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In the contemporary policy debate regarding the efficacy of strategic ambiguity as an appropriate policy for today’s Taiwan Straits conflict, there are presently on the table three main proposed policy solutions for the US role in the Taiwan Straits security situation: 1) abandon strategic ambiguity and specify in advance US defense commitment to defend Taiwan; 2) abandon strategic ambiguity and declare that the US will punish whichever player first moves to upset the status quo; or 3) continue to be ambiguous about US commitment to defend Taiwan. In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model to study the conditions under which an ambiguous security commitment can actually work to preserve the status quo by preventing both China and Taiwan from provoking each other. The game model helps clarify why in dual deterrence cases like the Taiwan Straits conflict, the first two strategy alternatives are less effective than the strategic ambiguity policy option. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sequence of Chinese reforms has a major overall effect on the political and social landscape of the country. To some extent, economic development is certainly a push- pull factor that makes China move toward or deviate from the path of political liberalization. In the case of China, as this paper proposes, it deviates from the development experience of the four Asian tigers, where economy growth has lead to the emerging institutional basis for each country's intellectual pluralism and informal institutions. In other words, two-decades of economic reform have made China an exception that is immune to the political vulnerabilities and legitimacy crisis that most Eastern European socialist economies experienced during the transition period. The basic reason is that Chinese state-led development strategies generate unfavorable exogenous factors upon the path to democratic transition. China's dual-track system, state-led capital allocation, tax assignment system reform, and preferential treatment not only perpetuate state control, but also institutionalize state opportunism and corruption. Reform promotes the interests of the ruling elite, newly vested interest groups, and those who align themselves with the State in exchange the preservation of their special positions. For the same reason, Chinese entrepreneurs are not advocating for political change; they represent majority of the vast interest groups in pursuing of their self-interest as well as maintaining the favorable political status quo. To a large degree, China's private entrepreneurs are keen to maintain guanxi with the State to procure permits and business opportunities. From the top down, the Chinese Communist Party has shown incredible adaptability to accommodate changing societal needs and values to gain public support. In China, membership privilege is the sine qua non to ascend the political ladder. Party affiliation not only opens the door for career opportunities, but also allows access to political resources for economic gain. In all, the regime gains loyalty by rewarding those that collaborate with it. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party holds tight control over personnel appointment and the cadre system throughout government and state-owned enterprises. For the elite, the best way to climb up the social ladder is to get closer to the Party organizations. My paper argues that in the foreseeable future the Chinese Communist Party will continue to highlight the priority of the country's economic development, social harmony and stability, which enable the regime to hold a political monopoly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1993 to 2002 the emergence of the urban resident Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (MLG) system saw a major reconfiguration and expansion of social assistance in the People's Republic of China. Explanations of the MLG have either presented the emergence in terms of a logical evolution on the previous social assistance system or have focused on the stages of the policy's development. This paper, drawing on insights provided by the wider political science literature, will argue that the development of the MLG system has been a much more complex process. The initial design of the policy reflects constraints placed on the social assistance agenda by previous policy choices and commitments. The further expansion and development of the MLG can be explained by the interventions of key policy sponsors in the Chinese bureaucracy for a variety of different reasons. By taking advantage of or being forced to act by developments in the social assistance agenda these policy sponsors have utilised available resources, within the institutional constraints of the period, to shape the MLG. Rather than treating the emergence and subsequent development of the MLG as a self contained case this paper seeks to present the policy sponsors and institutional constraints of the MLG within the wider context of both the China studies and political science literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that there has been a common assumption in the field of comparative political economy that the key institutions of a given domestic political economy are relatively mutually reinforcing and tightly interconnected with at best some small friction in the interaction between the key parts. Mutually reinforcing and tightly interconnected institutions are ones with institutional complementarities where the arrangements in one institutional domain impact the difference in utility in another institutional domain. This paper dubs this assumption the holistic view of comparative political economy. Within the holistic view, interaction with foreign institutions can only lead to two outcomes. In the robust outcome, foreign institutions have little effect on the operation of domestic institutions. In the fragile outcome, the intrusion of foreign institutions disrupts the delicate balance of institutions within the domestic political economy with grave consequences for the economy. Arguing against the assumption that the holistic view is correct, the paper provides evidence of successful use of importing foreign institutions in China. Importing institutions is utilizing the institutional effects of institutions located abroad. It is not imitation or transfer of foreign institutions to be re-built within the domestic political economy. In the case of China, the financial institutions of advanced capitalism have encouraged technological development that China's own financial institutions failed to provide. Thus, this importation of foreign institutions far from being disruptive has had an ameliorative effect on China's economy and calls into question the basic assumption of the holistic view. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When an authoritarian state aims to shape citizens' views and behavior through the means of the mass media, how successful are political leaders in this endeavor? This paper studies this research question based on a study of legal mobilization through the mass media in China. Since the 1990s political leaders are building a "rule of law" in China. Legal reform is intended to appease the losers of economic reform and to ensure social stability through the use of laws and courts. Thus it substitutes for more radical political change. The development of Chinese labor law, in particular, has been advanced in response to increases in incidences of worker unrest in recent years. The central government has responded by providing citizens with a National Labor Law that signals protection to alienated citizens, establishes a new social contract between workers and the state, and is aimed at channeling workers' grievances into state institutions. Dissemination of legal news through the media constitutes an important part of legal reform. The state relies on "thought work" in order to actively create and shape a legal consciousness. The underlying assumption is that people believe what is written in the news and that a person's way of thinking directly translates into behavior. In this paper we examine how successful Chinese political leaders are in creating perceptions of the law as an effective "weapon of the weak" through the means of the mass media. Content analysis of news reports reveals that the mass media portray the labor dispute resolution process in an overly positive light. News reporting on this issue is relatively uniform across media sources. Statistical analysis of a randomly sampled survey conducted in four Chinese cities in 2005 demonstrates that exposure to news reporting about labor law-related issues successfully promotes the image of a pro-worker bias in the law among citizens, thus encouraging them to participate in the legal system. The state is able to achieve its political goal because of the lack of conflicting sources of information and lack of previous experience with the reformed legal system among citizens. However, as more citizens participate in labor dispute resolution, skepticism toward media reporting on labor dispute resolution and general dissatisfaction with the legal system is likely to grow since experiencing arbitration or litigation leads to more realistic appraisal of the legal system and better understanding of the limitations of the Chinese legal system. However, even these more knowledgeable and experienced citizens are influenced by media messages. We conclude that commercial liberalization of the media can co-exist with authoritarian political control and resilience. