The establishment of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, which opened its doors in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on 1 July 1961, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, was a complicated political and cultural decision on the part of the Chinese government. The museum was never intended to be an artistic enterprise. Rather, it was conceived as a political institution to serve the interest of the Party. This article argues that the Party was ubiquitous in the building of the museum, exercising tight control through strict institutional means, especially through its Propaganda Department. Museum staff, under the close supervision of senior Party officials, sought to pursue an indigenous path different from the Soviet model. Staff members collected artifacts related to the Chinese Communist Revolution, commissioned historical paintings, arranged displays according to the historical framework stipulated by Mao Zedong, and, most important, struggled to instil in the museum the correct “Red Line,” that is, the policy of the CCP under Mao's leadership. The article concludes that the museum was an intricate amalgam of political supervision from the top, official historical interpretations, strategic displays and a reflection of the internal Party struggle. The construction of the museum reflects the attempt by the CCP to control the collective memory of the nation and to monopolize the writing of history.

This article examines the relationship between democratic and media reforms and political corruption in Taiwan. Has liberalization resulted in increased corruption or has it created a cleaner political system? I argue that the Taiwan case reveals the potential positive effects of multi-party democracy for tackling political corruption, as opposition parties have exploited a liberalized media to challenge and alter accepted but corrupt norms of governance. Pillars of the KMT party state such as its party assets, vote buying and the corrupt patron–client relationship with local factions were until the 1990s either openly or tacitly accepted as legitimate. The Taiwanese opposition parties took a latent political issue, corruption, and progressively broadened the scope of what is publicly acknowledged as corruption. By exposing cases of KMT government corruption and establishing new norms of clean governance it is possible that in the long term opposition parties can contribute to the creation of a cleaner political system.

Re-education through labour (laodong jiaoyang or laojiao for short) is an administrative punishment imposed by the police. Since its inception in 1955, it has become a convenient instrument for the government to use to deal with any crisis. Its development has largely followed the ebb and flow of the CCP's political behaviour. Created as a comparatively mild suppression of counterrevolutionary activities, laojiao served as a useful instrument of punishment for dissenting intellectuals in 1958, though it was then nearly phased out during the radical years of the Cultural Revolution. Laojiao expanded quickly as a result of the CCP's anti-crime strategy after 1983, and has grown steadily ever since. It now serves multiple functions, including crime control, drug rehabilitation, investigative detention and political control. It enjoys different degrees of legitimacy and justification. Any substantive discussion on the future of laojiao has to be offence and offender specific.

This article investigates the interest structure that leads to collective conflicts over the protection of private property in middle-class residential compounds in Beijing. The departure from a work-unit dominated social landscape means that work and residence are now de-linked and the new private residential compounds create communities of consumers, not of producers. Individual status is formed in the context of local socialization patterns in the neighbourhoods at least as much as in the workplace. Based on fieldwork in Beijing's residential compounds in 2002 and 2003, this article highlights the importance of spatial factors in determining the formation of collective interests and argues that the enclosed residential spaces of the gated communities are providing both a catalyst for the autonomous mobilization of collective resources and new social units for the Chinese state to govern an increasingly complex society.

in this article i take examples of popular music recordings released in the xinjiang uyghur autonomous region during the 1990s and first few years of the 21st century, in order to illustrate the global flows of sounds and meanings which influence uyghur pop. the disseminatory power of “micro media” (cheap cassettes, vcds) facilitates the global movement of both musical sounds and political ideas. i argue, using examples of uyghur reggae and uyghur belly dancing, that these sounds and meanings are radically adapted and re-signified in the construction of uyghur identity and cultural politics, in a complex interplay between the global, national and local, and between tradition and modernity. i discuss the gendered expression of uyghur nationalism in popular song through the iconic figure of the weeping mother, demonstrating the ability of expressive culture (here music) to reveal underlying or underpinning political trends.

sources

the principal sources of information on which this chronicle is based are british broadcasting corporation, monitoring global news line – asia-pacific political and british broadcasting corporation, monitoring global news line – asia-pacific economic. these sources, now only available electronically, do not have reference numbers and are only identifiable by date of publication of material. the inclusion of each of these dates would unnecessarily clutter the text and such dates have therefore been omitted, except, at many points, for the original sources from which the bbc reports themselves are taken.

the article looks at a model of filmmaking that has emerged since the rise of “cultural economy” in the mid-1990s. directors have collaborated with real estate developers and other entrepreneurs and become cultural brokers. they use the prestige, access and popular appeal of the cinema to establish a stronger connection between film and market forces. as filmmakers become trendsetters, their films aim not only at box office success but also at shaping economic agendas and visual experience, social networks and the aesthetic environment. filmmaking as cultural brokering has been practised by directors as disparate as the market-oriented feng xiaogang, the neorealist ning ying and the documentary producer wu wenguang.

this article presents an overview of post-mao museum representations of modern chinese history. the focus is on changing exhibitionary practices and historical narratives in prc history museums in the period of market reforms and globalization. it shows how new museum architecture, the place of museum buildings in the cityscape and new exhibitionary technologies (such as multimedia displays, dioramas, miniatures) are tied to new narratives of history that serve the interests of the ideology of market reform. conventional socialist narratives of martyrdom and revolutionary liberation have not disappeared by any means, but they are being reshaped to downplay class issues and to legitimize commercial interests, a work ethic ideology and nationalism.