Sheng Lijun argues that “China's Dilemma” is that while Beijing “wants to concentrate its energy and resources on modernization” and “deal with the Taiwan issue at a later stage” (p. 3), the “assertiveness of Taiwan” since 1995 has complicated such a strategy. On the one hand, the mainland must respond to the island's provocative behaviour lest the island move towards independence, while on the other it must temper its response so that the goal of economic development (with international support) is not jeopardized.

Any source that provides insights into the view of the world from the Ministry of Information Industries (MII) is particularly valuable at a time when debate is raging over the political impact of the Internet in the PRC. This is even more so as China joins the WTO, after which domestic Internet firms will have to gain approval from the MII before they can receive foreign capital, co-operate with foreign businesses or list domestic or overseas stocks.

This article examines the significance of the “China factor” in maintaining economics stability and growth in Hong Kong, relative to the role played by the “US dollar peg” exchange rate regime that has been in place since 1983. It shows how, by virtue of the peg, Hong Hong was made subservient to US monetary policy, and how unsynchronized business cycle with the US resulted in spiralling wage and land costs to trigger a mass exodus of Hong Kong's manufacturers across the border to China. The article analyses in detail to what extent the economic base of Hong Kong's export industries has been expanded as a result of the relocation; and measures, in particular, by how much the cost-savings has helped to lower Hong Kong's overall export costs and thus enhance the viability of the peg that is so crucial to such a small and entirely open economy. The analysis extends through the Asian financial crisis and beyond, examining how the peg has fuelled deflation but the “China factor” may have helped mitigate it. Important questions are raised about the peg in light of the disastrous consequences of the Asian financial crisis for some Asian economies, and the concomitant search for a more viable exchange rate regime. It concludes that despite the increased integration of the Hong Kong and mainland China economies, the likelihood of the Hong Kong dollar being de-pegged from the US dollar and re-pegged to the Chinese currency is yet remote.

With this book Lynda Bell contributes a major piece to our understanding of China's modern economic history. The core of the book is a detailed description of the evolution of the silk industry in central China between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century. Bell's exhaustively researched analysis covers each level of silk production in Wuxi county, from the rural household producers of cocoons, to the intermediate level cocoon merchants and local filatures, to the major firms that by the early 1930s controlled much of the market through modern, vertically integrated organizations.

In addressing claims that the art of guanxi is declining in China's current incorporation of capitalism, this article argues that guanxi must be treated historically as a repertoire of cultural patterns and resources which are continuously transformed in their adaptation to, as well as shaping of, new social institutions and structures, and by the particular Chinese experience with globalization. The article takes issue with approaches which treat guanxi as a fixed essentialized phenomenon which can only wither away with the onslaught of new legal and commercial regimes. Rather, as the examples of Taiwan and post-socialist Russia's encounter with capitalism suggest, guanxi practice may decline in some social domains, but find new areas to flourish, such as business transactions, and display new social forms and expressions. This historical approach to guanxi, which is sensitive to issues of power both within the Chinese social order and between China and the West, is especially critical of the unreflective positivist methodology and the teleology of modernization theory/narrative and neo-liberal discourse embedded in the argument for the decline of guanxi.

Looking at the history of European-Chinese relations, there have been times of rapprochement and co-operation but also of tension and conflict. Both China and the European Union (EU) have gained specific profile as international actors over the last two decades, be it in economic or political terms. Amongst Asian states, China has reached a dominant position on the EU's external relations agenda. Economic relations between the two sides have reached significant importance and in 2000 China was, for exports as well as imports, the EU's third largest non-European trading partner, behind the United States and Japan. This has not happened by accident, but is part of a process in which EU-China relations were progressively deepened. As early as in 1973 the Chinese government had invited the then European Commissioner Christopher Soames to visit China. In November 1974 the European Commission forwarded a memorandum to China, including a draft for a possible trade agreement. After diplomatic relations had been established between the EC and China in 1975, recognizing the People's Republic as the only government of China, the Trade Agreement between the EC and China followed in 1978. In 1985 this agreement was replaced by the Agreement on Trade and Economic Co-operation between the EC and China. The European Commission opened its representation in Beijing in 1988, and ever since there has been a continuous deepening of economic and trade relations.

This article seeks to examine certain aspects of the role of human rights in relations between China and Europe. Specifically, the article focuses on the debate whether or not to co-sponsor a resolution critical of China at the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) or alternatively to base policy around a human rights dialogue with China. This debate has dominated the discussions of member states of the European Union on human rights and China for the past five years at least.

This issue brings together an outstanding group of European scholars interested in China who recently presented at a conference the European perspective on the development of Chinese-European relations since China embarked on its open policy and the European Union evolved into the major economic and political force in Europe. The conference, held 17–19 May 2000, was hosted by the Instituto do Oriente, in the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas at the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. The China Quarterly wishes to warmly thank the head of the Institute, Prof. Narana Sinai Coissoró and his assistant, Sra. Ana Cristina Dias Alves, as well as Sra. Andrea Sofia da Cruz Valente and Sr. André Filipe Reynolds Castel-Branco da Silveira. The papers also benefited from the participation of Hugh Baker, Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Ana Maria Gonzalo Castellaños, Stefan Friedrich, Wolfgang Pape, Klaus Rupprecht, and the rapporteur's report done by John Ingerson. The contributions in this volume largely are the revised versions of the conference papers.

In the course of the last 20 or more years the intensity of economic exchange between the People's Republic of China (henceforth China) and the various European economies has increased dramatically. This development was triggered largely by the economic policy changes introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Since then, China has freed itself from its former self-imposed isolation and gradually integrated with the world economy. The market-oriented transformation process initiated in China in the late 1970s created the preconditions for the resumption of economic contacts that had been largely stagnant in the preceding years. The gradual establishment of a market-based economic framework has step-by-step allowed economic entities to exploit the comparative advantages of the economies concerned and enlarge the scope of division of labour with China.

The return of Hong Kong by Britain in 1997 and of Macau by Portugal in 1999 formally marked the end of one era of Sino-European relations and the beginning of another. Both events had been preceded by protracted negotiations, detailed bilateral treaties and, in the history of imperial withdrawal, extended transition periods. Consequently, since the signing of the Joint Declarations (JD), the local, national and international implications of the two events have been the foci of historical assessment, strategic analysis, contingency planning and policy reformulation.