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This paper uncovers two publications of Quesnay's Despotisme de la Chine, which are apparently the first translations in German of any work of Quesnay. They were published in the late 1760s in Greifswald, then under Swedish rule, and their translator, Dähnert, managed to remove most traces of Quesnay's despotism. While the French infatuation with China is the topic of innumerable works, the Sinophilia of Germany and Sweden has been less studied1 and is illustrated with these publications. The paper suggests that Physiocracy and Despotisme de la Chine had a direct influence on the 1772 coup of Gustav III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been contributing to new approaches to global governance. The Health Silk Road (HSR), a significant component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was proposed by China in 2016. This paper claims that HSR is a new institution introduced alongside the existing WHO-led multilateral health system, and its relationship with the existing system can be described as layering. Having explored the new development of HSR during COVID-19, this paper further argues that while HSR has its unique strength in making contributions to global health governance and economic recovery, it faces a prominent issue of securitisation in the context of China-U.S. strategic competition, suspicion of the quality of medical products and sectoral fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing China's 2006 and 2015 Africa policies, this article reveals how China's political discourse has become more confident, practical, and depoliticised. In particular, this paper shows how education is allocated, promised, and embedded in China's 'shared' agenda, which is centred on development co-operation and mutual learning. It then reflects on the extent to which China may move towards traditional donors. This paper concludes that, despite fragmented convergences in the discourse and an increased recognition of a Chinese model, China maintains its distinctive role and position in the post-2015 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study calls for greater scholarly engagement with the generational experiences of the socialist working class in China. Through an analysis of collective actions in response to the reform of state-owned enterprises at the turn of the century, the paper divides the Chinese socialist working class into the Revolution Generation and the Transition Generation. Amid the restructuring of the state sector, workers from the Revolution Generation exhibited a proclivity for civic activism and petitions, while the Transition Generation, though grappling with unemployment, largely refrained from public dissent, instead expressing sentiments of bewilderment and resignation. The study illustrates how the differing lived experiences of two working-class generations played a pivotal role in shaping their interpretation of grievances and contention repertoire. The article underscores the significance of generational perspectives in gaining insight into the destiny of the Chinese working class, advocating for the integration of such perspectives into the broader fields of deindustrialization and labor studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although heritage in the digital age and heritage digitisation have received increasing scholarly attention, critical reflection on new media heritage politics as individuals, communities and institutions transmit heritage remains an unexplored area. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the representation of Chinese Nüshu (literally women's scripts) on new media platforms, paying particular attention to the centralised nature of Chinese AHD and its decentralisation through digital, democratic grassroots practices on heritage new media. Using a mixed-method approach combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, this study conducted a digital ethnography on several Nüshu social media communities from 2017 to 2022 and more than fifty in-depth interviews with twenty-three Nüshu stakeholders including official and unofficial transmitters, local officials, heritage experts, and local residence. The study finds dynamic negotiations in terms of cultural (re)production, power transformation, actors' empowerment, and identity construction between the local authorised heritage discourse (AHD) and folk heritage discourse on new media. Furthermore, as a form of decentralisation of local AHD, the study demonstrates the presence of digital heritage democratisation in China through new media. However, this creates the potential for new discursive hegemony in folk heritage society. Recently, short-form content's popularity has rapidly risen; the study reveals the complex politics of 'positivity' in relation to the representation of heritage on short-form video platforms in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of citizenship education witnessed an expanding body of literature looking at the case of China. Yet citizenship with broad conceptual terrain often refers to different things in the literature. This paper foregrounds the common core of the essentially contested concept of citizenship and considers citizenship conception as discourse. By engaging with and drawing evidence from extant literature, this paper critically examines citizenship in the academic and related official and social discourses. It discloses the discursive conformity among the academic, official, and social discourses of citizenship in mainland China and discusses the politics beneath the conformity. It suggests that the fundamental values of liberty and equality constitutive of the common core of citizenship should not be lost but localized to serve as the conceptual and analytical compass in the contestation of citizenship and citizenship education discourses in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the decision-making process of the Yangtze-to-Huai Water Transfer Project (YHWTP) in China to explore how governments at various levels and the public respond to spatial and jurisdictional ambiguities inherent in the incomplete decentralization of water governance. Through participatory observations, semi-structured interviews and investigation of historical records of the project, we examine scalar strategies adopted by various groups at different stages. We find that within China's regionally decentralized authoritarian regime under centralized regulation, the scalar configurations as a result of the scalar strategies produce material consequence in the planning, designing and construction of inter-basin transfer projects. The use of such strategies transforms the existing scalar configuration, which provides a basis for further changes in the power structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including rising cultural marketplace of the China's early reform era, 1978–1989; cultural officials working at provincial and municipal levels; and intensity of political scrutiny.

