Pub Date : 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1017/s0305741024000377
Kuei-min Chang
{"title":"The Space of Religion: Temple, State, and Buddhist Communities in Modern China Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. 440 pp. $35.00; £30.00 (pbk). ISBN 9780231197359","authors":"Kuei-min Chang","doi":"10.1017/s0305741024000377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741024000377","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"313 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140703410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-25DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001832
Hao Zhang
The emergence of digital platforms has been viewed in scholarly narratives as a “technological fix” of global capital, to use Beverly Silver's classic term. That is, capital continues to devise innovative strategies to restructure the labour process and avoid employer legal liabilities. This study reveals an important but somewhat overlooked “financial fix” aspect of the platform economy. Through a case study of a Chinese food delivery platform, the author shows that global speculative capital and its cash-burning games have generated a form of market-value fetishism in this sector. In response, platform companies have devised innovative labour acquisition strategies to expand their market share that have profoundly shaped the work and employment dynamics within the sector. In particular, the platform companies engaged in a subsidy rivalry with their competitors in order to attract crowdsourcing/gig workers for their regular services and at the same time established a highly structured subcontracting system to secure a more reliable and committed workforce to target the relatively high-end consumer market. The author argues that the interaction between global financialization and local capital's strategic choices accounts for the peculiar structure and employment dynamics in the Chinese platform economy.
{"title":"Global Financialization and Local Labour Acquisition in China's Platform Economy","authors":"Hao Zhang","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001832","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The emergence of digital platforms has been viewed in scholarly narratives as a “technological fix” of global capital, to use Beverly Silver's classic term. That is, capital continues to devise innovative strategies to restructure the labour process and avoid employer legal liabilities. This study reveals an important but somewhat overlooked “financial fix” aspect of the platform economy. Through a case study of a Chinese food delivery platform, the author shows that global speculative capital and its cash-burning games have generated a form of market-value fetishism in this sector. In response, platform companies have devised innovative labour acquisition strategies to expand their market share that have profoundly shaped the work and employment dynamics within the sector. In particular, the platform companies engaged in a subsidy rivalry with their competitors in order to attract crowdsourcing/gig workers for their regular services and at the same time established a highly structured subcontracting system to secure a more reliable and committed workforce to target the relatively high-end consumer market. The author argues that the interaction between global financialization and local capital's strategic choices accounts for the peculiar structure and employment dynamics in the Chinese platform economy.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"58 48","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139598474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-18DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001923
Felicity Lufkin
{"title":"Visions of Salvation: Chinese Christian Posters in an Age of Revolution Daryl R. Ireland. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2023. 302 pp. $69.99 (hbk). ISBN 9781481316248","authors":"Felicity Lufkin","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001923","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"125 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139615896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-15DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001893
William Jankowiak
{"title":"Chinese Marriages in Transition: From Patriarchy to New Familism Xiaoling Shu and Jingjing Chen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 218 pp. $28.95 (pbk). ISBN 9781978804661","authors":"William Jankowiak","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001893","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"101 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139530394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-12DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001868
Armin Müller
The Chinese government promotes cooperation between colleges and companies in vocational education to improve the supply of skilled workers and increase labour productivity. This study employs the concept of positive coordination – negotiations concurrently addressing productive and distributive questions – to analyse the advantages and limitations of voluntary cooperation embedded in networks. In terms of production, many projects focus on updating, narrowing and deepening curricula to lower the costs of initial training borne by companies and the risk of labour turnover. In terms of distribution, however, the deep and narrow curricula are at odds with students’ preference for general and transferable skills; and the mutual commitments of both companies and students are uncertain. The solutions provided by cooperation are partial and unstable. Overall, they reduce skill mismatches but cannot control turnover or overcome market failure, which undermines tertiary vocational education's contribution to labour productivity.
