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This study provides an overview of the development of contemporary China studies in Singapore from the regional Cold War to the present. It argues that the waxing and waning of China studies in Singapore were intertwined with state interests at different points in time, defined in accordance with the state's self-professed 'pragmatism'. In particular, this paper suggests that the state's ostensible aversion to communist China during the regional Cold War, the decline of the Chinese language under its bilingual policy, and the state's active courting of China from the 1990s have profound and lasting influence on the state of China studies in Singapore. All in all, in the context of a rising China and the state's 'pragmatic' responses, it is likely that China studies in Singapore shall continue to gravitate toward policy research for many years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the Hong Kong local identity vis-à-vis the Chinese national identity has been particularly pronounced in recent years. This article argues that the "Mainlandization" of Hong Kong since 2003 has alienated Hong Kongers and threatened their sense of distinctiveness, which in turn has intensified their resistance to Beijing's top-down assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conversion of land to non-agricultural use in China has often been attributed to the demand for land arising from urbanization, that is, a growing urban population and the shift from agricultural to industrial activity. With a focus on Sihui 四会, a county in Guangdong, this study explains land use conversion from an alternative perspective: by looking at the supply of agricultural land for conversion and what determines this supply. It gives precedence to the role of the central actors in the process – local officials – and suggests that the extent to which agricultural land is converted for non-agricultural purposes is determined by an array of structural and agential factors, including the fiscal and land resources at the disposal of local officials, the incentive structure and macro-processes which influence their decision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]