China Journal
Volume 71, Issue 1, Jan 2014
1. Title:A Longitudinal Study of Son and Daughter Preference among Chinese Only-Children from Adolescence to Adulthood
Authors:Kim, Sung Won; Fong, Vanessa L.
Abstract:In this mixed-method longitudinal study, we examined the continuity of son preference and daughter preference from adolescence to adulthood, and investigated how perceptions of gender equity shape these preferences among 2,273 youth born in Dalian between 1979 and 1986 under the one-child policy. The majority expressed no preference in adolescence or adulthood. Results from multivariate analysis and the narratives of 23 participants revealed that child gender preferences in adolescence were predictive of later preferences in adulthood. Furthermore, in adolescence, child gender preferences were associated with individuals' beliefs about gender as manifested in their attitudes towards women and employment, as well as their perceptions of parental and social gender biases against women. Our findings suggest that increasingly gender-egalitarian attitudes in urban China shape the child gender preferences of singleton youth in adolescence, and are likely to contribute to their later childbearing decisions, with important social and demographic implications.
2. Title:Fearless Love, Death for Dignity: Female Suicide and Gendered Subjectivity in Rural North China
Authors:Lee, Hyeon Jung.
Abstract:While the high rates of female suicide in rural China have attracted much scholarly attention, previous studies have not addressed the psychological processes by which individual women in rural areas decide to attempt suicide. Based on ethnographic research in Hebei villages, this article examines different types of gendered subjectivity that lead some rural women to make fatal decisions. Suicidal behavior is an important form of female agency that asserts rural women's moral aspiration for freedom and individual rights, but this form of agency does not highlight their ability to resist. Rather, it points to their powerless positions in the community. From these findings, I argue that neither the concept of resistance nor that of subjection can properly represent the complex realities and inner voices of rural women who attempt suicide.
3.Title:Re-Writing Mythology in Xinjiang: The Case of the Queen Mother of the West, King Mu and the Kunlun
Authors:Rippa, Alessandro.
Abstract:The Chinese Communist Party has often used history as a tool to serve its political purposes. This article analyzes the ways in which mythological accounts have been manipulated in order to strengthen Beijing's control over the restive northwestern province of Xinjiang. Relying on an analysis of various materials (including museum exhibitions, textbooks and travel guides), I explore how the figures of the Queen Mother of the West and King Mu of the Zhou have been used to assert that Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of China since prehistoric times. The materials analyzed treat mythological texts as valid sources of geographical and historical data, whereas Western scholars largely agree that these cannot provide any reliable information of this kind. In accordance with the tradition of early commentators, I define this approach as euhemeristic, in that it treats mythological accounts as a reflection of historical events.
4. Title:Societal Support for China's Grass-Roots NGOs: Evidence from Yunnan, Guangdong and Beijing
Authors:Spires, Anthony J; Tao, Lin; Chan, Kin-man.
Abstract:In the past two decades, the number of grass-roots NGOs in China has grown dramatically, yet most scholarship on Chinese civil society has had little to say about the resources on which they rely for survival. This article presents the first large-scale study of these groups and their resources. We compare 263 NGOs across issue areas (including HIV, education, the environment and labor rights) and regions (Beijing, Guangdong and Yunnan). We find that these groups are tapping into high levels of human resources-volunteers, boards of directors and informal government ties-even without official government approval for their activities. We also detail their sources of funding, revealing a diverse support system with clear regional and issue-based biases. Taken together, our findings form a baseline for understanding Chinas grass-roots NGOs and point out new research questions that have yet to be addressed in the civil society literature.
5. Title:Consensus Crisis and Civil Society: The Sichuan Earthquake Response and State-Society Relations
Authors:Xu, Bin.
Abstract:A consensus crisis is characterized by challenges to the states managerial capacity, a critical need for civil society's services, a general agreement on priorities and goals, and the state's efforts to construct a morally respectable image. These features amplify the structural conditions favorable for relatively amicable state-society interactions. Existing studies of social response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake focus on state-society relations, but neglect the role of situations. I argue that the earthquake is an example of a consensus crisis, which provided civil associations with a situational opening of political opportunity.
6. Title:Autocrats' Dilemma: The Dual Impacts of Village Elections on Public Opinion in China
Authors:Sun, Xin.
Abstract:How do authoritarian elections affect voters' attitudes toward the regime and their support for democracy? This article draws upon the case of village elections in China to argue that elections may have two simultaneous effects. First, free and fair elections increase citizens' confidence in the government. Second, elections also allow voters to exercise political rights and accumulate democratic experience through participation, and this in turn may trigger greater demand for further empowerment. Empirical analysis of data from a two-round nationwide survey conducted in 114 villages confirms both effects. One implication of these findings is that competitive elections may simultaneously boost regime popularity and increase public demand for further democratic reform.