{"title":"Cooperation Between Colleges and Companies: Vocational Education, Skill Mismatches and China's Turnover Problem","authors":"Armin Müller","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001868","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Chinese government promotes cooperation between colleges and companies in vocational education to improve the supply of skilled workers and increase labour productivity. This study employs the concept of positive coordination – negotiations concurrently addressing productive and distributive questions – to analyse the advantages and limitations of voluntary cooperation embedded in networks. In terms of production, many projects focus on updating, narrowing and deepening curricula to lower the costs of initial training borne by companies and the risk of labour turnover. In terms of distribution, however, the deep and narrow curricula are at odds with students’ preference for general and transferable skills; and the mutual commitments of both companies and students are uncertain. The solutions provided by cooperation are partial and unstable. Overall, they reduce skill mismatches but cannot control turnover or overcome market failure, which undermines tertiary vocational education's contribution to labour productivity.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":" 22","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139624078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-12DOI: 10.1017/s030574102300190x
Anatol E. Klass
{"title":"The Central Politics School and Local Governance in Nationalist China: Toward a Statecraft Beyond Science Chen-cheng Wang. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023. 356 pp. $135.00 (hbk). ISBN 9781666929690","authors":"Anatol E. Klass","doi":"10.1017/s030574102300190x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s030574102300190x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":" 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139624559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-12DOI: 10.1017/s030574102300187x
Rebecca Clothey
{"title":"Unruly Speech: Displacement and the Politics of Transgression Saskia Witteborn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023. 250 pp. $28.00 (pbk). ISBN 9781503634305","authors":"Rebecca Clothey","doi":"10.1017/s030574102300187x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s030574102300187x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"57 39","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139533039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-11DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001856
Xinmiao Song, Duoduo Xu
China's need for skilled workers to upgrade its industrial system is increasingly urgent due to global economic competition. Despite massive expansion of its Vocational Education and Training system over the past two decades, a significant skilled labour deficit remains. Current debates on the inefficacy of vocational education focuses on the lack of institutional synergies between education and industry but often overlooks the inherent conflicts within the vocational education system and micro-level skill formation processes. Our ethnographic research in two upper-secondary vocational schools unveils a disturbing trend: the rapid massification of vocational education, which prioritizes student enrolment numbers over educational quality, fails to address the demand for skill formation and skilled labour. It inadvertently generates adverse consequences for both administrative management and classroom instruction. Skill development frequently falls to after-school professional associations and an exclusive group of elite students. Meanwhile, reform initiatives, such as the craftsmanship campaign and skill competitions, benefit only a few without improving the employment prospects for the wider student population. These findings call for greater attention to the inherent tensions within China's Vocational Education and Training system. Only when there is a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of ineffective skill formation in vocational schools can China achieve its national goal of industrial upgrades.
{"title":"More Graduates, Fewer Skills? Vocational Education Expansion and Skilled Labour Shortages in China","authors":"Xinmiao Song, Duoduo Xu","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001856","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001856","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 China's need for skilled workers to upgrade its industrial system is increasingly urgent due to global economic competition. Despite massive expansion of its Vocational Education and Training system over the past two decades, a significant skilled labour deficit remains. Current debates on the inefficacy of vocational education focuses on the lack of institutional synergies between education and industry but often overlooks the inherent conflicts within the vocational education system and micro-level skill formation processes. Our ethnographic research in two upper-secondary vocational schools unveils a disturbing trend: the rapid massification of vocational education, which prioritizes student enrolment numbers over educational quality, fails to address the demand for skill formation and skilled labour. It inadvertently generates adverse consequences for both administrative management and classroom instruction. Skill development frequently falls to after-school professional associations and an exclusive group of elite students. Meanwhile, reform initiatives, such as the craftsmanship campaign and skill competitions, benefit only a few without improving the employment prospects for the wider student population. These findings call for greater attention to the inherent tensions within China's Vocational Education and Training system. Only when there is a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of ineffective skill formation in vocational schools can China achieve its national goal of industrial upgrades.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":" 29","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139626009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-22DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001698
Yanling He, Zheng Wang
While China's efforts to maintain social stability by recruiting social elites and establishing Party branches in pre-existing social and market organizations have been thoroughly explored, much less attention has been devoted to how grassroots Party organizations (GRPOs) have proactively incubated society and constructed coherent, interrelated and systematic stability maintenance strategies to identify and eliminate social instability in its early stages and prevent its escalation. Using qualitative data gathered from local areas in China, we uncovered three major strategies used by GRPOs to manufacture society: incubating quasi-bureaucratic organizations, co-opting community elites and embedding Party organizations in market and social organizations. In general, GRPOs manufacture society for three reasons: to revitalize the mobilization capacity of the party-state; to increase the available social resources for grassroots authorities; and to establish an input mechanism for citizens. This study not only provides empirical data on how China's stability maintenance regime works in practice but also calls for a rethinking of the capacity of authoritarian resilience.