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the various impacts of contemporary globalization on national security, with special reference to the migration of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry to China and its security challenges to the United States, Taiwan and China. The paper adheres to a sectoral approach to the study of globalization-security interconnections and adopts a broadly based definition of security pertaining to the case study in question that encompasses economic, technological and defense security. The analysis of the subject matter is grounded in evidence collected in more than 140 interviews with chip industry, defense sector and government insiders in the US and Asia, as well as English-language and Chinese-language secondary data. On sectoral migration, the paper argues that the scope of the migration is extensive, the direction complicated, the cause multiple, and the outcome significant in boosting the development of the indigenous Chinese chip industry. It has been discovered that some Taiwanese non-state chip actors have violated government regulations in the process of spearheading the migration, and some have even forged business ties with their PRC counterparts associated with the PLA. As for the ensuing security ramifications, it is argued that there is no immediate security risk involved, although long-term strategic repercussions are paramount. The depth and scope of the continuous sectoral migration in years to come will determine the level of economic security risks faced by the US and Taiwan. Long-term technological and defense security repercussions need to take into account two important elements at play: technological change in the sector (increasing commercial-to-military spin-on and dual-use nature of the chip technology), and the PRC dual-track (economic and defense) grand strategy behind its resolve to upgrade its indigenous chip capability. Four pertinent aspects are analyzed: (a) concerns over the PRC chip industrial base, its contribution to the PLA modernization and the ensuing shift in the balance of power in Beijing's favour; (b) technology-related misgivings over the trustworthy supplies of chips for the US and Taiwanese military end uses, as well as the shrinking "chip gap"; (c) fear of denial of chip supply due to foreign dependency; (d) dubious implementation of export control policies at the unilateral and the multilateral level that exacerbate some of the above security repercussions. The concluding section elucidates how the case study helps to show the impact of globalization on security as far as the agency and scope of security, the autonomy and capacity of the state, as well as the balance of power are concerned. To sum up, the study offers a fresh look at the complex security repercussions of the globalization of a strategic industry that occurs in a politically sensitive region in world politics today. It not only helps us disentangle an important policy issue, but also advances our theoretical understanding of the globalization-security interconnections in international relations today. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to an understudied phenomenon, transnational political alliances (TPA), which occur when multinational corporations cooperate with local companies to influence public policies of the host government. The paper first explores the economic and political sources of TPAs, their structures, and the obstacles to their formation. It then examines TPAs through the context of China, a critical case because of a hostile political environment that discourages TPAs. However, the surprisingly common occurrence of TPAs in China indicates the power of economic incentives for political cooperation across national boundaries. Such alliances do not explain why China originally opened its doors to international trade and investment, but it may explain why the doors are remaining opening. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the variation in state organisation of that polity between 1893 and 1922, and attempts to provide a preliminary test of the possible accounts for the feudalisation of the Chinese state during this period. It begins by looking at the structure of relations between central and regional levels of government, the ability of outside actors to manage matters of domestic governance, and the extent to which regimes in China are able to interact with external entities autonomously. An analysis of archival and secondary material finds that in this period marked a limited fragmentation of the Chinese polity and the creation of crosscutting lines of political control, coupled with substantial independence in external affairs reflective of state organisation in the feudal polities of mediaeval Europe.In going through the evidence, the paper also examines the aggregated patterns of outside involvement in China and examines its effects on state organisation. From this investigation, the paper argues that the collective effects of major power interference in Chinese domestic politics contributed not only to the fragmentation of the polity between 1893 and 1922. Outside involvement was also responsible for holding the state together, maintaining China as a single political entity. As such, the paper proposes that external involvement in the domestic politics of weak states has implications that reach beyond fragmentation and subjugation, and may be worth further study. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often contended that the expansion of freedom of expression and the decline of censorship and control over society is associated with the general political development in favor of liberalization and democracy. When Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) were introduced to East Asian countries in the early 1990s, there was hope, or even hype that claimed ICTs would help carve out a public space free from the intervention and censorship of one-party governments' where local authorities for decades had usually kept gate and set the agenda for socio-political discourses in the fundamental interests of national security and economic prosperity. China and Singapore are classic examples of this. Typically , one-party states rein in horizontal flow of information among the public and keeps a tight control of social and political expressions out of fear that the seemingly unfettered Internet may foster the expansion of freedom of speech and perceived liberty , and in turn result in the undesired socio- and political instability that the ruling Chinese Communist Party and Singapore's People's Action Party have long strived to fight against.While one-party states like China and Singapore embrace ICTs for boosting economic growth, they tend to contain this new medium for mostly political concerns. This paper will address this issue in the contexts of these two countries. The paper is written in the hope that it will eventually contribute to an important basis for further comparative research on ICT-driven political developments against the backdrop of other like -minded one-party states in Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature examining the social policy of developing countries has sought to explain the diversity of welfare policies and spending levels. This paper uses China's evolving welfare policies to ask how observations drawn from the Chinese case might contribute to theories of welfare regimes. The paper analyzes the strengths and limitations of five explanatory models for welfare regime formation based on evidence from China. Principal findings are as follows: 1) Fiscal surpluses are a necessary condition for any government to initiate or expand welfare provision to some or all of its citizens, regardless of its regime type. 2) Generic models of welfare provision based on region or on political-economic regime type (e.g., East Asian, transitional, democratic) fail to hold up given the considerable variation across these categories. 