A 2016 review of literature about automation, algorithms and politics identified China as the foremost area in which further research was needed because of the size of its population, the potential for Chinese algorithmic manipulation in the politics of other countries, and the frequency of exportation of Chinese software and hardware. This paper contributes to the small body of knowledge on the first point (domestic automation and opinion manipulation) and presents the first piece of research into the second (international automation and opinion manipulation). Findings are based on an analysis of 1.5 million comments on official political information posts on Weibo and 1.1 million posts using hashtags associated with China and Chinese politics on Twitter. In line with previous research, little evidence of automation was found on Weibo. In contrast, a large amount of automation was found on Twitter. However, contrary to expectations and previous news reports, no evidence was found of pro-Chinese-state automation on Twitter. Automation on Twitter was associated with anti-Chinese-state perspectives and published in simplified Mandarin, presumably aimed at diasporic Chinese and mainland users who 'jump the wall' to access blocked platforms. These users come to Twitter seeking more diverse information and an online public sphere but instead they find an information environment in which a small number of anti-Chinese-state voices are attempting to use automation to dominate discourse. Our understanding of public conversation on Twitter in Mandarin is extremely limited and, thus, this paper advances the understanding of political communication on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies occupy a central position in the Covid-19 pandemic. Public response has been deemed extremely important, with social media platforms playing a key role in both institutional and bottom-up information sharing processes. The emerging field of platform studies has shown that platforms increasingly influence how society works; however, such studies often adopt a highly Western-centric approach. By focusing on Twitter and Weibo use in the early stages of the pandemic, the paper presents an exploratory study that comparatively explores the role of the two platforms for both Western and Chinese publics. Our findings indicate that during the Covid-19 outbreak, Weibo worked as a propaganda tool to unite the Chinese people and promote public policies under the control of the government and the guidance of the mainstream media. Twitter functioned more like a public discourse platform open to personal expression, often showing the influence of defined partisan political discourses. We argue that the participatory dynamics characterizing Weibo and Twitter conversations at the outbreak of the pandemic at least partially mirrored the different 'platforms societies' currently developing in China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a corpus-based critical discourse study of the representations of the National Congresses of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) in China Daily (CD) and The New York Times (NYT) in the past two decades. It is found that the shared keywords in the CD corpus and NYT corpus tend to suggest different discursive constructions of the same event in different social-political contexts. The different representations of the NCCPC can be revealed in the three types of discourse-historical discursive strategies (referential or nomination strategies, predicational strategies, and perspectivation strategies). CD prefers to construct the NCCPC as important political events and brand China's political system, China's contribution to world stability and prosperity in reporting the events. By contrast, NYT tends to construct them as events of power transfer and point towards criticisms of China's political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals' vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health scholarship. Recognising these barriers, this paper applies a gender matrix methodology, grounded in feminist political economy approaches, to evaluate the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response in four case studies: China, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK. Through a rapid scoping of documentation of the gendered effects of the outbreak, it applies the matrix framework to analyse findings, identifying common themes across the case studies: financial discrimination, crisis in care, and unequal risks and secondary effects. Results point to transnational structural conditions which put women on the front lines of the pandemic at work and at home while denying them health, economic and personal security – effects that are exacerbated where racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequities. Given that women and people living at the intersections of multiple inequities are made additionally vulnerable by pandemic responses, intersectional feminist responses should be prioritised at the beginning of any crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disease prevention and health care delivery, areas traditionally governed by the nation state and local communities, are increasingly being inhabited by ‘mobile sovereigns’ who carry a global currency of prevention strategies and treatments grounded in the universal standards of scientific evidence. