China's electrical power industry has been undergoing piecemeal reforms over the last 15 years. Some of these reforms, such as substantial tariff increases, have been deliberate and have been implemented directly by government. Other changes, such as the increased variety of investors, including foreign investors, have been more spontaneous and have resulted in a gradual evolution in the way the industry works. In 1996 the Chinese government announced a more radical package of reform starting with the new Electricity Law which laid the foundations for a degree of competition in power generation, but without wholesale privatization.

Official figures show that the total extent of China's farmland has been steadily decreasing since the late 1950s and that it now stands at roughly 95 million hectares (Mha). Divided by 1.243 billion people, China's mid-1998 population total, this prorates to less than 0.08 ha/capita, a rate comparable to that of Bangladesh, equal to only about 60 per cent of Asia's and to roughly 40 per cent of India's mean, and to just 25 per cent of the global average (Figure 1).

As a consequence of its economic reforms China is currently experiencing internal migration at an unprecedented scale. An estimated 120 million people, or more than 15 per cent of the total rural labour force in China, have for different lengths of time left their places of origin to settle mainly in urban centres. Most of them go to the southern and eastern economically booming regions, but quite a few have chosen to go to ethnic minority areas in the border regions of the People's Republic. These areas, which have often been described and perceived of as economically and culturally backward, are also subjected to new largescale in-migrations of mainly Han Chinese. Han Chinese – whether officially classified or identifying themselves as such – make up a considerable proportion of the population in most so-called minority areas in China today. A number of recent (mostly sociological) studies have contributed to knowledge of the policies and consequences of sending Han to minority areas since 1949. Especially with regard to Tibet, the actual scope of Han migration remains a hotly debated issue. However, while the number of ethnographic studies of various ethnic minorities in China has increased markedly during the last 15 years (since it became possible to do fieldwork in minority areas of the People's Republic), the Han Chinese living in the same areas have rarely been subjected to this kind of fieldwork-based study. Most researchers of ethnic minorities in China have been struck by the pervasiveness of the discourse on the Han as a more “advanced” (xianjin) nationality. But this discourse has not been thoroughly analysed in relation with how different groups of Han Chinese, living themselves among non-Han peoples in minority areas, reproduce, neglect, dispute or contribute to this discourse.

With the curtain of its 15th National Congress falling, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) completed the generational change in the leadership. Jiang Zemin claimed that the CCP would continue Deng Xiaoping's line of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The Party's consensus on upholding Deng's policy was reflected in its revised constitution that paralleled Deng's theory with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as the Party's guiding principle. However, the ongoing market reform has not proceeded without challenge, especially from the left. Between 1995 and 1997, four so-called wanyanshu (“ten-thousand-word” articles) circulated privately in Beijing, severely criticizing market reform for its deviation from socialism. On the eve of the 15th National Party Congress, the capital was stirred up again by a publicized counter-attack from reformers at the leftist criticisms, with Jiang Zemin's speech at the Central Party School on 29 May 1997 as a signal. Some even call this counter-criticism the “third thought emancipation.” Speculation arose of political rift in Beijing. These developments at least indicate that leftism represents a strong ideological force that the Party has to take seriously. Although the 15th National Congress ended up with a declaration of even bolder measures in economic reform, particularly in restructuring state-owned enterprises (SOEs), no one should expect that the leftist voice will easily fade away.

Renewed interest in China's defence modernization has focused new light on the connection between military goals and national high technology strategy. China is in the throes of a major effort to modernize its arsenal. Its technology planners have begun systematically to build a genuinely national high technology infrastructure that may ultimately enable Chinese defence planners to harness the dual use potential of many new technologies. Yet as scholars and policy-makers raise questions about present patterns and anticipate future trends, it seems more important than ever to take a long look backwards into the origins of the relationship between China's military and its economic development strategy.

One of the striking outcomes of China's economic reforms is the emergence of inter-regional labour markets as rural workers have poured into the nation's urban and rural economies. Policy makers in China, as elsewhere in the world, have treated the inter-regional migrant labour force with ambiguity. Migration may increase efficiency, contribute to poverty reduction and make China's economy more competitive, but leaders fear the congestion, social unrest and loss of political control which might accompany an increasingly mobile labour force.

Involuntary resettlement programmes have not only become an increasingly important and separate component of development projects within China but the movement of more than a million persons within the Three Gorges project has generated a new international interest in Chinese resettlement experiences. With a view to examining prior resettlement projects in China, this article is based on interviews with national and provincial bodies responsible for resettlement and on field investigations of linear resettlement attached to the Jiqing highway in Shandong province and of reservoir resettlement within a hydro-electric power project in Guangxi Autonomous Region.