Pub Date : 2020-05-12DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01701004
Yulin Zhang
After more than ten years of compensatory growth, the Chinese people’s dietary life has undergone a significant consumer revolution since the 1990s: there has been a major change in the quantity, structure, and consumption patterns of food, and animal food intake has increased significantly. The consumer revolution is underpinned not only by the “hidden agricultural revolution” in China, but also by the huge imports of agri-food and the hundreds of millions of acres of “virtual farmland,” which reached 200 million tonnes and one billion mu respectively in 2017. Given the tendency of food consumption to exceed the needs of maintaining health, the heavy ecological pressure on domestic agriculture, as well as the risks of the international situation and the external ecological impact associated with massive imports, the sustainability of this unfinished revolution is in question. At the national strategic level, advocating the moderation of consumption and the reduction of waste and reducing consumption expectations and consumption volume have become necessary choices.
{"title":"China’s Food Revolution and Its Sustainability—Internal Environmental Costs, External Import Dependence and Ecological Impacts","authors":"Yulin Zhang","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01701004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01701004","url":null,"abstract":"After more than ten years of compensatory growth, the Chinese people’s dietary life has undergone a significant consumer revolution since the 1990s: there has been a major change in the quantity, structure, and consumption patterns of food, and animal food intake has increased significantly. The consumer revolution is underpinned not only by the “hidden agricultural revolution” in China, but also by the huge imports of agri-food and the hundreds of millions of acres of “virtual farmland,” which reached 200 million tonnes and one billion mu respectively in 2017. Given the tendency of food consumption to exceed the needs of maintaining health, the heavy ecological pressure on domestic agriculture, as well as the risks of the international situation and the external ecological impact associated with massive imports, the sustainability of this unfinished revolution is in question. At the national strategic level, advocating the moderation of consumption and the reduction of waste and reducing consumption expectations and consumption volume have become necessary choices.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"17 1","pages":"65-86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22136746-01701004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48125370","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 : 2020-05-12DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01701005
T. DuBois
Founded in 1959, the Dengchuan Milk Products Factory was both an individuated enterprise and an asset in the development of western Yunnan. This article examines the six-decade transformation of Dengchuan from state-owned industry, to officially promoted dragon head, and finally as a wholly owned subsidiary of the New Hope Group. Even as the company enjoyed greater managerial independence, it has relied on the government for materials, market access, and the development of its dairy base, a relationship that only recently reversed as the company responded to demands for capital investment and productive upscaling. Albeit on a much smaller scale, this relationship is comparable to the business groups that dominate sectoral development in strategic industries.
{"title":"Milk From the Butterfly Spring: State and Enterprise in the Yunnan Dairy Industry","authors":"T. DuBois","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01701005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01701005","url":null,"abstract":"Founded in 1959, the Dengchuan Milk Products Factory was both an individuated enterprise and an asset in the development of western Yunnan. This article examines the six-decade transformation of Dengchuan from state-owned industry, to officially promoted dragon head, and finally as a wholly owned subsidiary of the New Hope Group. Even as the company enjoyed greater managerial independence, it has relied on the government for materials, market access, and the development of its dairy base, a relationship that only recently reversed as the company responded to demands for capital investment and productive upscaling. Albeit on a much smaller scale, this relationship is comparable to the business groups that dominate sectoral development in strategic industries.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"17 1","pages":"87-110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43784244","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602004
Wen-Chuen Huang
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s portrait and quotations were everywhere in China. This modern form of cult was manifested in two ways: the cult of the Leader’s personality through the use of his likenesses and quotes by government authorities and the populace, and the defilement of the objects emblematic of the Leader by certain individuals. Based on an analysis of newly discovered archives on a number of cases involving defaced portraits, photos, and quotations of the Leader, this article reveals the micro-level mechanisms of political events, by which the “enemies” were identified and treated, and further tackles some theoretical issues concerning defacement, stigmatization and de-stigmatization, and the allegation of counter-revolutionary crimes in political campaigns.
