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This paper explores Chinese people's pursuit of human rights through the Hegelian lenses of abstract rights and the master–slave dialectic. By juxtaposing the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and the Falun Gong movement, it illuminates how Chinese people's struggles for human rights have been informed by Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies, although they have also looked to the West for inspiration and endorsement. Moreover, Hegel's very own dialectic reassures us that Chinese people do not need to have an affirmative, conscious knowledge of 'rights' before they pursue them. While the student protests in 1989 were fuelled by a nationwide economic crisis, the Falun Gong movement was the result of an increasingly prosperous but spiritually blighted society. In both cases, the people, like slaves, struggled against their master, the Chinese government, for freedom and recognition so as to attain a full self-consciousness. Thus, this paper appropriates Hegelian concepts and his dialectical view of history to add to the existing criticisms of his Orientalist views, namely his belief that China is a stagnant nation and its people have no independent personality but only a servile consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid governance instruments such as public-private partnerships are increasingly applied in so-called emerging countries, in particular Brazil, India and China (the 'BRICs'). With a more diverse set of influential political actors involved in global governance, the question arises whether existing global governance institutions are effective and legitimate. This paper focuses on partnerships in China's sustainable development. China has witnessed rapid economic transition from a plan economy to a market economy. In the course of these developments, China faces increasing ecological stress and social inequity. Reform and intensification of China's sustainable development governance seems necessary. Are partnerships the road to go? Does China successfully appropriate the partnership model and integrate it into its domestic governance? This paper discusses how Partnerships for Sustainable Development were brokered at the 2002 Worlds Summit for Sustainable Development, in spite of initial resistance by developing countries; and whether a prevalent partnership model is emerging in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2002, the Chinese leadership announced a turnaround in national welfare policy: Local insurance at county level, called the New Rural Cooperative Medical System (NRCMS), was to cover all counties by 2010. This paper addresses the main characteristics of NRCMS as an example of 'transformative state capacity' in decentralised policy fields and its feature 'responsiveness' as a market-based means of its introduction. Reviewing the modes of governance and comparing the introduction of local schemes based on two case studies of western China since 2006, this paper argues that the flexibility shown by local administrators in considering structural and procedural adjustments is the result not only of central directives but also of local initiatives. Forms of locally embedded responsiveness to the needs and perceptions of health care recipients are crucial in enhancing the accountability and responsiveness of local cadres. These new modes of 'responsiveness' or responsive regulation are important in understanding and conceptualising the transformative state capacity. Responsive settings using centrally defined local feedback loops are different from hierarchical control and the formal institutionalised representation of the interests of the local population, and are a rough but effective means of enhancing both flexibility and the efficiency of control and financing by the central state. These feedback loops, which are based on voluntary enrolment and on central state subsidies made dependent on contributions received from participants and local government, are complementary forms of governance at grassroots level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rural elderly strongly feel the tension between the life patterns they had expected to follow and the risks and possibilities presented by a more dynamic and individualised society. This paper discusses how the elderly react to the rapid changes in intergenerational relations. The focus is on their strategies towards the two most common types of living arrangements during old age: maintaining an independent household, and living with a son's family. Earlier generations of elderly perceived cohabitation with a son as the only natural arrangement, but interviews indicate that living in an independent household has become an accepted alternative. This illustrates how China's rural elderly are able to create and accept changes in family relations and new life patterns. Their problems are generated by the lack of social services in rural areas rather than by any culturally determined resistance to change. The last part of the paper discusses recent social engineering projects aimed at reintegrating the elderly into society. By looking at how the elderly adapt to changing family relations and how others imagine their reintegration, the paper highlights the complicated patterns of social change that have emerged in China's villages in the wake of decollectivisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual culture used to be seen as a 'distraction from the serious business of text and history' while images can in fact also be seen as a locus of cultural and historical change. This paper addresses the issue of using visual sources in the construction of a historical narrative in Chinese social history. Through a survey of gendered advertising images from one important Shanghai newspaper, the Shenbao, in 1931, presented in the form of 'visual itineraries', the paper turns towards the moment of consuming the image. It attempts to recapture and draw conclusions from the visual everyday experience in and of this modern city. It will become clear that just looking at images focuses the eye. Prejudiced preconceptions about gender and gender relations (such as 'men do not care for children', 'women are the weaker sex', 'women occur more frequently in illustrated advertisements') can all be negated or questioned by the study of images. Thus, through visual perception and visual reflection it may be possible to challenge and redefine the conventional reading of textual materials so as to bring out new perspectives, new modes of questioning and new conceptions, to open up fresh possibilities of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During her stay in Beijing (1933–1946), Hedda Hammer (later known as Hedda Morrison) made a visual record of shop signs with her camera. In this paper I rely on this visual record to examine what shop signs represented in Chinese material culture and their function in the urban setting. I argue that Morrison's photographic record reveals a fascinating element of street culture in the capital city that the textual records cannot document. I also contend that shop signs worked as genuine urban markers of the various trades and crafts in the city. As such, these artefacts constituted an expression of Chinese material culture, but were also a form of visual language to guide the gaze and pace of Beijing urbanites. This paper supports the idea that photographs have a particular relevance and value