The Chinese reforms that began in 1978 mercifully ended one of the most brutal and misguided economic regimes in modern history… [responsible for]… a manmade famine that killed millions during 1959–1961, and for state-promoted social upheaval that destroyed the lives of millions, including almost the whole intellectual class, while paralysing rural development for more than a decade between 1966 and 1978.

In the aftermath of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, government officials, scholars and outside observers eagerly hoped that the emergency relief and reconstruction process would bring about the emergence of civil society and increase grassroots democratic participation. Contrary to this optimistic assessment, this article contends that the local state used the opportunity of the disaster as an experimental laboratory to implement an array of already existing national development plans. The urgency with which the reconstruction was to be completed and the opportunities to meet national development targets as well as access reconstruction funds were too tempting to resist. However, the ham-fisted Leninist implementation style met with local resistance and has contributed to a significant deterioration in local state–society relations. The fact that many local residents continue to question why, despite the huge resources invested by the state in the reconstruction project, they have yet to see any improvement in their economic and overall living conditions points to a deficit of local participation and a breakdown in political communication and trust. By focusing on the different political economies of disaster reconstruction, this article attempts to illuminate the regime's vision for developing the countryside, rural politics, and state–society relations in China more broadly. Unless the state is able to incorporate local needs into its development plans, it will not win the trust and support of local residents, regardless of the amount of money it invests or the benevolence of its intentions.

China's recent collective forest tenure reform is intended to clarify and certify forest rights, and thereby promote market circulation of forestland, encourage forestry production and safeguard conservation. Central policy statements prioritize parcelling tenure among households to promote efficient management. This study examines how participants experienced the programme in communities in north-west Yunnan. In the study area, rather than individualizing tenure, forestry agencies compelled communities to re-collectivize forests. Nonetheless, residents persist in using household forests despite restrictions. Local officials tacitly sanction these activities. In mountain hinterlands, forest tenure reform has been focused on “stabilizing” forests and communities. Rather than forcibly impose tenure designs, authorities perform what we call accommodative buffering. A set of formal institutions, rules and mappings enables projects like forest ecological compensation payments to go forward. However, state agents at local and higher levels tolerate informal practices that contain the trouble that poorly fitted formal institutions might cause. While potentially more resilient than by-the-book enforcement, these arrangements could leave residents vulnerable to political shifts that require a demonstration of policy adherence.

To what extent has governance of China's state-owned economy changed under Xi Jinping? Against the background of momentous shifts in the political arena since 2012, some observe a decisive departure in Xi's approach to managing state-owned enterprises (SOEs): towards tight centralized control by the Chinese Communist Party and away from gradual marketization. Analysing the main aims and methods of SOE governance over the last two decades, we find that SOE policy under Xi exhibits a deepening of pre-existing trends rather than a departure. First, the essential vision of SOE functions articulated under Xi is strikingly consistent with that of his predecessors. Second, his administration's approach to governing SOEs is not novel; it relies on established mechanisms of bureaucratic design, the cadre management system, Party organizations and campaigns. While Xi has amplified Party-centred tools of command and control, this appears to be an incremental rather than a radical shift in approach.

Guided by Michel Foucault's concept of “pastoral power,” this article examines the ways in which contemporary discourses within official narratives in China portray the state in a paternal fashion to reinforce its legitimacy. Employing interdisciplinary approaches, this article explores a number of sites in Urumqi, the regional capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in order to map how a coherent official narrative of power and authority is created and reinforced across different spaces and texts. It demonstrates how both history and the present day are depicted in urban Xinjiang in order to portray the state in a pastoral role that legitimates its use of force, as well as emphasizing its core role in developing the region out of poverty and into “civilization.”

The abolition of Agricultural Tax in 2005 was a major policy of the early Hu–Wen administration. But how and why did it happen? Drawing on abundant media reports, archive documents and internal speeches by key policymakers, as well as on the author's interviews, this article argues that this reform was pushed through (the “how”) by “principle-guided policy experimentation” with origins in the period of Jiang Zemin's leadership. Not only does this show policy continuities from the Jiang–Zhu era into the Hu–Wen period, it also reveals a different process of policy experimentation from that identified by Sebastian Heilmann in the economic policy arena. Under principle-guided policy experimentation, Chinese central decision makers first reached consensus on the principle of the Rural Tax and Fee Reform (RTFR) drawing on policy learning from prior bottom-up local experimentation, and then formulated and implemented an experimental programme from the top-down, funding it in order to encourage local governments to participate. The evidence suggests that international, political (rural instability), economic and fiscal considerations came to explain leaders’ decisions (the “why”) on tax reform as much as their individual preferences.