7. Title:Crisis Management, Regime Survival and "Guerrilla-Style" Policy-Making: The June 1999 Decision to Radically Expand Higher Education in China
Authors:Wang, Qinghua.
Abstract:Based on newly available memoirs and previously unexplored policy speeches by insiders, this article conducts a political analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's decision to radically expand college enrollment in June 1999. I argue that the decision exemplifies a "guerrilla-style approach" to policy-making. From late March to early June of 1999 when the radical expansion policy was formulated and legitimated, the top leadership ignored opposition from the Ministry of Education (MOE), overturned established policies and assumed de facto control over MOE bureaucratic power. This abrupt, forceful, disruptive and non-professional policy intervention, which aimed to ensure regime survival in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, was antithetical to regularized educational policy-making in post-Mao China.
8. Title:"Sprinting with Small Steps" Towards Promotion: Solutions for the Age Dilemma in the CCP Cadre Appointment System
Authors:Kou, Chien-Wen; Tsai, Wen-Hsuan.
Abstract:Within the operational procedures of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadre appointment system, age restrictions hinder cadre promotion. As a result, three different methods have emerged to bypass these restrictions, allowing officials to attain faster promotion. These three methods are the Communist Youth League route, temporary transferred duty and non-regulation promotion. This article will explain the age restriction system, and then outline the three methods and discuss their impact on the appointment system as a whole. The examples of Zhou Qiang and Lu Hao, rising political stars, demonstrate how these methods are used to gain substantial age advantages for successful career progression.
9. Title:Societies of Senior Citizens and Popular Protest in Rural Zhejiang: Research Report
Authors:Deng, Yanhua; O'Brien, Kevin J.
Abstract:Societies of Senior Citizens (SSCs) are often thought to be non-political organizations focused on community traditions and services for the elderly. In Huashui Town, Zhejiang, however, SSCs took the lead in mobilizing protest and caused 11 factories to be closed. From 2004 to 2005, SSCs helped to fund a lawsuit, engineered a petition drive and organized tentsitting at a chemical park notorious for its pollution. Huashui's SSCs were effective mobilizing structures owing to their strong finances, organizational autonomy, effective leadership and the presence of biographically available, unafraid older villagers. Skillful mobilization led to efforts to rein in village SSCs and a reorganization which, however, had only a limited effect. SSC experiences in Huashui suggest that organized protest in China is more feasible than often thought and that understandings of protest outcomes should go beyond the success or failure of an episode to explore long-term consequences for the organizations involved.
10. Title:No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems/Liu Xiaobo, Charter 08 and the Challenges of Political Reform in China
Authors:Fisac, Tatiana.
Abstract:[...]except for some articles published in specialized journals and selected Web pages, few of Liu's writings had appeared in English. [...]reading Liu, not as a research scholar but as a political activist who stands for non-violent struggle, is a must for a better understanding of the multiple contradictions of contemporary Chinese society and politics.
11. Title:Participation and Empowerment at the Grassroots: Chinese Village Elections in Perspective
Authors:Takeuchi, Hiroki.
Abstract:Because they take the introduction of elections as exogenous, Schubert and Ahlers are unable to explain why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) introduced village elections.
12. Title:Defending Rights in Contemporary China
Authors:Heberer, Thomas.
Abstract:Weiquan-as with so many slogans in Chinese politics-has never been specifically defined. [...]it remains a rather vague concept, a fact that allows actors to frame it in different ways. According to him, weiquan has no fixed meaning but is "mainly determined by the user".
13. Title:The Thought Remolding Campaign of the Chinese Communist Party-State
Authors:Varrall, Merriden.
Abstract:Much of the commentary in the West presumes an inevitable causality between economic reforms (with a growing middle class) and political reform (generally conceived of in terms of Western-style democracy). [...]his conclusion that "we must not erroneously assume that individuals' pursuit of personal desire and private gain would necessarily lead to their struggle for freedom and democracy" (p. 270) reminds commentators that more than economic growth, education and a rising middle class are required to achieve freedom.
14. Title:The Evolution of Law Reform in China: An Uncertain Path
Authors:Nesossi, Elisa.
Abstract:William Lam in Chapter 16 discusses the politicization of Chinas law enforcement and judicial apparatus; Yang Su and He Xin conclude this section by examining how the Chinese state responds to labor disputes in South China, and consider alternative instruments of informal disputes resolution. [...]Chapter 23 by Michael McConville describes the various forms of administrative punishment administered by the public security authorities, and advocates for reform (under discussion at the time of writing this review).
15.Title:Modern Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives
Authors:Balzano, John.