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from research conducted on HIV in southwest China, this paper examines the impact of evidence-based science on the effectiveness of global health programming. It interrogates the intentions of global health partnerships and how the balance of power waged between those with money, science, and technical expertise, and those seeking assistance and resources, influences global health programming. Ultimately, the paper demonstrates the disconnect between the demand for a system of universal standards developed on the basis of scientific evidence and an appreciation for the local context, which shapes the way these standards should be modified for effective implementation of global health programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses a governmentality approach to examine the political history of human–canine relationships in the People's Republic of China, focusing on the evolution of household dog regulations in Beijing. In doing so, it ties the micropolitics of human–canine relations to transformations in political, economic, and social governance and ways of thinking about and acting on the interactions between human and nonhuman animal species. An examination of successive waves of government regulations reveals a shift from top-down authoritarian approaches to governance toward a greater recognition of (circumscribed) individual responsibility and self-governance, which is emerging under the organizing framework of "social credit." This government-managed rearrangement is contributing to the rise of new understandings of human–canine interactions as co-constitutive relationships based in citizenship rights and obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) is one of the most important engineering institutions for Chinese engineers. The formal establishment of CAE, from its original conception in 1978 to its final birth in 1994, took almost 20 years. At present it has been in existence for two decades. Both the former decades-long emergence and the latter decades-long operation of CAE can be interpreted in terms of an interaction between expertise and politics. To understand the CAE's origins and operation, this paper will first examine how 'engineering' and 'engineer' have slightly different meanings in the historical and cultural context of China than in the West. Then it will focus on the decades-long creation of the CAE. In the 1970s, the proposal for a Chinese engineering academy was initiated by scientist and engineer members of the Chinese Academy of Science, as a result of both domestic and international influences. Through the 1980s and 90s, a few politicians jointly with those scientists and engineers made a crucial contribution to the founding of the CAE. Finally, the article offers an account of CAE's structure and operation during the first twenty years of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Xi Jinping placed poverty alleviation on the main agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), various means have been adopted to promote a more rational distribution of income in difficult-to-manage regions. One method used by the CCP is the posting of first secretaries to rural areas, which allows the higher levels of government to penetrate the grassroots and facilitates effective poverty alleviation. This paper is a systematic empirical study on the topic of first secretaries-in-residence. It explains the operation, effectiveness, and deficiencies of the system and seeks to enhance understanding of rural governance in China among the academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the everyday politics of rural Chinese officials will be analyzed, largely drawing on my own fieldwork in central China, and studies by Western and Chinese scholars who have spent extensive periods of time working alongside rural officials. The dual identities of Chinese officials as market players and the implementers of government policy are outlined. The paper will examine the formal, informal and semi-formal dynamics of political power in rural China, and propose a matrix of incentives and constraints that can be used to analyze the behavior of rural officials across different regions of China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cambodia’s current abortion rate and ratio could be among the highest in Southeast Asia. In 1997, the Cambodian parliament passed the first law regulating abortions. This law was adopted to contribute to reduce the high maternal mortality ratio, as a significant number of maternal deaths were believed to be related to complications of unsafe abortion. A decade later, the Ministry of Health had not yet established medical protocols for safe abortion access and women often continued to induce their own terminations or seek unsafe services. However, in 2009, the Cambodian authorities approved the importation and distribution of one manufactured abortion pill. In addition, manual vacuum abortions and medical abortion training programmes were implemented at the referral hospital level. How has this situation come about? What do we know about the local agencies of the transnational reproductive health policies related to safe abortion access in this country? This paper aims to analyse how history and intersections between global interventions, state policies, local moralities and individual strategies shape abortion policies, practices and technologies. Finally, our findings raise some issues for public health programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic epidemiology examines the role of genetic factors in determining health and disease in families and in populations to help addressing health problems in a responsible manner. This paper uses a case study of genetic epidemiology in Taizhou, China, to explore ways in which anthropology can contribute to the validation of studies in genetic epidemiology. It does so, first, by identifying potential overgeneralizations of data, often due to mismatching scale and, second, by examining it’s embedding in political, historical and local contexts. The example of the longitudinal cohort study in Taizhou illustrates dimensions of such ‘political scaling’. Political scaling is a notion used here to refer to the effects of scaling biases in relation to the justification of research in terms of relevance, reach and research ethics. The justification of a project on genetic epidemiology involves presenting a maximum of benefits and a minimum of burden for the population. To facilitate the delineation of political scaling, an analytical distinction between donating and benefiting communities was made using the notions of ‘scaling of relevance’, ‘scaling of reach’ and ‘scaling of ethics’. Political scaling results at least partly from factors external to research. By situating political scaling in the context of historical, political and local discourses, anthropologists can play a complementary role in genetic epidemiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1940s