{"title":"Manufacturing Society: How Party Building Reinforces Stability Maintenance in Grassroots China","authors":"Yanling He, Zheng Wang","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001698","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While China's efforts to maintain social stability by recruiting social elites and establishing Party branches in pre-existing social and market organizations have been thoroughly explored, much less attention has been devoted to how grassroots Party organizations (GRPOs) have proactively incubated society and constructed coherent, interrelated and systematic stability maintenance strategies to identify and eliminate social instability in its early stages and prevent its escalation. Using qualitative data gathered from local areas in China, we uncovered three major strategies used by GRPOs to manufacture society: incubating quasi-bureaucratic organizations, co-opting community elites and embedding Party organizations in market and social organizations. In general, GRPOs manufacture society for three reasons: to revitalize the mobilization capacity of the party-state; to increase the available social resources for grassroots authorities; and to establish an input mechanism for citizens. This study not only provides empirical data on how China's stability maintenance regime works in practice but also calls for a rethinking of the capacity of authoritarian resilience.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"21 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138947429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-22DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001765
Jingping Liu
The Chinese Communist Party has been increasing its control over village elections since the early 2010s, yet this move has not triggered any widespread popular resistance. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from village elections held in 2017 in a county in Hunan province, I conceptualize a form of electoral manipulation I term “consensus elections,” in which the Party engineers a pre-electoral consensus with ordinary villagers on whom to select while deterring challenges from village elites. Consensus elections are rooted in the Chinese political elites’ ideal that favours electoral participation over competition. While participation increases regime legitimacy, competition threatens regime authority. Propaganda promoting this electoral ideal shapes the views of ordinary villagers, laying a basis of legitimacy on consensus elections. The villagers embraced voting as being oriented by a unitary common interest and developed a cynicism whereby campaigning was equated with corruption. Comparison of the processes involved in engineering consensus elections in five villages suggests popular support for such elections. Whereas popular resistance was mounted against the lack of participation, popular complicity helps the Party to deter challenges from village elites. Consensus elections have facilitated the fall of Chinese village elections without undermining the Party's legitimacy, but consensus elections will also encourage more political challenges from village elites through non-institutionalized channels.
{"title":"Manipulation without Resistance: Consensus Elections in Rural China","authors":"Jingping Liu","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001765","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Chinese Communist Party has been increasing its control over village elections since the early 2010s, yet this move has not triggered any widespread popular resistance. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from village elections held in 2017 in a county in Hunan province, I conceptualize a form of electoral manipulation I term “consensus elections,” in which the Party engineers a pre-electoral consensus with ordinary villagers on whom to select while deterring challenges from village elites. Consensus elections are rooted in the Chinese political elites’ ideal that favours electoral participation over competition. While participation increases regime legitimacy, competition threatens regime authority. Propaganda promoting this electoral ideal shapes the views of ordinary villagers, laying a basis of legitimacy on consensus elections. The villagers embraced voting as being oriented by a unitary common interest and developed a cynicism whereby campaigning was equated with corruption. Comparison of the processes involved in engineering consensus elections in five villages suggests popular support for such elections. Whereas popular resistance was mounted against the lack of participation, popular complicity helps the Party to deter challenges from village elites. Consensus elections have facilitated the fall of Chinese village elections without undermining the Party's legitimacy, but consensus elections will also encourage more political challenges from village elites through non-institutionalized channels.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"6 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138944257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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