{"title":"“Defacing the Leader’s Portrait and Quotations”: An Archival Study of Four Cases","authors":"Wen-Chuen Huang","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602004","url":null,"abstract":"During the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s portrait and quotations were everywhere in China. This modern form of cult was manifested in two ways: the cult of the Leader’s personality through the use of his likenesses and quotes by government authorities and the populace, and the defilement of the objects emblematic of the Leader by certain individuals. Based on an analysis of newly discovered archives on a number of cases involving defaced portraits, photos, and quotations of the Leader, this article reveals the micro-level mechanisms of political events, by which the “enemies” were identified and treated, and further tackles some theoretical issues concerning defacement, stigmatization and de-stigmatization, and the allegation of counter-revolutionary crimes in political campaigns.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22136746-01602004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42257082","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602001
Philip C. C. Huang
The “third sphere” born of the interacting of a market economy with a centralized state, and of a system of market contracting 合同 with administrative “assigning responsibility” 发包/承包, has become a key characteristic of the new political-economic system of Reform China. It has imported the private enterprise market economy of the modern West, but has also retained the (revolutionary) tradition of a socialist party-state and its ownership of the principal means of production. Its administrative system resembles more and more the modern West’s (Weberian) bureaucratic system, but it has also retained the traditional imperial Chinese “centralized minimalism” and “parcelized despotism” characteristics. It cannot be grasped by the either/or dualistic opposites mode of thinking, but can only be understood in terms of the combining and interacting of dualistic opposites. The combination may be understood as one concrete and substantive meaning of the officialized term of a “socialist market economy.”
{"title":"In Search of a Long-Term Development Path for China: Starting from Differences between Assigning Responsibility and Contracting","authors":"Philip C. C. Huang","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602001","url":null,"abstract":"The “third sphere” born of the interacting of a market economy with a centralized state, and of a system of market contracting 合同 with administrative “assigning responsibility” 发包/承包, has become a key characteristic of the new political-economic system of Reform China. It has imported the private enterprise market economy of the modern West, but has also retained the (revolutionary) tradition of a socialist party-state and its ownership of the principal means of production. Its administrative system resembles more and more the modern West’s (Weberian) bureaucratic system, but it has also retained the traditional imperial Chinese “centralized minimalism” and “parcelized despotism” characteristics. It cannot be grasped by the either/or dualistic opposites mode of thinking, but can only be understood in terms of the combining and interacting of dualistic opposites. The combination may be understood as one concrete and substantive meaning of the officialized term of a “socialist market economy.”","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46655648","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602005
Ye Li
The introduction of Christianity to the areas populated by people of Jingpo ethnicity was known locally as “replacing ghosts with God.” As a compromise with the cultural traditions of the Jingpo people, the localization of Christianity worked to mitigate the tensions between the innate identity of the Jingpo aboriginals and the new identity of the converts. Nevertheless, the process also entailed an inevitable impact of the authority of God upon the validity of various native forms of ghosts that had been part and parcel of the Jingpo people’s spiritual life, which in turn facilitated the formation of the converts’ new identity as Christians, as seen in their participation in the New Crop Festival in the region of Jingpo ethnicity.