China, a renowned leftist intellectual, Hu Feng, proposed a theory of ‘subjective fighting spirit’ for the writing of realistic fiction, which provoked a heated debate. This paper intends to re-examine this significant event. After analyzing the content of this theory and the historical subtext, this paper suggests that this theory contains a political agenda, which should be understood in relation to the cultural politics of modern China. The divergence of his view on contemporary Chinese society (and its culture) from the CCP's is the major reason for his disagreement with Mao's vision of a new culture. This shows competition for cultural hegemony in the field of cultural production at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data of enterprises and entrepreneurs from Liuzhou, Guangxi, China, the determinants of political participation of private enterprises are studied. We find (1) entrepreneurs who are older or from larger older enterprises have a higher probability of becoming members of the People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while gender, education and household registration status do not significantly affect their political participation. (2) Entrepreneurs with membership in the Communist Party of China or other parties have a higher probability of entering politics. Compared with Communist Party members, those of other parties have a much higher probability of political participation. (3) Parental leadership identity increases entrepreneur probability of entering politics. Its effect is between that of Communist Party membership and other party membership. This paper provides evidence that Chinese entrepreneurs in private enterprises are translating their economic power, political identity, and household background into formal political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recognizes the challenges faced by the People`s Bank of China in its central banking endeavor The fundamental problem lies with the entrenchment of party politics within the government, which compromises its operations. We conclude that it needs to make a paradigm shift from its current controlled disposition to one that calls the shots in all central banking decisions, especially now that more is expected of it with China becoming a member of the World Trade Organization. However the relationship between the government and the party has to be changed before it can enjoy the manifestations of a truly independent central bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the historical relationship between new media development and Chinese politics that led to the formation of the Chinese state's strategy on media convergence in 2014. Specifically, it analyses a series of influential public controversies in China's microblog or Weibo sphere in the formative years of Weibo's development (2011–2012) to reveal the profound class biases, partisan excesses, as well as symbolic violence of Weibo as a platform for public deliberation on Chinese politics. The degeneration of Weibo politics and its anti-democratic nature foreshadowed the state's intention to steer the direction of media convergence to ensure that the process will not be hijacked by elite interests so as to sustain some resemblance to the CCP's traditional mass line mode of political communication. However, how to realize the state's vision remains a formidable task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a shift over the past generation in the moral basis for legitimacy of the Chinese state. The socialist state was legitimated by a sinified version of Marxism-Leninism, watered with the blood of revolutionary martyrs who fought on behalf of the Communist Party to defend the nation from external aggressors. However, at many levels of society, the Marxist legitimation is dead. Instead of claiming to represent the values of Communist revolutionary struggle in the twentieth century, the state is now presenting itself as the carrier and the defender of 5000 years of national cultural heritage. This undoubtedly arises partly from changes in moral attitude arising from the grass roots and partly from government initiatives descending from the top down. There is wide variation across China in the intermingling between the bottom-up and top-down moral impulses, and this is partially connected with different moral ecologies constituted by configurations of state and local political and economic institutions throughout China. In this paper, based on case studies from fieldwork carried out in several different locations in 2009, the author draws a broad map of these variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a reinterpretation of Japan's responses toward China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue. It is generally taken for granted that Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the issue are determined by the personality of individual leaders, the emergence of Japanese conservative nationalism and the calculations of Japan's national interests with regard to China's strategic role. With the examination of two cases during the Koizumi and Abe administrations between 2001 and 2007, this paper offers an alternative interpretation by highlighting the rationality of individual political actors and the primacy of domestic political survival. The article suggests domestic political legitimacy of individual leaders is a vital factor that affects Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we now know, once you introduce audience ratings, as China has done, you have not just introduced 'a measure'; you have introduced a huge apparatus that brings with it certain types of agreements, values and behaviours. No doubt, China's leaders saw the ratings as a neutral mechanism in mapping broadcast audiences. The history of ratings, however, is quite the opposite. It is a set of standards, values and conventions that drives particular kinds of expectations in organizations, technology and content. Audience ratings first provided a coordination rule for advertiser-supported media and then became a convention, harnessed by TV to change media economics. In this paper the authors provide an insight into how audience ratings, as a convention - a compact - emerged in Australia and America, and some of the major differences between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as major investors in the global economy has raised worries that they serve the geopolitical ends of