on the experiences of the returned overseas Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, higher education in China has experienced drastic transformations along with the expansion of university enrolments and the ongoing privatisation of the job market. Students today increasingly engage with extra-curricular activities due to the uncertain value of university diplomas and in preparation for their future socioeconomic challenges. I explore this phenomenon through an ethnographic study of a group of student entrepreneurs on a prestigious university campus. These students heralded an image of market-oriented self-improvement that has become widespread throughout Chinese university campuses via state policies. My analysis considers the theoretical perspectives on the self-responsible "enterprising self" that characterises neoliberal societies and the culturally embedded "educational desire" that regards the moral prestige of education in China as being independent of market calculations. I argue that while the ethic of self-improvement indicates the changing meanings of higher education, it is through their student identities and lifestyles, separated from the job market, that students experiment with self-improvement and can sustain their positive image of the market economy. Higher education is hence reproduced as a distinct moral life-stage that precedes one's entrance into "society". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play an important role in the Chinese economy and are also crucial instruments for implementing the Party-state's policies and strategic initiatives. SOE reform is not only crucial to China's transformation from an economy overly dependent on exports and investment to one more driven by domestic consumption, but is also a test of the political will and capability of the Chinese authorities to develop a market-based domestic economy. Despite the Chinese government's commitment since 2013 to forging ahead with the SOE reform process, little real progress has been made so far. Reform of the SOEs is a central component of the government's agenda for sustaining domestic economic growth and tightening the political control of the Chinese Communist Party over all aspects of the nation. The current wave of SOE reform has, however, focused on the state's push for consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, rather than pursuit of improving corporate governance. Far from being in retreat, the state is marching in and the market is retreating. This SOE reform process appears to contradict the state's proclaimed commitment to deregulation and development of a market-based competitive economy in China by allowing "the market to play a decisive role". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considered a major ethnic policy aimed at providing "intellectual aid for Tibet", the interior Tibet schools have recruited more than 100,000 primary school graduates to undertake secondary education in China's developed cities. This kind of dislocated schooling, although purportedly offering better pedagogy, has been criticised for jeopardising the local educational ecology in Tibet and disconnecting Tibetan students from their families and home communities. Some claim the downplaying of the Tibetan language and culture in these schools implies an assimilatory agenda. Yet the interior Tibet school system, with its primary goal of promoting national unity, has also cultivated a group of culturally and politically conscious Tibetan elites. In order to address these concerns, a localised version has emerged with the establishment of Tibetan schools in the regional capital of Lhasa and the importing of Han teachers from interior cities. Some have praised this new hybrid model, but my interviews with Tibetan teachers working in these schools reveal complicated uncertainties over this policy diversion. By comparing the aid politics of the two different models of dislocated minority education, this article highlights the importance of integrating indigenous voices into the policy process, especially if the state wants to sustain its educational programs for Tibetan students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 200,000 ethnic minority students have passed through China's dislocated minority schooling system since 1985. This program deracinates adolescent Tibetan, Uyghur and other chiefly minority students from their families and local communities and educates them in Putonghua in boarding schools located in Han ethnic majority cities in central and coastal China. Drawing on detailed rules and regulations from more than a dozen of these schools, this article interrogates the disciplinary mechanisms and dynamics at play in these schools. It highlights how dislocated schooling seeks to re-socialise minority students in the values, ethics and norms of mainstream Han Chinese society, with the goal of creating an ethno-comprador elite to serve as proxies for Han/CCP power while simultaneously functioning as exemplars for those Uyghurs and Tibetans who have yet to fully embrace majority norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Chinese newspapers have captured the attention of their readers with stories of criminals pillaging graves and murdering people to obtain corpses to sell for use in "ghost marriages" (yinhun, 阴婚). One sensationalistic report even claims that "150,000 yuan (US$22,000) won't even get you bones". When the state casts yinhun as a "culturally backward" superstition incongruent with national visions of modernity, how are we to understand the resurgence of this practice? By tracing the history of ghost marriages, we argue that yinhun corpses are simultaneously dead and alive. Adapting Gell's theory of the agency of art, we maintain that yinhun corpses may be traded as lifeless commodities, but they also possess powerful living agency that critically undergirds the social efficacy of the ghost-marriage ritual. Indeed, these cadavers perform a sort of macabre affective labour that soothes the anxieties of the living. As such, this article deepens our understanding of what we mean by "commodity". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights key questions raised by the growing concern for global competitiveness and promotional politics in contemporary Asia. Global politics is increasingly governed by promotional imperatives and in the last two decades it has become a common practice for governments to engage in nation branding. Asian states have been particularly eager to implement such promotional strategies, as their rapid development in the last decades has increased their international presence and the overseas expansion of their national corporations. Why and how do Asian states promote themselves? Where and how do promotional imperatives interact with traditional state policies? How are national identities produced, reproduced and challenged through promotional practices in Asia? This article introduces a series of three articles that underline the significance of these policies with regard to renewed, market-based forms of nationalism in the region. It highlights the way questions of image projection within a global capitalist order are becoming crucial for major emerging Asian economies such as China as they integrate and seek to reshape the global political economy. Finally, it considers how, in several regimes in the region, nation branding and the necessities of image projection serve as powerful governance tools to recreate apolitical versions of national identities that serve domestic political purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some scholars have discussed the concept of the “interaction ritual”, the question of how interaction rituals operate within differential closeness levels ofguanxiin China has not yet been thoroughly explored. This study aims to fill this gap. It draws its data from two ethnographic studies of school place allocation in two Chinese cities during 2012 and 2013, and additional post-fieldwork in 2014. The research finds that the use of interaction rituals inla guanxicould be a profitable social investment, and that the interaction ritual chain is usually more powerful than a single instance of ritual. Instrumentalliis the shared value behind this type of ritual practice, which has the function of exaggerating the actors’ moral obligation and emotional attachment, and masking rational calculation, in order to justify