3) Globalization does not have uniform effects, but appears to pull social policy in different directions at the domestic level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is growth good for the poor? In theory, yes. But exceptions give us pause. This paper examines two poor, neighboring Chinese provinces that are exceptions to the hypothesis that increasing economic growth should reduce rural poverty. Starting in the early 1990s, Guizhou saw significant declines in rural poverty despite moribund growth, while Yunnan's poverty rates stagnated despite robust growth. This paper argues that the volume, distribution and structure of roadways, migration and coal mining that contributed to this puzzling outcome. The results have an impact on our understanding of the relationship between development and poverty reduction, the role that the state plays, as well as poverty reduction in China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of international pressure in bringing about social policy reforms in developing countries assumes such influence can be found at the nexus of international organizations (e.g., the World Bank and the IMF) and central governments. With its focus on international organizations and the policy models they promote, this explanatory model underemphasizes the role of foreign investment and trade in shaping domestic social policy outcomes. This paper uses China's experience with pension reforms in the 1990s to propose an alternative model that incorporates local-level actors such as governments and firms and their interaction with global economic forces as a key variable in the making of national social policy. This paper shows how China's pension-dominant welfare regime emerged from the manner in which local governments, which are responsible for social welfare expenditures, have sought to attract foreign investment, promote exports by local firms, and shed uncompetitive state firms. China's pension reforms were thus a product of ad hoc local initiatives to "internationalize," rather than a coherent policy decision taken by the central government with the advice of international institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of Chinese reforms focus on the domestic sources of change, but in reality the reform process and outcome have been shaped by both domestic and external forces. In this paper I explore the external sources of governance reforms in China, particularly the influence of international norms on China's civil service reform and the development of the NGO sector in Chinese society. By highlighting the role of foreign ideas and models in the formation of new institutions in China, this paper seeks to enrich our understanding of contemporary Chinese political development and to contribute to the literature on international norm diffusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's new rural tax reform that started in 2000 reduced the rural residents' financial burden. However, it gave rise to a serious problem of local fiscal crises, and significantly weakened the provision of public goods in poorly-endowed agricultural areas. Why did the reform aimed at enhancing the quality of provided public goods fail to do just that in areas that needed it most? Moreover, why did the central government make the decision of this tax reform despite giving the rise to local fiscal crises? I argue that the center's decision becomes less puzzling when considering an often overlooked factor: the center's policy preferences. In particular, I show that though the center has an interest in allowing local governments to collect taxes and provide public goods, this interest is not as strong as its commitment to market-oriented reforms and socio-political stability. When this interest and the commitment conflict-as they did when the increase in local levies sparked rural unrest in the 1990s-the center places its own political survival before local fiscal health. The adoption of the 2000 tax reform reflects the center's willingness to sacrifice the latter for the former. Moreover, by appearing to side with the peasants against predatory agents of the local state, the central government managed to re-channel the blame for bad governance onto local officials-thereby strengthening its own authority. Since local cadres are appointed by their superior government in China's authoritarian regime, they have few avenues through which to articulate their grievances against the central government when they are harmed by the center's reform policies. And yet, the personnel system in which local cadres are not popularly elected but appointed by higher authorities creates an institutional incentive for them to shirk and disguise the accurate information in their locality. Therefore, though the central government succeeds in strengthening its authority, it fails to grasp the reality of local governance in rural areas. This paper carries out the theoretical presentation of this discussion with the help of a game-theoretic model. A series of comparative-static exercises with the simple model are used to examine how nationally implemented reform policies have influenced the relationship between villagers and their local governments depending on pre-existing local conditions. The analysis in this paper shows that the increased possibility of outbound migration gave villagers substantial bargaining power against their local governments in rich areas, while it did not give them real power in poor areas. The easier outbound migration strengthened the villagers' bargaining power vis-à-vis their local government up to a certain threshold where the local government was forced to raise levies on non-migratory villagers to replenish its dwindling treasury, thereby triggering renewed popular resistance. Moreover, rural industrialization in richer areas served to delay the onset of this threshold, suggesting that local governments in more industrialized areas were able to avoid raising levies, while local governments in poorer agricultural areas tended to increase them. As a result, the model predicts that the financial burden in China's rural areas will have regressive characteristics. Since taxes and fees became a source of contention between villagers and local governments, the CCP leadership institutionalized certain participatory channels to defuse popular grievances. The petition system is one of those institutions. It is a remonstrative institution, through which villagers can challenge their local government's decisions and higher authorities can monitor lower-level governments' behavior... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that one can apply a cultural lens to the study of Chinese security policy through examination of the perceptual effects of military doctrine. Through the development of two brief historical cases, this paper shows the importance of PLA doctrine in shaping the way China viewed its interaction with the United States in the past. The paper also lays out the relevance of this today by probing the way in which modern Chinese doctrine might shape perceptions. I argue that this (relatively narrow) approach to strategic culture has significant advantages in terms of objectivity and clarity of causal statements that can enhance the utility of the study of strategic culture to policymakers and scholars alike. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins with an historical and then topical treatment of environmentalism in Taiwan, focusing on changes to the strategies and objectives of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) as the Taiwan state underwent democratic consolidation after the 2000 presidential election. Then the paper considers the rise of environmental groups in China, which in 2005 remains under Leninist party- state control. The paper concludes with a comparison of Taiwan and China, surveying the significant differences between the ENGO portfolios of the two states. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The framework of international laws of war has its origins in Western moral, religious, and legal principles that over time have come to be applied worldwide. The institutionalization of this framework is largely due to the historic power and influence of the Western states that developed it. Partly for this reason, a common assumption is that non-Western states adapted to the system as a necessary step in their integration into the international community. As a result, much work has been devoted to examining the degree to which China has adapted to, learned from, or internalized Western-based international law. With few exceptions, the implication behind this work is that China had no tradition of its own equivalent to Just War Theory principles, but rather was responding to something imposed almost entirely from the outside. This lack of an indigenous equivalent to the Western legal and moral tradition, combined with its unequal power position, are often assumed to explain China?s frequent resistance to being bound by international law or acceptance of such laws only to the extent that they were instrumentally useful. That is, power- and interest-based explanations for China?s attitude toward international law are usually considered the best fit. This paper moves beyond such approaches to examine traditional Chinese thinking on questions of morality in war, comparing these to the widely-used Just War Theory criteria of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Despite significant differences with Western thought?in particular an emphasis on just causes for going to war, rather than just conduct during war?Chinese moral traditions contain basic principles similar to those found in Western thinking on just wars. I suggest that such thinking affected China?s understanding of and reaction to the expansion of the European system and that interactions between the two bodies of thought can help to explain continuing Chinese attitudes toward international law and its behavior/policy with regard to warfare. For example, the emphasis in much of Chinese traditional thought on justification for war, rather than right conduct in war, may provide an alternative or supplement to economic or technical explanations for China?s adoption of a No-First-Use nuclear doctrine. This focus on self-defense as the primary justification for going to war, combined with lack of constraints on conduct once war breaks out seems to line up with both the restraint of pledging not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, as well as the accompanying counter-value targeting plan. Given China?s growing importance in the international system, the differences and interactions between international law on war and traditional Chinese thought may have serious implications for the future of the laws of war and conduct of international conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contextualize the internet as a tool for democratization in China. Scholars have argued both for and against the prospect of the internet serving as a vehicle for political change in China, and authoritarian regimes more broadly, without reaching a consensus. We argue that part of the reason for the lack of consensus is that the internet's potential should be seen in more nuanced terms. The internet has served to open up the Chinese public sphere and democratize discussion. For reasons of demographics, history, and state control, however, the internet has not been the center of political mobilization against the regime. We begin by reviewing the literature on democratization and the internet in China. We find that much of the discussion focuses on the overly general and binary question of whether the internet leads to democratization, which is often too broadly defined. Instead, we suggest that the term democratization generally encompasses two concepts that should be analytically separate. The first aspect of democratization is the democratization of public discourse and the development of a Habermasian public sphere, through which the state loses its agenda setting ability. This is distinct from explicitly political democratization, in which the internet serves as a tool to achieve specific policy outcomes. We argue that the history of the internet in China has strongly influenced disparate outcomes in these separate spheres. Early on, China's history of dissent emerging from universities and its legacy of state controlled media led leaders to be suspicious of the mobilization potential of the internet. At the same time, the marketization of China coupled with the limitations of state media, has allowed for relatively more open discussion online. Next, we review more recent evidence of how the internet contributes to a public discourse in China but how it has not had a similar impact on political mobilization. We find that, outside of certain sensitive topics, the internet has allowed netizens to set the agenda for public discussion. This is innovative relative to the previous status quo: the state set the framework for public discourse via state media vehicles, with citizens maintaining little power to change the direction of conversation. Yet, at the same time, we also show that a number of factors and tactics mean the state has been able to limit and channel the internet's potential for political mobilization. As previous research has found, any attempt to use the internet for policy advocacy elicited swift and decisive action by the authorities. Overall, the Chinese experience suggests that the term democratization, when used in relation to the potentiality of the internet, has been used in an overly broad way. We thus end with a call for more attention to be paid to the specific mechanisms and circumstances through which the internet can lead to (limited) democratization in specific contexts. Research in this direction is more likely to lead to productive advances in our understanding of how technology shapes and is utilized by authoritarian societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resource curse thesis contends that countries endowed with rich natural resources such as fuel and minerals tend to neglect the development of human capital. Although China as a whole does not suffer major symptoms of the resource curse, many of its regions host rich natural resources and heavily rely on them for the growth of local economy. Does resource endowment decrease these local rentier states' incentive to invest in human capital? This paper explores the effects of resource dependence on local provision of such public goods as education and health care. Through cross-provincial and longitudinal data analysis and case studies of selected mining areas, this study finds that resource-rich regions tend to underperform in providing the public goods crucial for the development of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is France's traditional, reflexive anti-Americanism influencing its 2011 presidency of the G20? This paper argues that one might be tempted to read the objectives of the French G20 presidency, especially the proposed reform of the international monetary system, through an anti-American lens. But this is not the case for two reasons. First, evidence suggests that the French proposals are actually beneficial to the United States. And second, the French have moved to a "post-anti-American" world in which the new economic menace and cultural threat is now represented by China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative studies suggest that the abundance of natural resources often contributes to economic underdevelopment in third-world countries. One major causal mechanism of resource curse, as some scholars point out, is that reliance on resources leads to bad governance and weak political institutions that suffer widespread corruption. However, others argue that resource endowment does not necessarily translate into weak institutions as political elites can invest windfall revenues from resource in building state capacity. How do natural resources affect the quality of political institutions in China, a country that hosts rich natural resources and rely heavily on them for its economic development? This paper explores the relationship between the endowment of mineral resources and the occurrence of corruption of public officials in China. Through cross-provincial and longitudinal data analysis, it finds that the abundance of and dependence on mineral resources undermine local political institutions by increasing the propensity for corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over fifty years, the European Union (EU) was not an actor of foreign investment policy. Member States had the authority to negotiate bilateral investment treaties (BIT) with third countries and did so with gusto, concluding more than 1,200 BITs -almost half of such agreements in the world. This lack of internal EU cohesiveness created costs for Europe, notably in terms of bargaining leverage over market access and norms. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty formally transferred competence over foreign direct investment (FDI) to the EU, which became in theory a unified actor with respect to both outbound and inbound FDI. However, many political and legal ambiguities surround the true extent of the EU's authority and autonomy over foreign investment. This paper argues that the surge of Chinese FDI into Europe, which is taking place simultaneously to this transition to a new EU foreign investment regime, has the potential to influence the final shape of this regime by exerting both centripetal and centrifugal pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Chinese telecommunications companies, with the assistance of Chinese financial institutions and diplomatic backing, have successfully secured contracts to build infrastructure and wire Africa for the 21st century. The practical implications for economic development are important. But also important are the theoretical implications: what, for instance, is the relevance of such South-South linkages for how we think about globalization and the state, in particular government-business relations? Our paper begins by considering China's broader foreign economic policy agenda in Africa. What role does this play in the headway that Chinese telecommunications companies have made across African markets? What does this mean for market players from other countries (both African and non-African)? Importantly, what impact does China's growing presence have on the relationship between state-building and market-building in traditionally weak states across the continent? To answer these questions, we take our study to the sector-level to investigate the growing presence of Chinese telecommunications equipment makers and service providers in Africa's telecommunication markets, namely, those in Nigeria and Angola. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2008, two similar popular protests broke out about the same time in two adjacent underdeveloped counties in southwest China. However, they evolved along remarkably different trajectories: one incident was resolved rather quickly and peacefully by local authorities without making a stir; while the other escalated into a major, violent clash between local residents and authorities. Reports and on-site visit suggest an important cause to the disparate results of the two incidents: availability of natural resources in the second case. As comparative studies suggest, the abundance of natural resources often contribute to the occurrence of social conflicts and even civil wars by motivating the contest for resource control, creating grievance among the populace, and leading to weak political institutions. Does resource curse work in the same ways in China? This paper explores how the availability of natural resources affects social instability in China by a comparative study of the two abovementioned counties. While it confirms some of the common wisdom, it also suggests more nuanced mechanism under China's peculiar political system, through which the availability (or lack) of mineral resources affects the style of local governance and state-society relations, which consequently shape the likelihood of social instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with an empirical puzzle. Why were anti-American protests allowed after the 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, but prevented after the 2001 collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet? I argue that the critical difference between these two crises was the bilateral bargaining context. The Chinese government viewed the 1999 bombing as a deliberate provocation to test China's resolve at a time of acrimonious negotiations over China's entry into the World Trade Organization. By contrast, the 2001 plane collision occurred soon after George W. Bush took office, when Chinese diplomacy was aimed at reducing the perception that China posed a threat to the United States. However, fearing that anti-foreign protests would lead to anti-government protests in 1999, the Chinese government orchestrated the anti-American demonstrations with a visible hand and undermined the perception that the protests posed a genuine risk. As a result, U.S. officials discounted the protests and warned the Chinese government not to use the bombing to gain leverage on other issues, such as China's entry into the WTO or U.N. negotiations over Kosovo. By stage-managing the protests, the Chinese government reduced the efficacy of protests as a bargaining tactic. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the impact of globalization on the relationship between the state and the media in China. We argue that China's participation in the global economy and community has not necessarily weakened the state's control of the media, but it has changed the relationship between the state and the media. Some of these changes are potentially democratizing, but thus far they have produced mixed political results. Section I examines how China's participation in the neoliberal economic order has reshaped state-media relations in that country. Section II discusses the impact of China's encounter with the global media industry on the relationship between the Chinese state and the media. Section III explores how exposure to international norms on state-media relations has changed the norms and practices of state-media relations in China. In the conclusion, we briefly speculate the consequences of these changes for the future of democracy in China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conjunction with expanding petroleum exploration and production in the domestic market, outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has become another important leg of China's way to ensure sufficient supply for its surging demand. Under the "going out" strategy embraced by the Chinese government, the national oil companies (NOCs) are all out for oil and gas equities. Their all-out efforts have often been pictured as "China, Inc" characterization, denoting that the Chinese government agencies have formed a monolithic body that could act consistently in foreign policy formulation and implementation, and that in any event its NOCs would be subordinate to the state. Contrary to the above assumptions, this paper argues the opposite: government agencies are far from in the same front, and state regulations may even be shirked by the NOCs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on survey data, the paper shows that Chinese villagers who have weaker trust in government leaders have stronger preference for popular elections. It argues that distrust in leaders stimulates preference for elections rather than the other way around. It further argues that distrust in leaders generates wishes for leadership changes, which in turn result in preference for elections. It is also argued that preference for popular elections amounts in effect to preference for a system change in China, to the extent that such elections may jeopardize one-party rule. As regards the theoretical debate on whether distrust in government induces preference for regime change, the China case suggests that two mechanisms are at work. The extent to which ordinary people can engineer leadership changes through institutionalized channels affects the generation of idealistic wishes for a better system. Perceived availability of better and viable alternative systems affects whether idealistic wishes for a better system materialize into realistic preferences for system change. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing challenges to American interests in East Asia, the prospects for U.S. foreign basing and access rights are declining throughout the region. In response to domestic political pressures in their host nations, facilities and forces in Japan and South Korea are already being consolidated and reduced. Despite efforts to focus on "places, not bases," Washington seems unlikely to acquire further footholds in East Asia. A recipient of some of forces currently being moved from America's East Asian allies, a potential fallback as the process continues in the future, and a domestic location of inherent strategic value for the United States, is the island of Guam, a sovereign anchor of U.S. presence in the Western Pacific.For all these reasons, Guam's capabilities and infrastructure have been built up significantly over the past decade. Improvements continue to this day. To some extent, this is returning Guam to its historical status as a strategic support and communications hub in the Western Pacific. Yet foreign powers, particularly China, are already closely following developments on Guam and apparently planning strategic countermeasures in the event of conflict (e.g., over Taiwan). This paper will therefore use original language sources to survey these emerging viewpoints, in addition to providing an analysis of these developments in the context of the overall American force posture in East Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will China become democratic? This is a critical question highly debated among scholars and pundits. While optimistic proponents suggest that China is experiencing a gradual or inevitable democratic transition, pessimists argue that China is either stagnating in its "trapped transition" or becoming a "resilient authoritarian regime." One of the key issues of the debate focuses on different perceptions of the role of Chinese leaders in China's democratization. This paper intends to shed some light on this widely debated question by exploring the belief systems of Hu/Wen. Using operational code analysis from political psychology, I examine public speeches and statements delivered by Hu and Wen especially regarding domestic issues from 2005-2007. I suggest that Hu and Wen as the fourth generation of China's leadership share a similar belief system especially regarding domestic issues. Both of them have democratic-oriented beliefs perceiving a tolerant and cooperative political universe. In addition, both Hu and Wen are inclined to use cooperative and democratic means to achieve their political beliefs. However, both of them are weak in terms of implementing their political goals. China's future as a democracy depends on whether Hu and Wen can consolidate their political power and strengthen their beliefs in order to lead the political transition. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing nature of China's policy toward Taiwan. Many of the sharpest debates in Taiwan, the US and elsewhere have been over whether recent modifications in policy represent a genuine overhaul in Beijing's approach to Taipei. To simplify, some argue that meaningful change already is happening and that such developments warrant careful study and attention. But skeptics conclude that it isn't happening. As one Taiwanese lawmaker complained, the new strategy is designed to "undermine the power of the [Taiwan] government…it's a poison coated with sugar." After analyzing various indicators, this study shows how theories and/or conceptual frameworks often employed in the fields of international relations and comparative politics might help analysts unravel some parts of the complicated puzzle that constitutes China's policy toward Taiwan. In conclusion, however, the author suggests that it is probable that decision-makers in Taipei will require more facts—not theories—before they agree that there is a genuine "paradigm shift" in Beijing's approach to the thorny Taiwan dispute. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines China's foreign relations from the perspective of national identity. It primarilly focuses on the deficiencies in concentrating solely on Chinese nationalism within such a dynamic, and, suggests that a broader approach to national identity will provide us with new insight into how this facet of Chinese politics is being constructed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpretation of history has long been a source of tension in East Asia. However, it has usually involved lingering animosity directed at Japan over the legacies of World War II and concerns that Tokyo has been insufficiently apologetic for the past. Yet, in the past ten years, another controversy has been brewing over history but this time between South Korea and China over claims to "ownership" of an ancient kingdom. The region in question is Koguryo (Gaogouli in Chinese) that encompasses most of North Korea and large portions of Northeast China, particularly Manchuria. Koguryo, along with Silla and Baekje, were three kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula at approximately the same time that inhabited the area long claimed by Koreans as their ancestral homeland and the precursor to modern Korea. Starting in the mid-1980s, Chinese historians began to challenge this interpretation and make the case that Koguryo was in fact, under Chinese domination for many years and largely a part of its history. For South Koreans, this has been a serious matter that threatened the very core of Korean identity. By 2002, the dispute had moved beyond the realm of academic debate to become a full-blown political dispute between China and South Korea. The issue is relatively calm at the moment but the fundamental issues remains unsettled.The debate over "ownership" of Koguryo is not so much a dispute about the past but rather the implications this issue has for the present and future. The peoples involved at that time had no sense of belonging to Korea or China, and the notion of boundaries and modern nation states were unknown to these groups. However, this dispute has a lot to do with the national identity of the people that live in these regions today. Despite China's efforts to downplay and depoliticize the dispute, it was unsuccessful in calming ROK suspicions of its motives. Moreover, it is likely that Beijing did not anticipate the virulent backlash they received from the ROK public. Though authorities in Seoul tried initially to minimize these events for fear of damaging its larger relationship with China, Beijing's actions angered many in South Korea and put the brakes on a growing and important bilateral relationship.What are China's motives regarding Koguryo? Are they an offensive effort intended to justify seizing Korean territory or largely defensive to address its own identity problems and the uncertain future of North Korea? Why did these measures evoke such a strong response from South Korea? What role does the reinterpretation of history play in state disputes and how can history be used as a "strategic weapon"? These are important questions addressed in this paper that will argue the dispute has become something of a "security dilemma" where China's initial actions, deemed to be largely defensive by Beijing, were perceived in Seoul as offensive. The ROK response, prodded chiefly by domestic political pressure, has in turn escalated fears in China over this issue. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most regimes respond to the threat of urban unrest by biasing policies to favor cities since urban denizens, due to their proximity to each other and the seat of power, are more politically powerful than rural residents. China, on the other hand, has focused on slowing the pace of migration to its most unstable cities and even begun subsidizing rural areas. What accounts for this anomalous shift? I argue that there exists a self-undermining secondary effect of urban bias that has been previously absent from the literature: it encourages urbanization, leading to larger cities in the future and increasing the long-term risk to the regime. China fears "Latin Americanization"—slums, crime, and regime instability—and hopes to moderate movement to cities by making agriculture more economically attractive. This paper supports the argument with two empirical sections. First, a narrative of Chinese urbanization and reform policy shows that stability, especially in cities, has been a dominant concern. Second, a statistical analysis of the distribution of Chinese fiscal transfers shows that they are directed to areas that are unstable and that export laborers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past ten years, the world has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity that seem to indicate a fundamental change in China's strategic preferences. But has it fundamentally changed? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining China's strategic culture, comparing it to that of ASEAN. It will apply the theoretical concepts concerning strategic culture and the socialization process to try to determine if China's strategic preferences toward cooperative behavior have indeed changed fundamentally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When an authoritarian regime reforms the state media, how does it affect the ability of the state to manipulate public opinion? A number of authoritarian regimes have deregulated local media markets since the late 1970s. This paper studies the relationship between newspaper deregulation, political news content, and public opinion in China. Interviews with Chinese media experts and content analysis show that media deregulation is associated with greater variation of news content, but alternative mechanisms of control keep diversity within narrow boundaries. At the same time, however, media deregulation makes a great difference to audiences. Data from the Beijing Area Study reveal that readers are more susceptible to news messages when newspapers are deregulated. If news content can be synchronized through alternative mechanisms of control, media deregulation is conducive to regime stability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2005, tens of thousands of anti-Japanese protesters took to the streets of China's largest cities, condemning Japan's textbook revisions, its U.N. Security Council bid, and its claim to resources in the waters between China and Japan. The anti-Japanese protests demonstrated the capacity for mass collective action among China's urban elite and potentially laid the groundwork for future challenges to the government itself. Given the risk to regime stability that these demonstrations posed, why did China's authoritarian leaders permit the anti-Japanese protests to go on for weeks before reining them in? The 2005 Chinese protests are just one illustration of a larger puzzle: when will authoritarian leaders allow and even encourage anti-foreign protests, and when will they seek to prevent or crack down upon anti-foreign demonstrations? In this paper, which presents the preliminary results of my dissertation fieldwork, I suggest that the government's decision to allow anti-foreign protests in April 2005 was a strategic choice--to use the specter of domestic instability and the escalating costs of domestic repression to gain leverage over Japan on the UN Security Council negotiations. Contrary to the standard literature on audience costs, I suggest that authoritarian governments can indeed generate credible signals vis-à-vis the decision to allow nationalistic protests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of China's central-provincial fiscal transfers in the post-reform era shows a pattern of wild cross-regional variations: some provinces submitted huge amounts of revenue to the center; while other provinces received considerable central subsidies. Why did some provinces enjoy more fiscal power than others? The need-based and bargaining-based theories have provided different hypotheses to explain such cross-regional variations. But in this paper I argue that both theories fall short of telling the whole story about central-local fiscal transfers in China. An alternative explanation is that the Chinese central government tended to make larger fiscal transfers to localities that used their revenues more efficiently and achieved higher economic development level. In this way, fiscal transfer essentially functioned as an investment: By transferring more fiscal revenues to localities where they could be efficiently used to yield high returns, the center could harvest more fiscal revenue in the future. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings survey data to bear on two central research questions pertaining to China: whether geography matters for election quality and for political behavior, and whether election quality, in turn, matters for political behavior. The two clearest implications from the analysis are (1) distance from political centers does matter for election quality and (2) election quality matters for explaining voting behavior. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history economic rivalry has frequently served as a precursor to strategic or militarized rivalry between country pairs. With the end of the cold war and the increasing integration of global commercial and financial markets, such a conflictual dissolution of relations is unlikely to follow a similar pattern. In general, post-World War II economic competitors solve disputes through means other than militarization. Nevertheless, this is not to assume benevolent economic relations. On the contrary, economic statecraft and warfare plausibly provide the means through which countries compete in the current era. This paper thus investigates the influence of globalization on tensions within economic rivalries. First, I evaluate the implementation of economic statecraft between the major powers in the world system, focusing on monetary policy and trade disputes between the United States and China. Next, I analyze those characteristics unique to the current system that mitigate potential militarized conflict from emerging from this economic rivalry. This is followed by analysis of those key variables that have been linked within the strategic rivalry literature to increased hostilities. In short, there is reason for cautious optimism with regard to the most influential economic rivalry in the modern international system. Unlike economic rivalries of past eras, globalization contains constraints that have thus far had a mitigating effect on the US-Chinese economic rivalry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In tying together general issues of subnational comparative analysis and the study of specific empirical phenomena in China, this paper examines: 1) which aspects of subnational comparative analysis used elsewhere can usefully inform the study of Chinese politics in general; 2) how one particular form of subnational comparison can help us understand the unfolding dynamics of Chinese state sector lay-offs; and 3) how this form of subnational comparative analysis might usefully be extended back into other areas of the wider field of comparative politics in a way that refines and sharpens the practice of subnational comparison elsewhere. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explain the divergent outcomes of pension reform in China as a strategic response by local governments to inflows (and outflows) of labor and capital. I argue that local governments developed qualitatively different pension and social insurance arrangements that corresponded to two factors: population aging, and the extent of labor and capital inflows. The behavior of local labor agencies is consistent with the tenets of resource dependence theory, which predicts that organizations will adopt strategies to gain control of, or lessen their dependence upon, crucial external resources. The empirical tests of the argument involve provincial-level quantitative data as well as elite interviews. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measured by the growth rates of either fixed asset investment or gross domestic production (GDP), we have witnessed a persistent correlation between cyclical economic booms and periodical administration changes in post-Mao China. By examining the exact causal relations between succession, accountability, and economic policymakers behind this political business, this paper finds that, although the institutional constraints of political succession could be clearly observed through reform China, the Chinese central leaders are not found to be held accountable by mass publics. They are at best periodically accountable to the most powerful political elite within the bureaucratic system, i.e. Chinese provincial officials. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inauguration of market reforms in China over two decades ago has resulted in a dramatic transformation in state-society relations The state sector is being dismantled; the private sector is expanding; new connections with international economic actors are being forged; and new social interests are emerging. Drawing on field research conducted in rural enterprises and an analysis of changes in the labor code, I examine critical changes in Chinese labor relations that have taken place in the 1990s with a special focus on the role of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and evaluate how developments in this area affect the ability of workers to remedy the problems they regularly encounter. Because workers see ACFTU as ineffective and co-opted by the state, they have been forced to adopt more informal mechanisms of survival. Kinship and native-place networks have been especially important in providing material and social resources. While enterprise managers retain enormous leverage over the industrial workplace, workers have also used such ‘weapons of the weak’ as slander, footdragging, and social isolation to thwart workplace imperatives. These developments underscore how informal norms can undermine formal workplace structures and contribute to uneven results in the process of post-socialist transition. My findings also suggest that these informal strategies for survival may have a positive impact on the transformation of workplace relations and reduce labor strife in TVEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia has recently experienced an unprecedented level of cooperation with the emergence of