for the exploration of the Chinese urban setting in the Republican period. The use of photography goes beyond the record of disincarnated artefacts. It allows us to perceive and understand a fascinating dimension of visual culture in Republican Beijing, one of the numerous layers of signs that were displayed quite extensively through the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What narratives can be fashioned by the historian from visual documents, and how might this relate to the narrative intention of those who created them? This paper explores the handful of surviving photographs recording the career of a British member of the Shanghai Municipal Police between 1929 and 1943. War and internment destroyed most of the visual records that former coalminer Frank Peasgood had collected during his police service, saving only those that had accompanied letters he had sent home to his family. The narrative he created with these can be clearly presented, and is discussed in the first part of the paper. Clearly, only visual documents could so powerfully demonstrate the transformation undergone by a man coming from his background, and provide the tools for showing that transformation. The photographs are then revisited and a further, complicating, layer of narrative is added, one which puts the policeman back into his place as a colonial subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide a detailed explanation of how the promotion of different nationalist discourses in China entails distinct repercussions on both government and regime legitimacy, looking for the rationale of governmental appeal to both affirmative and assertive nationalism within the context of general legitimacy crisis suffered by communism in the last years. Through the analysis of case studies including the return of Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese sovereignty and the success of Beijing's bid for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, this paper regards the rise of affirmative nationalism as beneficial for the legitimacy of both the Jiang government and the CCP regime as a whole. However, the increasing relevance of assertive nationalism, discussed with reference to the Diaoyu dispute with Japan, and the diplomatic crisis with the US after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the unauthorised landing of a US surveillance plane on Hainan, has put a challenge on Jiang's government, since it has been effectively used by the leftist wing of the party for gaining more leverage within the CCP with regard to the reformists. At the same time, assertive nationalism has reinforced regime legitimacy, providing effective ammunition to criticise the liberals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of proselytism as an active practice of shaping other people's identities. Specifically, it looks at the identity discourse promoted by ethnic Chinese evangelicals and compares it to that of Jehovah's Witnesses. Both Christian churches proselytise among contemporary transnational migrants from the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Europe, each making use of a sophisticated organisation adapted to the transnational practices of these migrants. Yet while evangelicals promote a transnational ethnic identity quite compatible with the secular discourse of the global Chinese migrant, Jehovah's Witnesses promote an anti-secular, non-ethnic cosmopolitanism. As a result, global Chinese evangelical ties more easily become part of global migratory and business networks. The paper is based on fieldwork among Chinese evangelical organisations and Jehovah's Witnesses in Italy, Hungary, Russia, and the United Kingdom, supplemented with interviews in the United States (the headquarters of many Chinese evangelical organisations) and a survey of printed and online resources used in proselytising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the Compassion Relief Foundation, a charity organisation originating from Taiwan, and tries to understand how it has managed to provide relief to victims of natural disasters for more than ten years in nineteen provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities of the People's Republic of China, despite the vicissitudes of cross-Straits relations and amidst recent bouts of religious persecution. The essay starts with an introduction to Compassion Relief: it presents its history as a charity organization, and then situates its activities in the PRC within the context of tense relations between China and Taiwan, as well as economic reforms in the PRC. The paper then questions three hypotheses advanced to explain the acceptance of Compassion Relief's activities by the Chinese government. It discusses the view that such approval results from political calculations directed at Taiwanese; the argument that it heralds change in the Chinese state's approach towards the social role of religion; and the claim that it signals the emergence of an autonomous civil society free of government interference. The essay expresses reservations about these views and concludes that the activities of Compassion Relief in the PRC rather suggests the existence of a symbiotic relationship between society and state officials at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

War was a major aspect of Shanghai history in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, because of the particular political and territorial divisions that segmented the city, war struck only in Chinese-administered areas. In this paper, I examine the fate of the Zhabei district, a booming industrious area that came under fire on three successive occasions. Whereas Zhabei could be construed as a success story-a rag-to-riches, swamp-to-urbanity trajectory-the three instances of military conflict had an increasingly devastating impact, from shaking, to stifling, to finally erase Zhabei from the urban landscape. This area of Shanghai experienced the first large-scale modern warfare in an urban setting. The 1927 skirmish established the pattern in which the civilian population came to be exposed to extreme forms of violence, was turned overnight into a refugee population, and lost all its goods and properties to bombing and fires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between development and migration has been termed the 'new development mantra'. Studies on the subject have so far mostly focused on economic remittances, and the potential consequences of return migration on democratisation have been rarely touched upon. This article attests the potential of the migration experience to affect migrants' attitudes towards democracy, thus playing an important role in the diffuse support needed for democracies in the stage of consolidation. Based on a survey among 1,000 Philippine return migrants from six destinations, the paper suggests that the migration experience may not only lead to a more critical stance towards the political system of the home country; there are also indicators of lesser support for the principles of democracy when compared to migrants about to leave the country for the first time. The political system of the destination as such seems to be a less decisive factor than the specific freedoms and restrictions experienced by migrants and a potential bias when selecting the destination. The article focuses on return migrants from Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Japan, which showed the most distinctive numbers in support of democracy