owner countries. However, given the paramount importance of surviving domestic political competitions, SWFs are likely also tools of domestic political survival. In examining the corporate governance and underlying political environment in which SWFs in Singapore and in China operate, this paper further examines the role of political unity in directing SWF behaviour in authoritarian regimes. The main finding is that a highly unified autocracy is more likely to direct SWFs to maximise long-term profit, while a fragmented one like China is more likely to treat its SWF as an arena for domestic political and bureaucratic infighting. SWFs operating in a fragmented regime are unlikely to make long-term profit and foreign policy objectives top priorities, and their behaviour can be highly unpredictable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares Chinese nationalism of the 1990s with the historic beginning of modern Chinese nationalism in the 1910s and argues that they are two different nationalisms. While the post-imperial May Fourth nationalism of the 1910s arose in a poor and backward China to seek wealth and power for the nation, the 1990s saw the resurgence of nationalism rooted in China's late communist authoritarian prosperity. Following a Weberian framework to examine nationalism's connections with material interests, political power and cultural orientations, the paper finds that the Chinese nationalism of the 1990s reversed all the radical features of early 20th century developmental and cosmopolitan nationalism, as it defended the Chinese model of development, endorsed political authoritarianism, and sought sources of legitimacy and identity in traditional Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses several assumptions underlying the promotion of democracy and good governance in rural China. We draw on a 1999 survey of 120 villages in four counties, two in Anhui and two in Heilongjiang provinces (sample of 2,997 households, including villagers, cadres and entrepreneurs). First, we look at how institutionalized ‘democratic procedures’, such as secret ballots, multi-candidate elections, public nominations, and village contracts, are in these villages. Then we analyze villager views on economic development and democracy, finding that villagers want more democracy, even if the economy is doing well. Third, we assess their views on the election process; do they see elections as efficacious, fair, and competitive, or do they feel that the local power elite manipulate outcomes? Fourth, we found that the richest people are less supportive of democracy, with the most democratic being middle-income households. Finally, elections have increased local elite turnover, cadres understand this, and therefore, democracy does lead to good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The much-publicized reversion of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China on July 1. 1997. has been hailed as a success by many. Politically, it has been pointed out that Hong Kong has scarcely changed since the handover. Nevertheless, the alleged successful transition has also witnessed a number of economic. social, and political crises. Drawing on systematically collected longitudinal data of public opinion, this paper tries to answer two important questions: first, has the quasi- bureaucratic-authoritarian political structure of the post- transition government experienced a "legitimation problem," i.e., a rejection of the political structure as a whole. And second, does social discontent directed at incumbent government officials represent strong bottom-up pressure for faster democratization? The longitudinal data suggest that even when public confidence in the HKSAR government dropped to its lowest level in June 1998, there was no evidence to suggest the quasi-bureaucratic authoritarian system had a legitimation problem, nor was there strong public pressure demanding rapid democratization. The demand for changing the political system has seldom been treated as an important personal concern during the transitional period. While social and economic issues have been of great personal concern for most Hong Kong people. very few of them have demanded democratic changes as a way of restoring confidence. Pressure for bottom-up democratization remains low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh-China relations has been a matter of much scrutiny since China emerged as Bangladesh's biggest trading partner in 2006. Most of the research surrounding bilateral relations provided political, economic, and strategic explanations for a rising bonhomie between the two countries. Often, these studies failed to expand the nature of the relationship from regional and global perspectives. This research plans to address these lacunae in the research in understanding the patterns of the contemporary relationship between Bangladesh and China by taking bilateral, regional, and global perspectives into account that reinforce the patterns of the relationship. In other words, this research aims to look into Bangladesh-China relations analyzing the roles of individual and domestic factors, regional politics, and global perspectives. The article, by highlighting China's involvement in Bangladesh on multiple levels, shall argue that without paying attention to and identifying the interplay among the three levels of analysis, the contours of Bangladesh-China relations cannot be fully explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of journalism in China. Media is not considered a politically independent or neutral enterprise, nor is journalism considered an autonomous profession. The purpose of the media and of journalism, as Party Chairman Hu Yaobang puts it in appendix 3, is to serve as "mouthpiece of the party." It is also true, as Lu Dingyi makes clear in appendix 2, that the media has the duty to be in constant and close contact with the people, serving not only their informational needs but also facilitating their political articulation. In theory, these top-down and bottom-up functions are in harmony because the Chinese Communist Party serves the interests of the masses. In practice, the ambiguity translates into direct party control of media and considerable journalistic vulnerability to changes in political wind. Journalism in China, as elsewhere, attracts some adventurous souls who constantly test the limits of the allowable and who thereby define the current and shifting limits of journalistic elbowroom, and current party policy encourages experimentation and treats false steps fairly leniently.