intra-regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), a stark contrast with past decades. These FTAs, however, have lacked a formalized blueprint, given the diversity of membership requirements and issue coverage. This paper provides an analytic framework to explain their emergence and discrepancies. The paper argues that while the process of globalization drives diversification through regional integration, the array of regional inter-state trade structures among signatory countries causes a variety of trade agreements. Particularly, the level of shared uncertainty by potential signatories over the immediate weighted gains of FTAs affects preferences in favoring one type forum over another. Bilateral FTAs, therefore, arise when participating governments have complementary or less competitive trade structures. Regional multilateral PTAs (or mini-multilateralism) occur when involving states have competitive trade structures. Mutual concern among states arises as a result of perceived regional vulnerability to the forces of globalization. Intra-regional dependence over extra-regional export markets and inward FDI encourages the proliferation of regional FTAs. Intra-regional competition between neighbor states, however, constrains the conditions under which states join particular regional trade forums. Bilateral FTAs are more likely to emerge between signatories that export a different range of commodities. Participating governments gain domestic support and policy leverage through existing formal or informal connections in complementary trade affiliations. Bilateralism rewards flexibility and issue extension. Regional multilateral FTAs are more politically feasible to the participating countries that export a similar set of goods, since bilateral FTAs encourage domestic opposition in involving states, as domestic constituents, specifically export producers, compete in both the domestic and global markets. By adding the number of participating governments, regional multilateralism increases the expectation of gain and increases domestic support in participating countries. It encourages the conclusion of agreements by magnifying the effect of 'tying hands.' It also allows room for altering the zones of agreements because of crosscut coalitions among different states. This paper analyzes and explains why Japan pursued region-wide (multiple) bilateral FTAs with individual ASEAN states and incorporated WTO-plus clauses, whereas China and ASEAN pursued a regional multilateral FTA and centered on liberalization. This study refines a theoretic standpoint with cross-state analyses and examines the determinants of states' perceptions toward a variety of international trade forums. It also explicates an empirical puzzle: why large powers pursue different economic policies when engaging with similar regional secondary economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2006 American Political Science Association ProposalGender Bias Discrimination and the Violation of Women in ChinaDivision 45: Human RightsThere exist many organizations that promote the protection of human rights bringing attention extreme abuses of power in countries that allow for violations against their citizens. To some extent organizations that support global human rights efforts are the only outlet for those suffer from various types of violations and abuse. Human rights violations against women further divide the gender gap and support the separate spheres between men and women.The government in China has continued to move forward with their one child policy enforcing that policy by means which violate the basic human rights of women. This is not an issue of birth control or reproductive overpopulation but an issue of violence and torture against women. From forced abortion, sterilization, kidnappings, beatings, coercion, and confinement the women in China fall under the abusive power of the government without recourse or justice. They are accountable to the law that is a violation of their human rights.This paper will explore human rights as a concept defined and measured, China's one child policy, the government's involvement in the enforcement of the policy, the actors that physically enforce the policy, the women that are violated, and organizations that help the women or ignore the issue. The research explored in this paper will contribute to the field of human rights within the realm of the study of political science by further exposing violations and the responses to the crisis in China, and the difficulties defining and measuring human rights data. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the question of why the Chinese central government decided to subsidize the creation of a new rural pension scheme in 2009. The study argues that the shift of development strategies from an export-oriented to a domestic consumption-driven one contributed to the adoption of new rural pensions. The study identifies three factors that led the central government to provide financial support for rural pensions as a way of increasing domestic consumption: learning by bureaucrats and experts, political leadership, and the urgency of increasing domestic consumption against the backdrop of the 2008 global economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the "race-to-the-bottom" tax competition in democracies, we argue that the logic of interjurisdiction competition in authoritarian regimes leads to greater fiscal extraction. Promotion-seeking local politicians are incentivized to signal loyalty and competence to their principals through tangible fiscal revenues. The greater the number of agents accountable to the same principal, the more the intense competition for promotion, resulting in higher taxation; however, excessive taxation is constrained by the risks of political instability. Using a panel dataset of Chinese county government finance between 1999 and 2006, we find strong evidence for an inverse U-shaped relationship between the number of county-level jurisdictions within a prefecture/municipality--our proxy for the intensity of political competition--and fiscal extraction in most provinces but not so in politically unstable ethnic minority regions. The results are robust to various alternative specifications, including models that account for spatial interdependence of taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elites often use social policies to garner political support and ensure regime survival, but social policies are not a silver bullet. Using two waves of Chinese national surveys, I find that a recent policy of abolishing school fees has significantly increased citizens' demand for greater government responsibility in financing compulsory education. I argue that policy awareness, instead of policy benefits, drives citizens' demand. Finally, I show that policy awareness has enhanced citizens' trust in China's central government, but not in local governments. This asymmetry in regime support has two sources: the decentralization of education provision and biased media reporting, which induces citizens to credit the central government for good policy outcomes. Given citizens' responses are primarily influenced by policy awareness that is promoted by the state media, this study casts doubt on the use of social policies to sustain long run political support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have suggested that corruption could serve as a substitute for property-protecting institutions in developing countries, but very few empirical studies have been conducted to test this theory. Most existing studies on the determinants of corruption are cross-national, rely on perception-based measures and focus on economic development, regime type and market structure as explanatory variables. Little is known about why corruption occurs in an authoritarian state at the micro level. We theorize bribery as a bargaining process between a firm and a rent-maximizing public official, and we assume that graft-paying firms face different sets of rules and regulations, which govern firms' costs and benefits of bribing. We test the hypothesis that firms' bribes are determined by the rigor of their internal auditing control and the quality of property protecting institutions. We use entertainment and travel costs directly observed in a large-scale firm-level survey in China as a proxy for corruption. Our study implies that firms operating in a weak property rights regime rely on political connections as a substitute for formal legal protection. The findings shed light on the literature on property rights, corruption and East Asian development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]