or changes therein when compared to first-time migrants heading for that destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries are increasingly facilitating migration as a way of generating remittances for the home economy. The Philippines serves as a paradigmatic example, inaugurating a labour export scheme in 1973 that has grown each year and resulted in nearly 25 per cent of the labour force working abroad. The institutionalization of this labour export policy, along with changes in citizenship and voting laws, has led to the increasing deterritorialization of the Philippines state, with concomitant implications for democracy and democratization. This deterritorialization presents both opportunities and challenges for the state. Among them are the possibility of securing sustained remittances and the necessity of securing democratic legitimacy from a globalized polity. This paper traces the evolution of this labour export policy and analyzes the effects of state discursive strategies designed to secure democratic legitimacy. To further this analysis I present the results of a survey conducted among Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong (n=691). The responses indicate the discursive strategy of 'national heroes' has been effective in that majorities of OFWs view themselves as 'heroes of the nation.' However, OFWs also view themselves as making sacrifices for the nation and have concerns about government commitments to protect the rights and interests of OFWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the evolution of the Chinese socialist regime since the early reforms introduced in 1978. It explores the revisionist concept and innovative practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Differently from the East Asian newly industrialized countries, the Chinese reform had to deliver from the beginning both on the economic and socio-political fronts. This explains why China has forged its own model of economic and political development through redefining the concept of Chinese socialism, learning from Western and Eastern capitalisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1930 and 1937, the Lianhua Film Company was one of the major studios in China, and in many ways was a symbol of modernity. The policy of the Company towards its actors was quite new and contributed to the creation of a new social status for this group, especially for the women. This paper focuses on three female stars (Wang Renmei, Chen Yanyan and Li Lili,) who worked for the Lianhua Film Company. Through a detailed analysis of the photos published in its magazine, Lianhua Huabao, as well as feature films produced by the Company, we will study Lianhua's strategies to transform these women into professional actresses. Their image was created by the entanglement of three spheres: their private lives, their public lives and their fiction lives played on screen. We will consider the sometimes conflicting relationships between these spheres by looking at the visual sources (photos and feature films) in conjunction with the actresses' biographies and movie roles. This will underline the complexity and ambiguity of a process understood by the Lianhua Film Company not only as the making of professional actresses but also as the creation of a new, modern Chinese woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1937, bitter and brutal fighting raged for three months in and around the city, with intense bombardment from ships and planes. Within weeks, hundred of thousands of residents were thrown on to the streets and made homeless. This paper is concerned with the massive and sudden transformation of Shanghai residents into refugees and the consequences on the resources and management of the city. In the first part, I argue that 1937 created an entirely new situation no authority was prepared to meet because of the scope of the population exodus and to the actual blockade of the city. The second part is devoted to the refugee population, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. It examines who the refugees were—those who found refuge in camps—and why they did not reflect the normal structure of the local population. The last part is concerned with the challenges refugee camps had to face in maintaining a huge destitute population with limited resources in war-torn overcrowded urban space. War caused tremendous suffering among the civilian population, especially children, despite the fairly successful organisation of support by the authorities and private organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes modern China's dilemma of how to deal with the legacy of its imperial past as the starting point for a discussion of the drawn-out re-creation of China in the twentieth century. The particular focus is on the important role of non-Han ethnic minorities in this process. It is pointed out that the non-recognition and forced assimilation of all such minorities, in favour of a unified citizenship on an imagined European, American or Japanese model, was actually considered as a serious alternative and favoured by many Chinese nation-builders in the wake of the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911. The article then proceeds to a discussion of why, on the contrary, ethnic minorities should instead have been formally identified and in some cases even actively organised as official minorities, recognised and incorporated into the state structure, as happened after 1949. Based on the formal and symbolic qualities of the constitution of these minorities, it is argued that new China is also a new formulation of the imperial Chinese model, which resurrects the corollary idea of civilisation as a transformative force that requires a primitive, backward periphery as its object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although since reforms rural-urban geographic mobility is no longer as much impeded by the hukou system, new institutional mechanisms have emerged that likewise impede the equal participation of rural migrant workers in the urban labour market. Given the daunting challenges implied in rural-urban migration flows, the burgeoning of labour fairs, job advertisements in the media, and intermediate service centres offer migrants some respite. Migrant women in particular can participate in the domestic service labour sector through the 'housemaid agencies', which often appear as ineffective, but may also offer significant possibilities for migrant women to find a job in China's cities. In this paper the author examines the activities and functions of these housemaid agencies and the role they play in shaping the employment opportunities of migrant women. Most of the information is based on fieldwork achieved between 1998 and 2001 in Beijing and Shanghai. The aim is to assess the extent of these agencies' benefits to migrant women's work opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a pervasive strand of thinking on women's public education during the last years of the Qing and early years of the Republic which sought to reconfigure traditional virtues and skills in the cause of family harmony, social order and national prosperity. A study of this 'modernising conservative' discourse on women's education and its critique of the behaviour and attitudes of female students also provides an insight into how female students themselves responded to the new educational opportunities available to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]