Various conspiracy theories have accompanied COVID-19 since its initial outbreak. Based on a nationwide survey in China, this study probes the health consequences of beliefs in different COVID-19 conspiracy theories in China. The research found that believing the coronavirus has a foreign natural origin was associated with increased rather than decreased intention to adopt protective behaviors. Nonetheless, believing that the source of the pandemic was a Chinese lab or that it is a foreign biological weapon was related to reduced intentions to protect one's health. In addition, measured as national pride and satisfaction with China's pandemic control effort, people's level of nationalism was strongly associated with their intention to adopt protective behaviors, which moderates the health consequences of believing in false conspiracy theories. Scientific literacy was also associated with an increased likelihood of adopting preventive measures. Despite revealing the diversified health consequences of conspiracy beliefs, this study demonstrates the importance of examining collectivist sociopolitical constructs in health communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the emergence of 'Chinese influence' as a conceptual touchstone of Australia's public policy discourse in 2017–2018. The People's Republic of China's (PRC) efforts to influence politics abroad had been well documented since the 2000s and cannot explain the timing of their securitization from mid-2017. It was through the formation of a securitizing coalition of intelligence officials, politicians, and journalists that the PRC as a source of existential threats gained policy traction. But as the coalition expanded from security agencies to politicians and the media, the scope of the threat expanded from an initial concern with PRC party-state activity to the securitization of a much wider array of state and non-state activities under the ambiguous label 'Chinese influence'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses quantitative analysis to discuss the effects of the Chinese Communist Party's factional politics on the regional distribution of foreign direct investment inflows from 1993 to 2017. Empirical evidence shows that provincial leaders' personal connections with the CCP's incumbent general secretary had positive and statistically significant effects on the annual growth rate of provincial foreign direct investment inflows. These effects were more salient in inland provinces and during Xi era. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom about the evolution of institutions under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and demonstrate the importance of informal politics in promoting China's economic reform and prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant negative socio-political, economic, and psychological consequences. To investigate the impact of individual-level (illness representations of COVID-19) and structurally derived (anticipated social-political development in the economy, security, and social harmony in the next year) factors, and their potential moderation effects on depressive symptoms. An anonymous population-based telephone survey was conducted among the general public of Hong Kong, China during 3–10 April 2020 (n = 300, response rate 56%). Depressive symptoms were assessed by the validated Chinese version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Of the participants, 8.7% showed probable moderate-to-severe depression. Hierarchical linear regression models showed that illness representations of personal/treatment control and emotional responses and anticipated deterioration in social harmony were independently and significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Anticipated deterioration in security significantly moderated the associations between perceived consequence/treatment control of COVID-19 and depressive symptoms, such that the associations were stronger among people who anticipated a strong deterioration in security. The findings suggested that perceptions of COVID-19 and future social-political development jointly and interactively contributed to depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health professionals and promotions should take the multiple-level mental health determinants into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting an approach that differs from practices in other countries, China has made many achievements in reducing poverty for people with disabilities using two successful types of policies and a unique political mobilization mechanism. However, inconsistencies between the policies and their implementation in the Chinese policy environment has produced new exclusionary effects, hindering the process of social integration for people with disabilities. These obstacles need to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on three conceptual lenses through which a better understanding of the politics of religion in contemporary China is expected to obtain. On the basis of a genealogical and discursive analysis of 'religious freedom' as a paradoxical concept and institution, and by identifying the 'post-colonial' condition of contemporary China, this article argues for a non-dichotomous understanding of the Chinese and Western political approaches to religion and religious freedom and attempts to further locate the real logic of the Chinese politics of religion in the Chinese Communist Party's agenda for the 'Chinese state building'. Four interrelated factors, i.e. China's economic development, the Chinese nationalism, the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, and international relations and global competition, that are especially important for the Party and governments at all levels in their setting and implementing of policies on religion are considered, in order to provide an explication of the dynamic, multiple forms of negotiation between modern secular politics and its 'heterodoxies' that define the politics of religion in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to the Song model and its far-reaching influences, for instance, no serious regional factionalism nor usurpation by local lords witnessed in the Tang occurred again in imperial China. As such, the population under the Song became, as it were, "people" of a "nation" with which they were connected and, in return, the "nation" was also expected to improve their well-being.