Abstract:[...]in the chapter entitled "The Death Penalty for Economic Crimes in the Reform Era", Liying Li shows how the death penalty has been adapted from a political tool of the campaigns to combat counterrevolutionaries and corruption in the 1950s to a tool to combat the political crises of the day, including the melamine milk scandals and the SARs epidemic. Despite substantive reforms (such as the reduction of the number of economic crimes subject to the death penalty) and procedural reforms (such as the review of death sentences by the Supreme People's Court), the death penalty is widely used and enjoys strong public support. [...]while circumstances and context may change-and perhaps there is now a greater potential for more significant reforms-the death penalty is going to be part of law enforcement in China for a long time.
16. Title:Law and Fair Work in China
Authors:Thelle, Hatla.
Abstract:Law is understood in the broad sense as including rules and regulations issued by actors other than legislative organs, including ministries, local governments, firms and unions, as well as procedures for implementation and dispute resolution, such as labor inspection, mediation and arbitration. The Maoist period was marked by the marginalization of law in all areas, so the chapter on this period turns to development of ideas and practices of a non-legal character, which continue to have an influence today, notably the idea of the trade union as an institution transmitting Party directives to workers; the creation of the work unit as the core entity for labor regulation; and the use of the campaign as a policy-implementing tool.
17. Title:China's Changing Workplace: Dynamism, Diversity and Disparity
Authors:Gao, Yuning.
Abstract:[...]the meta-analysis in Chapter 4 does not clarify that the employment of "urban units" (traditionally formal employment) is just one-third of the total urban workforce. [...]the related structural analysis by ownership and sector may have overestimated the proportion of the state-owned and manufacturing sectors. The survey of 205 family firms also provides extremely valuable data to analyze the management of human capital, distinguishing the contingency of region, firm size, owner's educational background and age group, and establishment of labor unions.
18. Title:Factory Towns of South China: An Illustrated Guidebook ...
Authors:Siu, Kaxton.
Abstract:Juxtaposing the socialist-era "iron rice bowl" ( tiefanwan) model which emphasized job and livelihood stability, Chen argues that the new "steel cafeteria tray" model takes advantage of staterun labor recruitment and infrastructure to save management costs and keep migrant workers in factories. Each case study, conducted by graduate students in the Urban Studies Program of the University of Hong Kong, provides regional maps, pictures of factory buildings, production lines, wining and dining, accommodation, and workers' daily time scheduling.
19. Title:China as the Workshop of the World: An Analysis at the National and Industry Level of China in the International Division of Labor
Authors:Franceschini, Ivan.
Abstract:[...]while China has become deeply integrated into the global manufacturing industry and is catching up rapidly in some emerging sectors, its position in the value chain remains quite low, with relatively low research and development activities, scarce "soft power" and little capacity for innovation.
20. Title:China's Peasants and Workers: Changing Class Identities
Authors:Alpermann, Björn.
Abstract:All villages in Apricot Town, the field-site, have corporatized land management, but the timing of the move (as well as whether the land corporations are real or fake) has a huge bearing on the resulting social order, as evidenced by large local variations. [...]belonging to a particular place-the village-again appears to be more relevant for emerging social identities than does occupation as peasant or worker. [...]Jack Linchuan Qiu and Hongzhe Wang directly engage in a comparative study of old and new working class segments.
21. Title:The Land Development Game in China
Authors:Sargeson, Sally.
Abstract:The Land Development Game in China is a fine example of the large and growing body of literature that applies game theory to the analysis of land development behaviors and outcomes in China. Farmers' choice is to cooperate in land expropriation, or resist and risk repression. Since 2005, Ma writes, Dragon County farmers' resistance to land expropriation has weakened because protesters risk governments' wrath, and villagers' compensation has increased.
22. Title:Community Capitalism in China: The State, the Market, and Collectivism
Authors:Boutonnet, Thomas.
Abstract:The last village, Shangyuan (Chapter 4), is remarkably different from the two previous cases, for it paradoxically combines collectivism (the lots of land are collected from the villagers by the village, consolidated into larger lots and then rented to third parties) and private entrepreneurship (most of the villagers operate their own business, and the rent from the land cooperative provides them with a safety net), creating a more distant relationship between individuals and local government institutions.
23. Title:The Governance of Energy in China: Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy
Authors:McCarthy, Joseph.
Abstract:In 2012, it invested US$ 65.1 billion in clean energy projects-the global leader, according to a 2013 Pew Charitable Trusts' report-and even prominent liberal commentators such as Thomas Friedman have praised the Chinese government's recent policy efforts to combat humaninduced climate change. [...]this book, while covering significant and rich detail in its 200-odd pages, has only just scratched the surface of the specific barriers hindering China's shift to a low-carbon future.