One of the most visible features of Nationalist rule on Taiwan throughout the period of martial law (1948–87) was the promotion of a personality cult focused on the figure of Chiang Kai-shek. This article is an examination of the ways in which the disparate elements which made up this cult were produced. It considers how the cult reflected a political culture which originated in the Nanjing decade and the subsequent war years, yet which adapted to the realities of post-war exile in Taiwan. This study suggests that whilst the Chiang personality cult was promoted by the central government (and by Chiang himself) it was quasi-official organizations and individuals who were primarily responsible for the production of its written, visual and monumental texts.

“Strike hard” anti-crime campaigns, “harmonious justice” and “stability maintenance” are the three key politically inspired agendas of crime control and punishment in 21st-century China. This paper is a study of how discourse has helped to package these agendas and to mobilize politico-legal functionaries into action. It examines discourse in the first weeks of the 2014 “people's war on terror” and the agendas of “harmonious justice” and “stability maintenance” in the Hu Jintao era. It finds that each has been rationalized and shaped by an understanding of the utility of punishment based on Mao's utilitarian dialectics. The political virtuosity of Mao's dialectics is that it can be adapted to suit any political situation. In understanding how Mao connects with criminal justice in China today, this paper identifies what is the “political” in “politico-legal” discourse in the fight against crime in the 21st century.

The liberation of women has been one of the priorities of the Chinese Communist Party since its foundation, with its sources in the evolution of ideas and the struggles that developed in urban China after the May Fourth movement. The Party, however, has put this ideal into practice only when it did not contradict the imperatives of revolution. The same holds true for prostitution: in 1949 the Party was eager to eliminate the most obvious forms of the exploitation of women, but practical measures were only carried out over several years. Article 6 of the Common Programme stated that “the People's Republic of China abolishes the feudal system that maintains women in slavery.” Prostitution appears in the discourse of the Party as the worst form of exploitation, as exemplified in an editorial of Xin Zhongguo funii in December 1949: “Prostitution is a sequel to the savage and bestial system of former exploiters and power holders to ruin the spirit and the body of women and to tarnish their dignity.”

Social critics and intellectuals since Sir Thomas More have subjected growing urban industrial centres to sweeping criticism. Much of city planning in the West is characterised by reassertion of rural values and rural self-sufficiency. The anti-city approach often takes the form of ‘planning Utopian communities in the country, free from the “excesses of urbanism.” However, in an industrialising country like China a different theme underlies the view of country-city relations. In predominantly rural China, and in the U.S.S.R. during early years of industrialisation, the emphasis of city planning shifts to the need to bring cities and industry to the land. The aim has been to spread industrial values and techniques to rural areas.

It is a truism that in politics words often count for as much as deeds. What is surprising about politics in the People's Republic of China, given the Chinese Communist Party's professed commitment to materialism, is how often words count for more than deeds. Disputes concerning the proper order of things are resolved not by reference to what is, but to what ought to be. The right to affect political change is argued first of all on the basis of scriptural authority, and only secondly on the basis of empirical evidence. Acts that cannot be immediately sanctioned on the basis of arguments contained in canonical texts will be kept secret until the obstacles preventing such sanction have been eliminated.

Regarding the question of hanging the portraits of our leaders, the Central Authorities made a clear ruling as early as 29 March 1960… “In the organizations for ehe Party, the People's Liberation Army and the people's associations of various kinds, it is permitted to hang the portrait of Mao Tse-tung alone; it is also permitted to hang the portrait of Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, Chu Te, Ch'en Yun, Lin Piao, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, seven persons. The manner of hanging these portraits is: if it is desirable to hang the seven portraits of Mao, Liu, Chou, Chu, Ch'en, Lin, Teng together, the portrait of Mao Tse-tung can be placed in the centre and the others on the two sides. It is also suitable to put the portrait of Mao Tse-tung in the first place and the others in order as indicated, and from left to right. According to our understanding there are now not a few units, especially the primary level units, which have not hung the portraits as described above. We are asking these units to inspect carefully the way in which these instructions have been carried out so that we may have a unified system according to the regulations of the Central Authorities.

This article compares two neighbouring underdeveloped counties in south-west China. They share many similarities in economic, political and demographic structures, but experience divergent levels of social instability. The comparison suggests that, under China's political system and cadre incentive structure, the endowment of mineral resources in one county, and the lack thereof in the other, significantly influences the modes of economic development and local governance in these two counties, and thus contributes to their different levels of social instability.

This study addresses whether individuals who were sent down during the Cultural Revolution reveal different political attitudes from those who were socialized during the same period but were not themselves sent down. Using data from the urban sample of the 2006 General Social Survey of China, the authors find evidence that formerly sent-down youth – and particularly sent-down women – as compared to their not-sent-down peers, are today more willing to accept the class-struggle foundation of Mao's communist ideology but are, at the same time, more willing to assess the performance and structure of the communist regime critically.

