Pub Date : 2023-08-11DOI: 10.1017/S0305741023001212
Rebecca E. Karl
{"title":"The Left in China: A Political Cartography Ralf Ruckus. London: Pluto Press, 2023. 240 pp. £16.99 (pbk). ISBN 9780745342955","authors":"Rebecca E. Karl","doi":"10.1017/S0305741023001212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741023001212","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116313424","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 : 2023-08-11DOI: 10.1017/S0305741023001248
Yan Zhu
how they are shaped by censorship, the author examines how both works highlight the displacement of participatory publics in a post-Tiananmen era. Chen’s book does an admirable job at remembering and examining works related to the Movement, though its argument on censorship as productive is not necessarily as novel as it claims to be. The theorization could benefit from a more rigorous engagement with the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, including the latter’s Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997, Routledge), and Geremie Barmé’s chapter “History for the masses,” which suggests that “every policy shift in recent [Chinese] history has involved the rehabilitation, re-evaluation and revision of history and historical figures” (in Jonathan Unger (ed.) Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China, Routledge, 1993, p. 260). It is also unfortunate for the book to have overlooked Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942, the discursive roots of which continue to fuel the censorious practice of denunciating objectionable works while establishing exemplary ones for writers to model in post-socialist China today. Chen is impassioned in his commitment to calling out “the banning of books and films,” “the tailoring of memory” and the “molding of the public.” (p. 175) However, the writing style tends towards the lyrical and, at times, the hyperbolic. These rhetorical flourishes often dilute the cogency of ideas in the book. Just one of the numerous examples is, “TV programming glorified soldiers and their selfless sacrifice and (re)called the audience to the republic forged in the flames of war and to the canonical tradition of obedience to organization” (p. 71). Concluding with the notion that the “public-making of censorship is always a work in progress” (p. 173), the book judiciously links the state discourse of “prohibition and proselytization” (p. 11) on Tiananmen to COVID-19 in the conclusion chapter. For scholars, university tutors, students and China observers who work on Chinese literature, cinema, history and politics related to the Movement, this book will be of interest and relevance.
{"title":"China's Grandmothers: Gender, Family, and Ageing from Late Qing to Twenty-First Century Diana Lary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 261 pp. £22.99 (pbk). ISBN 9781009073622","authors":"Yan Zhu","doi":"10.1017/S0305741023001248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741023001248","url":null,"abstract":"how they are shaped by censorship, the author examines how both works highlight the displacement of participatory publics in a post-Tiananmen era. Chen’s book does an admirable job at remembering and examining works related to the Movement, though its argument on censorship as productive is not necessarily as novel as it claims to be. The theorization could benefit from a more rigorous engagement with the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, including the latter’s Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997, Routledge), and Geremie Barmé’s chapter “History for the masses,” which suggests that “every policy shift in recent [Chinese] history has involved the rehabilitation, re-evaluation and revision of history and historical figures” (in Jonathan Unger (ed.) Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China, Routledge, 1993, p. 260). It is also unfortunate for the book to have overlooked Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942, the discursive roots of which continue to fuel the censorious practice of denunciating objectionable works while establishing exemplary ones for writers to model in post-socialist China today. Chen is impassioned in his commitment to calling out “the banning of books and films,” “the tailoring of memory” and the “molding of the public.” (p. 175) However, the writing style tends towards the lyrical and, at times, the hyperbolic. These rhetorical flourishes often dilute the cogency of ideas in the book. Just one of the numerous examples is, “TV programming glorified soldiers and their selfless sacrifice and (re)called the audience to the republic forged in the flames of war and to the canonical tradition of obedience to organization” (p. 71). Concluding with the notion that the “public-making of censorship is always a work in progress” (p. 173), the book judiciously links the state discourse of “prohibition and proselytization” (p. 11) on Tiananmen to COVID-19 in the conclusion chapter. For scholars, university tutors, students and China observers who work on Chinese literature, cinema, history and politics related to the Movement, this book will be of interest and relevance.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115050726","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 : 2023-08-10DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001030
Chenghong Peng, J. Wang
This study investigates what drives local variations when pursuing urban–rural equity in social welfare provision in China. We examine how internal features, top-down pressure and horizontal competition have shaped local governments’ decisions to adopt a policy that unifies (yitihua) the urban and rural eligibility thresholds of the world's largest means-tested cash transfer programme (dibao). We collected and coded policies that unify urban–rural dibao thresholds in 336 prefecture-level divisions between 2011 and 2019. Event history analysis showed that internal fiscal constraint – primarily cost concerns – drove local policy adoption; top-down pressure from provincial governments with a high degree of coercive power in policy directives exerted a significant impact; and the horizontal competition's effect was insignificant. Our findings indicate that fiscal arrangements and top-down policy directives from superior governments with higher coercive power are potent tools to accelerate the adoption of a social welfare policy that would otherwise be unappealing for local officials.