{"title":"From Ghosts to God: Identity Formation among the Christians as Seen in the New Crop Festival in the Areas of Jingpo Ethnicity of Yunnan Province","authors":"Ye Li","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602005","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction of Christianity to the areas populated by people of Jingpo ethnicity was known locally as “replacing ghosts with God.” As a compromise with the cultural traditions of the Jingpo people, the localization of Christianity worked to mitigate the tensions between the innate identity of the Jingpo aboriginals and the new identity of the converts. Nevertheless, the process also entailed an inevitable impact of the authority of God upon the validity of various native forms of ghosts that had been part and parcel of the Jingpo people’s spiritual life, which in turn facilitated the formation of the converts’ new identity as Christians, as seen in their participation in the New Crop Festival in the region of Jingpo ethnicity.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48340816","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602002
Haixia Wang, Zhou Zhao, Luyi Yuan
Since 2015, the appointment of a special “first secretary” (for the village party branch 村党支部) has become an important method for reinforcing rural party building and attacking rural poverty. On the obvious level, the first secretary can enhance access to redirected resources and solve the problems of insufficiency and uneven distribution in rural areas. On a deeper level, the first secretary institution can play a role in overcoming problems in bureaucratic governance and optimizing the rural governance structure. Based on an analysis of the actual practices of first secretaries, this article highlights the operational mode, institutional characteristics, and governance effectiveness of the first secretary institution. It points out that the most prominent characteristics of the first secretary institution are non-bureaucratic governance, flexibility, and resource reallocation, thus reflecting the duality of comprehensive party leadership and bureaucratic governance by the government. However, there are still some institutional paradoxes: the first secretary institution retains some characteristics of campaign-style governance, at least to a certain extent, and its social embeddedness is dependent on individual access to resources and particular operational strategies, resulting in practical effects that vary across regions and individuals. Nevertheless, the first secretary institution still has a governance ability and effectiveness that are different from conventional governance and conform to the goal of both establishing links between internal and external resources in rural reconstruction and satisfying the mass line requirement of the party’s rural work in the new era. It will be worthwhile to further study the implications of the first secretary institution for governance in general.
{"title":"Individual and Institution: The First Secretary Embedded in Rural Governance","authors":"Haixia Wang, Zhou Zhao, Luyi Yuan","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602002","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2015, the appointment of a special “first secretary” (for the village party branch 村党支部) has become an important method for reinforcing rural party building and attacking rural poverty. On the obvious level, the first secretary can enhance access to redirected resources and solve the problems of insufficiency and uneven distribution in rural areas. On a deeper level, the first secretary institution can play a role in overcoming problems in bureaucratic governance and optimizing the rural governance structure. Based on an analysis of the actual practices of first secretaries, this article highlights the operational mode, institutional characteristics, and governance effectiveness of the first secretary institution. It points out that the most prominent characteristics of the first secretary institution are non-bureaucratic governance, flexibility, and resource reallocation, thus reflecting the duality of comprehensive party leadership and bureaucratic governance by the government. However, there are still some institutional paradoxes: the first secretary institution retains some characteristics of campaign-style governance, at least to a certain extent, and its social embeddedness is dependent on individual access to resources and particular operational strategies, resulting in practical effects that vary across regions and individuals. Nevertheless, the first secretary institution still has a governance ability and effectiveness that are different from conventional governance and conform to the goal of both establishing links between internal and external resources in rural reconstruction and satisfying the mass line requirement of the party’s rural work in the new era. It will be worthwhile to further study the implications of the first secretary institution for governance in general.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45708947","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602007
Philip C. C. Huang
This article first explains why our “Best Young Scholar’s Monograph Prize in the Social Sciences of Practice” selection committee has chosen the three books International Law and Late Qing China: Texts, Events, and Politics, Rural Development in Contemporary China: Micro Case Examples and Macro Changes, and Urbanizing Children: Identity Production and Political Socialization of Peasant-Worker Sons and Daughters for the award, and then goes on to discuss how monograph production is faced with deeply contradictory forces in the scholarly environment of China today when compared with the American scholarly environment, to explain the purpose of the prize.