Few China scholars or Chinese citizens know one of the most basic facts about Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Zhu De, Chen Yi, Guo Moruo or many other modern leaders: they are all Hakka. Most popular and official histories, in China and abroad, ignore this basic ethnic bond. The title of this article is used ironically, in deliberate parody of the genuine Secret History of the Mongols. The subtitle points toward an ironic but serious effort to illuminate a major facet of revolutionary history which remains almost entirely unexplored.

This article discusses the origin and consolidation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reserve cadre system and considers its impact on the resilience and perpetuation of the Party's authoritarian regime. Reserve cadres are essentially the Party's “disciples”; through careful selection and training, the CCP is able to build a legion of youthful political elites with exceptional administrative ability and correct political thinking. Upon assumption of Party and government posts, these reserve cadres are able to reinforce the Party's autonomy and resist outside pressures to democratize, thereby manifesting the very nature of a resilient authoritarian regime.

A Brief History

In terms of growth and revenue, China's telecommunications sector is arguably the jewel in the crown of the socialist market economy. What was formerly the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MPT), and is presently the Ministry of Information Industries (MII), has throughout the 1990s produced phenomenal revenue and phenomenal growth.For useful studies on China's telecommunications industry development, see John Ure (ed.), Telecommunications in Asia: Policy, Planning and Development (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995); Milton Mueller and Zixiang Tan, China in the Information Age: Telecommunications and the Dilmenas of Reform (Center for Strategic Studies, 1997), and most recently, focusing on equipment manufacture rather than the service sector, Xiaobai Shen, The Chinese Road to High Technology: A Study of Telecommunications Switching Technology in the Economic Transition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). Beginning with Deng Xiaoping's historic trip to Shenzhen in March 1992, China's reform-minded leadership recognized the importance of telecommunications infrastructure to the success of urgent economic growth. Revenue growth for the MPT was strong throughout the decade, growing over 1,600 per cent. Postal services did well, but the phenomenal growth was in telecoms. From 1991 to 1999, telecommunications revenue grew 2,050 per cent against total postal service growth of 375 per cent. In 1999, combined turnover for post and telecoms reached 331.1 billion yuan (US$40 billion), of which telecommunications activity contributed 311.2 billion yuan, or 94 per cent (see Figure 1). As a result, the Ministry became increasingly focused on the telecommunications sector.

A large number of statistics on the Chinese economy are generated through complete enumeration. Essentially the entire rural population, for example, is organized into agricultural collectives or state farms, and these units are required to submit standardized reports on a range of economic and social activity. They report on several categories of production, on financial flows, and on matters such as births and deaths. There are, of course, areas of interest to Chinese planners and social scientists, the data for which are not routinely compiled at local levels, e.g. data on family consumption patterns. In China, as elsewhere, sample surveys are used to fill such information gaps. Such surveys are commonly conducted using the technique of “typical example investigation” (dianxing diaocha). While well established in China, this survey technique, which might be characterized as stratified non-random sampling, is increasingly challenged as inadequate to the needs of economic science. One recently published large scale typical example investigation generated some statistics for which are available population parameters derived from complete enumeration. Comparison of the results of the typical example investigation and the complete enumeration reveal a strong bias in the sample. The bias is shown to result from the role of social statistics in China, and provides a clear illustration of the contradictions in that role.

There are three aspects of China's foreign economic relations which are important to our efforts to understand the Readjustment of 1979–84. These are: (a) the government's general orientation towards foreign economic relations; (b) quantitative trends in investment and trade flows; and, (c) the nature of trade organization and international economic links. The general orientation to trade is critical in a planned economy where central preferences (essentially political) are easily reflected throughout the system. Stalin's policy of autarchy transformed the international role of the Soviet economy, while in China, Mao Zedong's willingness to trade with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc profoundly changed the character of the Chinese economy between 1953 and 1959. Large-scale plant imports created new industries and enlarged heavy industries established – particularly in the north-east – before 1949. This phase of policy had exhausted itself in China towards the end of the 1950s, although import data for 1959 reflect prior commitments and give little sign of this. However, the reality was that China's capacity to absorb imported capital goods, and the agricultural capacity to sustain foreign exchange earnings at the necessary level, were both weakening even before the dislocations of the Great Leap radically changed the role of foreign trade by converting China from a net food exporter to a net importer.

Using data from a 2004 national survey, we examine the recent trends in the conditions of migrant workers in China. Our discussion engages the debate in the existing literature between the migrant workers as victims of China's economic growth and as a newly emerging political force with growing bargaining power. The study focuses on three dimensions of migrant workers' status: their socio-economic conditions, relations with rural and urban residents, and conflict resolution behaviour. The findings indicate that while migrant workers continue to occupy more blue-collar and service jobs than urban residents, their economic, social and political status has improved. In some areas, migrant workers show even more political activism than both rural and urban residents. Migrant workers' growing social influence is a positive development in China's political diversification.