the practice.Expressive ritual is less valued, and occurs less frequently, with distance. Instrumental ritual is more workable and occurs more frequently in moderateguanxi(a relationship neither close nor distant) than in close and distantguanxi, thus following a “weak-strong-weak” pattern. These findings suggest that instrumental ritual plays a more important role than expressive ritual in building strong social capital, due to “the strength of weak ties”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Whereas the rare existing comparative studies of Chinese and Indian diaspora policies have focused on recent periods following economic restructuring in both countries, this article, using a historical perspective, looks at diaspora policies in both countries from the angle of conceptions of the nation. Comparing three specific periods – the early twentieth century, the period between the 1950s and the 1970s, and the period since the 1970s – the article argues that there was a similarity between China and India in terms of how conceptions of the nation expanded and contracted together with both domestic and international changes during these periods, in spite of differences in nationality laws. As such, it demonstrates that countries with nationality laws based on jus sanguinis are not necessarily always more inclusive towards diaspora populations than those with nationality laws based on jus soli. In both cases, there is a tension at work between a state-led paradigm that is territorial in nature and ethnic and cultural notions of nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legally protected individual private property rights and a constrained state are doctrines of neoclassical economics-derived development theory. But what about China? It lacks strong rule of law, property rights can be collective, contested and ambiguous, and the state is relatively unconstrained and maintains a central role in the economy; yet it has seen impressive economic growth to take it to the world's second largest economy. I argue that in the absence of legal/rational protections of individual property rights, political and social networks can provide alternative methods of property protection, allowing for economic development - with political protection substituting for legal. The novel claim I make is that ambiguity of property rights can provide opportunities and spaces for development and innovation, with the building of meaning and institutions found in a transitional state, where rules are unclear and contested, and where formal rules can "catch up" if apparent success can be demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contested history of International Women’s Day (IWD) in China during the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the processes of cooption and subsumption that have diminished the “international” in IWD in the Chinese context as the feminist movement confronted powerful forces of nation building, party building and militarised warfare as battles waged between Japan and China, and between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party. It argues that IWD was put to use by myriad competing groups and these appropriations diminished the event’s original goal of forging international solidarity among women around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AIDS-related work and advocacy is one field that has spurred considerable activity among Chinese NGOs in the past two decades. This article explains processes leading to institutional changes that are necessary for allowing more NGOs to emerge and operate, and shows how international, domestic and local actors and influences have steered developments leading to organisational growth. The article applies new institutionalism theory and highlights differences between formal and informal institutions in explaining change and continuity for NGOs and their relations to state and government in this particular field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have explained the rise of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in China since the period of reform and opening in terms of a changing political and economic environment, NGO policy, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), and the influence of communications media and the Internet. This article proposes a new explanatory factor: the philanthropy of China’s new wealthy. Four cases are used to analyse the influences of the philanthropy of the wealthy on NGO development. The article proposes not only that the philanthropy of the wealthy provides funding and intellectual support for NGOs but also that the wealthy use their influence and social networks to increase the autonomy, capacity, sustainability and impact of NGOs in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In contemporary China strict censorship coexists with significant freedom of expression and restrictions are enforced inconsistently. Yet certain principles underlie determinations of what is acceptable public speech, depending on the institutional location of the utterance, the identity of the speaker and the time of the event. What is allowed depends on the specific circumstances, but it results from patterns in the institutional practices of Chinese politics that involve constraining debate within “segmented publics”. This article analyses how formal and informal rules limit discussions of particular issues to specific segmented publics, and how varying degrees of debate are permitted within these institutional fields, based on the expertise of their members or, in the case of associations, their engagement in specific areas of policy implementation. Another dimension of variation relates to the personalised character of authority in the Chinese system of governance, which means that leaders set the tone for debate within institutional spheres they control. State control, however, is only part of the story: segmented publics are dynamic spaces where boundaries are permeable, often contested, and constantly in formation. The operation of segmented publics is explored here through case studies of activism in the legal field; on women’s rights in the associational field; at the grassroots in resident and villager committees; and in oppositional publics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s media politics. In 1997 Ai Weiwei imagined a modernist movement that would practise a “non-compromising vigilance on society and power” and since 2005 he has embraced blogging and micro-blogging to enact such intent. We argue that his “communication activism” is part of a broader artistic and political program that long predates his online presence. The study examines how the artist has experimented with blogging and micro-blogging to spread his message of “awakening” in defiance of censorship and surveillance. It shows how Ai Weiwei’s communication strategy combines an international celebrity status, criticism, irony and a round-the-clock interaction with his netizen audience and the media. It also critiques the effectiveness and coherence of this mode of activism from two perspectives – namely, Jean Baudrillard’s analysis of “private telematics” and Jodi Dean’s “blog theory” – and finally assesses its impact. The study aims to enhance our understanding of the web-based communication strategies of Chinese activists, shedding light on cultural production and consumption in Chinese cyberspace as a socio-political barometer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the aesthetic and affective techniques of saturation through which posters legitimated the Party-State in Mao’s China by closing the gap between everyday experience and political ideology. Propaganda posters were designed to put into practice the principle of unity, as conceptualised by Mao Zedong. The argument posits that while the “poster” is normally a printed edition of a painting or design intended for mass distribution in this way, the term may fairly be deployed to capture other cultural objects that function as “posters”, in that they provide public, political information that expresses or constructs a political self in aesthetic form. This approach requires a metonymic understanding of a visual field in which cultural objects are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. The essay draws on recent in-depth interviews with poster artists of the 1960s and 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)