[3] Over the past century, the "Tang-Song transition" has precipitated heated debates as well as faced serious criticisms among historians in both China and abroad. From the early third century BCE when China became unified under imperial rule, the realm maintained a relatively stable political and social structure. 4 While writing this introduction, we did a search in CNKI, China's largest database for academic publications, using phrases (Tang-Song transformation thesis) and (Tang-Song transition thesis), which resulted in near hundred hits. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the rise of labor dispatch – a fast-growing form of precarious work – and its regulation politics in post-socialist China. Drawing on qualitative research, the author argues that rather than generalized deregulation and state retrenchment, the development of labor dispatch in China is shaped by the intertwined dynamics of precarization and dualization, with the state playing a predominant role in uneven regulation and institutionalized dualism. Through a case study of the automobile industry, the article investigates agency workers' social composition, subjective workplace experiences, and struggles. It highlights the boundary-drawing strategy pursued by the state and employers to strike a balance between increasing labor flexibility and profitability and maintaining certain stability and legitimacy with a core workforce. However, this strategy has also generated new terrains of contradiction and resistance by agency workers. The state re-regulation to limit labor dispatch in the face of rising labor disputes and agency workers' discontents channeled by the official trade union, suggests that labor politics in post-socialist China is a contested process. These findings advance a contextualized, dynamic approach to the study of precarious work that emphasizes the contradictions of capitalism, the historical and national contexts, boundary-drawing dynamics, and key actors in shaping the contours of precarious work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key to further elucidate and enrich the academic concept or discourse of "socialist eco-civilization" lies in that it cannot be simplified or falsified in reality as a public policy of ecological environment governance, but be separated from the grander and more important background and context of "socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist theory with Chinese characteristics." More specifically, the discourse and politics of "socialist eco-civilization," compared with various forms of "eco-centrism" or "eco-capitalism," can (or should) represent the essence or goal of contemporary China's eco-civilization construction strategy. Therefore, the theory of "social-ecological transformation" (SET) advocated and promoted by the "green-left" academic circles in the Western countries, as well as other radical transformation theories in other areas of the world, may not eventually lead to a "great transformation" or even a "socialist transformation" of contemporary capitalist society, but it does provide us some enlightenments on methodology (discourse) and politics of constructing a socialist eco-civilization in China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yi Nao describes a type of violence displayed in Chinese hospitals which involves organised disturbances led by patients' relatives and/or Yi Nao gangs. Drawing on media reports of Yi Nao, we argue that the phenomenon of Yi Nao transforms hospitals into 'power arenas' in which a struggle over moral and political resources (capital) takes place between patients, Yi Nao gangs, doctors, government agencies, and hospital management. Two interrelated rules that are crucial to understanding the ad hoc local strategies of the actors involved in Yi Nao are examined: the 'publicity rule', and the 'rule of risk-avoidance'. We also argue that the political discourse of 'stability' has been internalised by the officials in the Chinese government and public hospitals in mediating social disputes. At the same time, Yi Nao actors use this discourse to creatively adapt to social resistance, as reflected in the disposition to use performative disturbance in pursuit of material or symbolic compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media content is diverse, ranging from political and social commentary to more mundane, every day, 'soft' content. Here we argue that all of this content, at core, is ideological and political. Communication about everyday events, actions, issues and people articulates dominant (and sometimes alternative) ideological discourses about the nature of our society. Arguably, even the most banal comments are infused with norms and values, with scripts about what should be done, what is important and what is not, based on discourses about how we should run our societies. It is in these banal and everyday instances of communication that deeper senses of who we are, and values and judgements about the social order, reside. Using a range of examples from Weibo, such as anti-Trump posts, women fitness influencers, and posts about gender inequalities in the workplace, we argue for the importance and value of looking for politics in all kinds of social media comments and platforms, not so much in terms of formal politics, but a more banal and everyday kind. This means looking deeper at all individual instances, even if at first glance they appear to represent a counter point or marginalised voices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patient advocacy and media coverage are important strategies for changing health policies. China is no exception. Through 31 interviews and content analysis of 1,136 news stories related to hepatitis B, this study revealed how members of Chinese health advocacy groups strategically built a coalition with the news media, actively played the role of 'policy entrepreneurs', and successfully affected the framing of hepatitis B. As a result, China's grassroots civil societies not only successfully attracted public attention to the previously ignored problem of discrimination against people affected by hepatitis B but also impacted on the state's rewriting of public policies on this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to make sense of one's mortality is of central concern for death studies. We aimed to explore the meaning of aftermath concerns in the process of