For over four years from the Marco Polo Bridge incident to Pearl Harbour China fought alone against Japanese military expansionism in the Far East. Both Britain and the United States recognized China's strategic importance but gave relatively little in the way of material help. On the one hand sufficient aid had to be given to ensure that China continued to act as a bulwark against Japanese imperialism and to keep China from gravitating to the Soviet Union (whose aid programme was more immediate, more generous and took the form of military supplies). On the other hand assistance was limited by British resource constraints, by American isolationist public opinion and by the fear, on both sides of the Atlantic, that overt military aid would provoke Japan into widening the conflict into their own respective spheres of interest.

Given the extraordinary pace of across-the-board expansion in Korea–China relations, the lack of assessments on the state of studies of contemporary Chinese politics in Korea is a crucial void to be filled. This evaluative article first offers a socio-demographic sketch of the Korean scholarly community of contemporary Chinese politics. More specifically, it examines how the epistemological community has evolved over the last half century in terms of generational and orientational changes. The second section assesses scholarly outputs in the field of contemporary Chinese politics by looking at monographs, refereed journal articles and doctoral dissertations produced by Korean scholars. The article concludes with some suggestions for further advancement of the studies of contemporary Chinese politics, which may be applicable to Korea as well as to the peer communities in other countries.

Environmental degradation in China, intensified by open-door reforms and industrialization, has been increasing at an alarming scale. Domestically, environmental governance has been poor, often due to institutional constraints and lack of “good practices.” However, recently there have been studies on how the “foreign factor” might have profound positive effects on capacity building in China and how international actors could lead to the successful introduction of good environmental governance. In this article, we present a study of a successful case: the World Bank Global Environmental Facility Cixi Wetlands project in Ningbo, China. The article examines the following: (a) the unique local context enabling the diffusion of international norms; (b) the factors which contribute to the World Bank's leverage role in restructuring local project governance; and (c) the changes in local environmental governance arising from the Bank's involvement. By evaluating this project, the article will demonstrate how the World Bank managed to introduce and socialize local actors into project-specific policy dialogues and procedures that enhanced local compliance with its international practices and standards.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a global health and political crisis like no other in recent history. As ground zero of the virus outbreak, significant criticism and blame have been directed at China for covering up the outbreak. Yet a systematic assessment of China's responses to international opprobrium of its pandemic measures has been largely lacking in the literature. Drawing on the concept of “blame” from public administration, this article seeks to fill this gap by investigating China's COVID-19 crisis and blame (mis)management practices. We make two key contributions in this article. First, we highlight how Beijing engaged in the politics of blame and outline three modes (defensive, aggressive and proactive benevolence) of its blame management practices. Second, we suggest that China sought to articulate and refine its identity during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights into a China that is increasingly assertive yet vulnerable to reputational damage. We contend that China's efforts to counter international opprobrium and shift strategic narratives speak directly to issues of autocratic legitimation and its conceived “responsible great power” identity, with greater success among domestic rather than global audiences.

China's need for skilled workers to upgrade its industrial system is increasingly urgent due to global economic competition. Despite massive expansion of its Vocational Education and Training system over the past two decades, a significant skilled labour deficit remains. Current debates on the inefficacy of vocational education focuses on the lack of institutional synergies between education and industry but often overlooks the inherent conflicts within the vocational education system and micro-level skill formation processes. Our ethnographic research in two upper-secondary vocational schools unveils a disturbing trend: the rapid massification of vocational education, which prioritizes student enrolment numbers over educational quality, fails to address the demand for skill formation and skilled labour. It inadvertently generates adverse consequences for both administrative management and classroom instruction. Skill development frequently falls to after-school professional associations and an exclusive group of elite students. Meanwhile, reform initiatives, such as the craftsmanship campaign and skill competitions, benefit only a few without improving the employment prospects for the wider student population. These findings call for greater attention to the inherent tensions within China's Vocational Education and Training system. Only when there is a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of ineffective skill formation in vocational schools can China achieve its national goal of industrial upgrades.

Collaboration between local governments and businesses for poverty reduction has not yet been fully explored in China. Based on an in-depth investigation of two counties during the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, this study proposes a multilayered and relational approach to understanding how different levels of officials collaborate with business to reduce poverty. Elite bureaucrats at the county and township levels prefer a growth-oriented strategy for attracting large-scale enterprises to make investment. Their coalition with businesses has created profits and employment but also hindered authentic participation of small- and medium-sized businesses and villagers in their selected villages. In contrast, in villages that were not prioritized by elite bureaucrats, local officials could utilize their discretion and indigenous resources to exploit development opportunities and support small- and medium-sized businesses to reach poor villagers. This study unpacks China's multilevel system to understand the various forms of government–business collaboration and their implications for rural poverty reduction.

In my view, the fundamental disagreement between Garver and me i, the estimation of the nature of the CCP-Moscow relationship, personalized in the relations between Mao and Stalin. Garver believe, that Stalin regarded Mao as a “dissident communist” who frustrated Stalin's intention to sacrifice the CCP's revolutionary interest; in order to meet the need for Soviet security. In the decade after 1935, Garver continues to argue in his comment, Mao “repeatedly deviate[d] from Comintern line and ultimately emancipate[d] the CCP from Moscow's control.” Therefore, Stalin had good reason to distrust Mao. If the CCP-Moscow radio communication had not been disrupted, Stalin could have prevented Mao from launching a successful coup at the Zunyi Conference, Garver says in his China Quarterly article. After finding some evidence of Stalin's willingness to supply the CCP with weapons, Garver states that “our estimates of Mao's willingness to antagonize Stalin must be adjusted.” To Garver, the Mao-Stalin relations were utilitarian in nature, just like those between Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek – they were all each other's “fishes.” Given the discrepancy between the Soviet security need and the CCP's revolutionary interests, Garver's depiction of the relationship between Mao and Stalin leaves the impression that they were adversaries, rather than comrades.

This article examines the process, causes and repercussions of the accession of Taiwan, as a contested state, together with China, to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in 1991, the first intergovernmental organization that Taipei has joined since 1971. Based on an analysis of elite interviews, primary and secondary data, the paper traces the under-explored diplomatic history of the accession. It argues that changes in Taiwan's domestic and external environments, as well as changes in the diplomatic process, account for Taipei's admission, rather than the China factor alone. The paper examines four positive effects of accession on Taiwan's international space and the implications for Taiwan's continuous survival as a contested state. By undertaking a nuanced analysis of an important yet little explored milestone in the contested state's struggle to mitigate its international isolation, the article sheds light on Taiwan's external ties against the backdrop of the sovereignty dispute between Taipei and Beijing.

The governance of China under Xi Jinping functions mainly through leading groups. Using the case of water governance, this article examines the interaction between these groups at three levels: the top-level design group, the riverine macroregion groups and the implementation groups. This governance model is designed to avoid nomenklatura failure, restrict fiscal federalism and reduce the agency problem between the centre and local leaders. For the purpose of water governance, China has been divided into five blocs based on river basins, which we call riverine macroregions. Using this approach, the Chinese Communist Party is combining water governance with regional development and enhancing local governments’ collective implementation of central policy.