{"title":"Local Integration of Urban–Rural Social-assistance Programmes in China: What Are the Driving Forces?","authors":"Chenghong Peng, J. Wang","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study investigates what drives local variations when pursuing urban–rural equity in social welfare provision in China. We examine how internal features, top-down pressure and horizontal competition have shaped local governments’ decisions to adopt a policy that unifies (yitihua) the urban and rural eligibility thresholds of the world's largest means-tested cash transfer programme (dibao). We collected and coded policies that unify urban–rural dibao thresholds in 336 prefecture-level divisions between 2011 and 2019. Event history analysis showed that internal fiscal constraint – primarily cost concerns – drove local policy adoption; top-down pressure from provincial governments with a high degree of coercive power in policy directives exerted a significant impact; and the horizontal competition's effect was insignificant. Our findings indicate that fiscal arrangements and top-down policy directives from superior governments with higher coercive power are potent tools to accelerate the adoption of a social welfare policy that would otherwise be unappealing for local officials.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128067799","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 : 2023-08-07DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001145
Xiaojun Li
{"title":"Between Market Economy and State Capitalism: China's State-Owned Enterprises and the World Trading System Henry Gao and Weihuan Zhou. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 250 pp. £85.00 (hbk). ISBN 9781108830065 – CORRIGENDUM","authors":"Xiaojun Li","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001145","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"9 8","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113959858","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 : 2023-08-07DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001042
Han Zhang, Yao Lu, Rui Bai
Extensive research in Western societies has demonstrated that media reports of protests have succumbed to selection and description biases, but such tendencies have not yet been tested in the Chinese context. This article investigates the Chinese government and news media's selection and description bias in domestic protest events reporting. Using a large protest event data set from Weibo (CASM-China), we found that government accounts on Weibo covered only 0.4 per cent of protests while news media accounts covered 6.3 per cent of them. In selecting events for coverage, the news media accounts tacitly struck a balance between newsworthiness and political sensitivity; this led them to gravitate towards protests by underprivileged social groups and shy away from protests targeting the government. Government accounts on Weibo, on the other hand, eschewed reporting on violent protests and those organized by the urban middle class and veterans. In reporting selected protest events, both government and news media accounts tended to depoliticize protest events and to frame them in a more positive tone. This description bias was more pronounced for the government than the news media accounts. The government coverage of protest events also had a more thematic (as opposed to episodic) orientation than the news media.
{"title":"Selection and Description Bias in Protest Reporting by Government and News Media on Weibo","authors":"Han Zhang, Yao Lu, Rui Bai","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001042","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Extensive research in Western societies has demonstrated that media reports of protests have succumbed to selection and description biases, but such tendencies have not yet been tested in the Chinese context. This article investigates the Chinese government and news media's selection and description bias in domestic protest events reporting. Using a large protest event data set from Weibo (CASM-China), we found that government accounts on Weibo covered only 0.4 per cent of protests while news media accounts covered 6.3 per cent of them. In selecting events for coverage, the news media accounts tacitly struck a balance between newsworthiness and political sensitivity; this led them to gravitate towards protests by underprivileged social groups and shy away from protests targeting the government. Government accounts on Weibo, on the other hand, eschewed reporting on violent protests and those organized by the urban middle class and veterans. In reporting selected protest events, both government and news media accounts tended to depoliticize protest events and to frame them in a more positive tone. This description bias was more pronounced for the government than the news media accounts. The government coverage of protest events also had a more thematic (as opposed to episodic) orientation than the news media.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124418232","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 : 2023-08-03DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001017
Hongzhou Zhang, Alfred M. Wu
Abstract This study contributes to the research on central–local relations in China by examining local dynamics and defiance. Drawing on the case of a provincial government's defiance against a central policy – Heilongjiang province's 2016 ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – this study shows that despite the unprecedented recentralization push in recent years, local defiance still exists and persists. In addition, this study finds that the Heilongjiang provincial government managed to reduce potential political backlash by feeding the public distrust of GMOs, exploiting the internal divide and central ambiguity over GMOs and, more importantly, skilfully framing its GMO ban as part of its efforts to implement Xi Jinping's Green Development Concept.