preparing for death. Using a qualitative approach, we explored aftermath concerns among 25 participants with terminal cancer in China. Three aftermath concern themes were developed from the participants' narratives: mental concerns about parents, material concerns about children, and spiritual concerns about the self. Aftermath concerns are relational because they are not about what happens within an individual, but between individuals which are manifested within the broader cultural, social, economic, and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western modernity, the darker side of which is global coloniality that is dependent upon translation, is essentially a culture of time. While the temporality of modernity has been well analysed and explained in the West, it remains largely unknown how the politics of time has been operating in and through translation in the Rest. This article attempts to explore ways in which the politics of time is played out in early-modern textual and extratextual translation of modernity in China, whose traditional conception of time and vision of human life encoded in its language differs from those of the West represented by Greco-Roman and Christian traditions. By examining a few cases in the Jesuits' translational activities in the later Ming and early Qing dynasties, it demonstrates how modernity's temporal–spatial construct asserted itself in China by way of biblical chronologization, and spatial and textual manipulation in geographic, philosophical, and science translation, through which modernity has, in time, changed China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ostensibly driven by concerns over a military standoff with China similar to Doklam, India increased military deployment at the Myanmar tri-junction. This article assesses the inevitability of systemic factors such as rivalry with China in determining India's approach on border issues. It asks why India sought formalization of its boundary with Burma in 1967. Given its territorial disputes with China, resolving the Burma boundary should have been high priority. Still, it took India two decades after independence to broach the subject. Based on fresh archival and interview data, this article answers the question by examining the India–Burma Boundary Agreement. A three-party territorial dispute, the making of this agreement witnessed simultaneous interplay between states with visible power differentials, and various stakeholders within India's polity and bureaucracy. The article argues that even when inter-state competition is apparent, domestic factors may be more important in triggering foreign policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Progress in gender equity can improve health at the individual and country levels. Objectives: This study's objective was to analyze recent trends in gender equity and identify historical and contextual factors that contributed to changes in gender equity in three countries: China, Nepal, and Nicaragua. Methods: To assess gender equity trends, we used the Gender Gap Index (GGI) from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report (2006–2017). The GGI incorporated data on economic participation, educational attainment, health, and political empowerment for almost 150 countries. We selected China, Nepal, and Nicaragua because of their major changes in GGI and diversity in geographical location and economic status. We reviewed major social, economic, and political events during 2006–2017, and identified key events in each country. We compared countries' GGI with matched controls average using interrupted time-series analysis. Results: Nepal and Nicaragua both had dramatic increases in GGI (improvement in equity), Nepal (β = 0.029; 95% CI: 0.003, 0.056) and Nicaragua (β = 0.035; 95% CI: 0.005, 0.065). This was strongly influenced by political empowerment, which likely impacted access to education and employment opportunities. Despite major economic growth and new policies to address gender inequities (e.g. the One-Child Policy), China saw a significant decline in GGI between 2010 and 2017 (β = −0.014; 95% CI: −0.024, −0.004), largely resulting from decreased gender equity in educational attainment, economic participation, and health/survival sub-indices. Conclusions: Key social, economic, and political events helped explain trends in countries' gender equity. Our study suggested that supportive social and political environments would play important roles in empowering women, which would advance human rights and promote health and well-being of individuals, households, communities, and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hegemonic-order theory draws attention to relationships of asymmetrical power and legitimate consent. This article emphasizes the importance of "lynchpin partnerships" in the maintenance of hegemonic order. The postwar US order relied on partnerships with Germany and Japan, and after the Cold War the United States sought to enlarge its hegemony by offering partner bargains to Russia and China. The terms of partnership differed significantly based on the relative significance of each state to the management of America's hegemonic order. That order is now in jeopardy given that the partnership with Russia failed, while that with China succeeded for two decades but is now under considerable strain. The US experience suggests that hegemonic orders are easier to establish than to extend, and, since the dominant state controls the terms of entry, liberal hegemonic orders are easier for some states to join than for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two 2018 World Cup qualifiers between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong were played out under a politically charged backdrop. Although the politicized atmosphere of these two matches was unprecedented, previous matches between the two teams did trigger two small scale riots, once in Hong Kong in 1980, and once in Beijing in 1985. This essay suggests that, since the PRC and Hong Kong first met in 1975, there have been three different stages concerning the political meanings of matches between these two sides. These three stages reflect the evolving political context and changing identities of the Hong Kong people. In the ongoing third stage, a rivalry between the PRC and Hong Kong has emerged because the fixture now embodies the conflicts between Hong Kong’s localism and the PRC’s nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]