{"title":"The Monograph Tradition and Chinese Scholarship: Beginning with the “Best Young Scholar’s Monograph Prize in the Social Sciences of Practice”","authors":"Philip C. C. Huang","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602007","url":null,"abstract":"This article first explains why our “Best Young Scholar’s Monograph Prize in the Social Sciences of Practice” selection committee has chosen the three books International Law and Late Qing China: Texts, Events, and Politics, Rural Development in Contemporary China: Micro Case Examples and Macro Changes, and Urbanizing Children: Identity Production and Political Socialization of Peasant-Worker Sons and Daughters for the award, and then goes on to discuss how monograph production is faced with deeply contradictory forces in the scholarly environment of China today when compared with the American scholarly environment, to explain the purpose of the prize.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44484580","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602003
Zhanshuo Li
Mutual aid was a mechanism that emerged under the condition of insufficient factors of production in traditional Chinese society; it aimed to improve the productivity of factors by applying the principle of “deduct from the more-than-sufficient and add to the insufficient.” Mutual aid worked to improve the productivity of factors chiefly because it could lead to high efficiency through the full and economical utilization of factors of production that were given and limited. Unlike the input of modern capital that could result in immediate gain in productivity, mutual aid only led to indirect and passive improvements in productivity. Increased social interaction through mutual aid could further boost laborers’ morale and willingness to compete with one another, thus adding to improved productivity. Finally, mutual aid reduced the time spent on and the consumption of factors of production, thus permitting more farmers to engage in wasteland reclamation, sharpening of farming skills, and construction of water-control projects, which also contributed to agricultural growth.
{"title":"Mutual Aid Practices in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region: Mechanisms and Effects","authors":"Zhanshuo Li","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602003","url":null,"abstract":"Mutual aid was a mechanism that emerged under the condition of insufficient factors of production in traditional Chinese society; it aimed to improve the productivity of factors by applying the principle of “deduct from the more-than-sufficient and add to the insufficient.” Mutual aid worked to improve the productivity of factors chiefly because it could lead to high efficiency through the full and economical utilization of factors of production that were given and limited. Unlike the input of modern capital that could result in immediate gain in productivity, mutual aid only led to indirect and passive improvements in productivity. Increased social interaction through mutual aid could further boost laborers’ morale and willingness to compete with one another, thus adding to improved productivity. Finally, mutual aid reduced the time spent on and the consumption of factors of production, thus permitting more farmers to engage in wasteland reclamation, sharpening of farming skills, and construction of water-control projects, which also contributed to agricultural growth.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46569884","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 : 2019-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01602006
Weigang Gong, Burak Gürel
This article analyzes the role of the state in the development of capitalist agriculture in contemporary China by focusing on the implementation of the central-government-sponsored National Grain Security Project and Agricultural Industrialization Project in Pingwan county of Hunan province since 2009. It demonstrates that by providing significant (formal and informal) subsidies and transferring large tracts of farmland to large farmers and agribusinesses, the Chinese government has made the capitalist transformation of rice production possible. We stress that in the absence of private property rights, the local governments’ strong control over farmland transactions makes it relatively easy to transfer large tracts quickly, helping agribusinesses and large farmers avoid significant transaction costs they would otherwise have to face under a system of private landownership. The article also shows that existing policies support the transfer of farmland in regions with favorable geographic and climatic conditions over other regions and therefore lack the capacity to significantly decrease regional inequalities.
{"title":"Project-Based State Intervention and Agrarian Change in Contemporary China: The Case of Rice Production in Pingwan County, Hunan","authors":"Weigang Gong, Burak Gürel","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01602006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01602006","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the role of the state in the development of capitalist agriculture in contemporary China by focusing on the implementation of the central-government-sponsored National Grain Security Project and Agricultural Industrialization Project in Pingwan county of Hunan province since 2009. It demonstrates that by providing significant (formal and informal) subsidies and transferring large tracts of farmland to large farmers and agribusinesses, the Chinese government has made the capitalist transformation of rice production possible. We stress that in the absence of private property rights, the local governments’ strong control over farmland transactions makes it relatively easy to transfer large tracts quickly, helping agribusinesses and large farmers avoid significant transaction costs they would otherwise have to face under a system of private landownership. The article also shows that existing policies support the transfer of farmland in regions with favorable geographic and climatic conditions over other regions and therefore lack the capacity to significantly decrease regional inequalities.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"20 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41273395","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：