{"title":"Central–Local Relations in China: A Case Study of Heilongjiang's GMO Ban","authors":"Hongzhou Zhang, Alfred M. Wu","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study contributes to the research on central–local relations in China by examining local dynamics and defiance. Drawing on the case of a provincial government's defiance against a central policy – Heilongjiang province's 2016 ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – this study shows that despite the unprecedented recentralization push in recent years, local defiance still exists and persists. In addition, this study finds that the Heilongjiang provincial government managed to reduce potential political backlash by feeding the public distrust of GMOs, exploiting the internal divide and central ambiguity over GMOs and, more importantly, skilfully framing its GMO ban as part of its efforts to implement Xi Jinping's Green Development Concept.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136267427","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 : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001029
Chun-Yi Lee, Jan Knoerich
Chinese cross-border investments are often assumed to be state driven and a tool of Beijing's economic statecraft. However, corresponding evidence remains inconclusive. This article examines mainland Chinese direct investments in Taiwan and finds that they are not particularly effective tools of economic statecraft. Their excessive politicization and the sheer possibility that investments could be used for Beijing's economic statecraft resulted in a considerable pushback by Taiwan's government, bureaucrats and civil society against large and sensitive investments. The agency enjoyed by Taiwan hindered Beijing from deploying cross-Strait direct investments for political purposes, and Beijing has not openly promoted or supported such investments in Taiwan. Moreover, cross-border direct investments are by nature less exploitable for political purposes because they involve company-level commercial and entrepreneurial decisions. This sets them apart from other forms of economic statecraft, such as sanctions or trade restrictions, where the state has greater influence. Mainland Chinese companies have had limited commercial interests in Taiwan, and the investments that have been made there do not appear to have triggered significant political or security externalities. These findings suggest more generally that foreign direct investment might not be particularly effective as a tool of economic statecraft.
{"title":"Buying Taiwan? The Limitations of Mainland Chinese Cross-Strait Direct Investments as a Tool of Economic Statecraft","authors":"Chun-Yi Lee, Jan Knoerich","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001029","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Chinese cross-border investments are often assumed to be state driven and a tool of Beijing's economic statecraft. However, corresponding evidence remains inconclusive. This article examines mainland Chinese direct investments in Taiwan and finds that they are not particularly effective tools of economic statecraft. Their excessive politicization and the sheer possibility that investments could be used for Beijing's economic statecraft resulted in a considerable pushback by Taiwan's government, bureaucrats and civil society against large and sensitive investments. The agency enjoyed by Taiwan hindered Beijing from deploying cross-Strait direct investments for political purposes, and Beijing has not openly promoted or supported such investments in Taiwan. Moreover, cross-border direct investments are by nature less exploitable for political purposes because they involve company-level commercial and entrepreneurial decisions. This sets them apart from other forms of economic statecraft, such as sanctions or trade restrictions, where the state has greater influence. Mainland Chinese companies have had limited commercial interests in Taiwan, and the investments that have been made there do not appear to have triggered significant political or security externalities. These findings suggest more generally that foreign direct investment might not be particularly effective as a tool of economic statecraft.","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126785024","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 : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001054
Michael Clarke
{"title":"Legitimacy of China's Counter-Terrorism Approach: The Mass Line Ethos Chi Zhang. Singapore, Palgrave MacMillan, 2022. xvii + 132pp. £44.99 (hbk), ISBN 9789811931079","authors":"Michael Clarke","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001054","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122957674","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 : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1017/s0305741023001078
Dian Li
{"title":"Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere in Contemporary Chinese Diaspora Poetry Jennifer Wong. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. xiv + 231 pp. £80.00 (hbk). ISBN 978350250338","authors":"Dian Li","doi":"10.1017/s0305741023001078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741023001078","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132218988","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 : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1017/S0305741023001108
Pamela M. Hunt
{"title":"Mastery of Words and Swords: Negotiating Intellectual Masculinities in Modern China, 1890s–1930s Jun Lei. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022. x + 221 pp. HK$580.00; £60.00 (hbk). ISBN 9789888528745","authors":"Pamela M. Hunt","doi":"10.1017/S0305741023001108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741023001108","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":223807,"journal":{"name":"The China Quarterly","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123846461","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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