The Multilateral Fund created by amendments to the Montreal Protocol played a key role in motivating the Chinese government to ratify and comply with the Protocol. Two other factors have affected China's actions in meeting the Protocol's requirements: the nation's desire to appear as a responsible and co-operative actor in solving global environmental problems, and the interest of China's principal implementing agency in expanding its responsibilities and authorities. Three factors have had significant roles in enhancing the national government's ability to implement the Protocol: expanded administrative capacity, participation of local government units with capability to enforce regulations, and the employment of market-based environmental policy instruments.

The separation of Chongqing from Sichuan and its promotion to a municipality directly subordinated to central government, as well as its inclusion in the area for the campaign to Open Up the West, have helped Chongqing position itself well ahead of many other inland Chinese industrial cities. Increased central funding has helped Chongqing to survive the social, political and economic consequences of the large-scale relocation programme attached to the Three Gorges Reservoir area and the dramatic restructure of state-owned industries. The future of Chongqing, however, depends on how long the current proactive fiscal policy of the central government will last and how quickly Chongqing can establish sustained economic development under socialist market conditions.

This study focuses on the theoretical links between two important ingredients of individuals’ fundamental political values (i.e. authoritarian ideology and national attachment) and their life satisfaction assessments in an authoritarian context. We employ data from a 2016 national public survey in China to empirically examine how these political values relate to Chinese citizens’ life satisfaction. Our regression analyses demonstrate that Chinese citizens with stronger authoritarian ideology and national attachment are likely to report a higher level of life satisfaction. Our study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of the connections between political values and citizen life satisfaction. It also advances our understanding of the origins of social and political stability in authoritarian regimes, where citizen life satisfaction usually represents a major source of state legitimacy.

At the time of the convening of the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, the Party leadership confronted an urban society splintered by the blessings and the blows of two decades of ever-deepening marketization. This article explores the composition of urban society at that juncture, and aims to delineate its changing social structural break-down. It also investigates the correlation between Jiang Zemin's “three represents” and the various separate social groups making up the cities at the turn of the century. While arguing that in Jiang's vision the lowest stratum of society may have been intentionally excluded from his “represents,” the piece also shows the stance of the state towards several groupings and its means of dealing with each. The piece concludes with a suggestion that new top leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao appeared, as of the time they took office, to be turning a new leaf.

This article explores the Chinese local people's congresses' supervision over courts in an attempt to understand the pattern of emerging state organs' development in the reform era. During their development, people's congresses and courts could not expect to have institutionally based independent authority in a party-state. They instead had to make full use of opportunities to expand clarified jurisdictions and to intensify organizational capacities. As a result, the developmental pattern of newly emerging forces became more complicated than expected: a series of intertwined relationships of state organs with the Party at the apex, based on their legal and political statuses rather than independent and autonomous development, and their desperate efforts to exploit each and every opportunity. And this pattern will continue until there is a radical reform of the Chinese political system.

For two reasons the elevation of the law in government policy and political rhetoric in China in recent years inspires great interest and significance. The first is related to the perennial debate on the desirability and possibility of a “government of laws” versus a “government of men” in Chinese history. To what extent does the recent emphasis on the law indicate a movement towards the former from the latter? Given the importance of the issues of institutionalization and power distribution in the analysis of Chinese politics, what is the significance of this development of the law? What is, in other words, the meaning of the recent policy on the “rule of law”? Does it mean something new and what is that newness? The second cause of interest is the mere appearance of the topic itself. Why, and how, is it possible that the recent surge of deliberations on the rule of law occurred at all, if, as is often believed, individual leaders have heavily dominated Chinese politics? In other words, what underlying processes are at work to motivate the leaders to advocate the supremacy of the law, rather than the supremacy of their own authority?

Like other Chinese state institutions, the educational system has undergone many changes since the death of Mao Zedong and the overthrow of the “gang of four” in 1976. Several accounts and studies have appeared treating different stages and aspects of this continuing transformation. Further adjustments to the system of education are likely to take place in the near future. Now that the Sixth Five-Year Plan has been published in draft form laying down the blueprint of China's development in the coming few years, some kind of assessment needs to be made of the; educational system, its performance and its prospects, since much of they immediate and future operation of rapid economic growth depends on U ithe human capital provided by schools.

How do subnational agents exercise policy discretion in the social welfare sphere? To what extent do they do so as a result of various bureaucratic and fiscal incentives? The literature has documented several explanatory frameworks in the context of China that predominantly focus on the realm of developmental policies. Owing to the salient characteristics of the social policy arena, local adaptation of centrally designed policies may operate on distinctive logics. This study synthesizes the recent scholarship on subnational social policymaking and explains the significant interregional disparities in China's de facto urban poverty line – the eligibility standard of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme, or dibao. Five research hypotheses are formulated for empirical examination: fiscal power effect, population effect, fiscal dependency effect, province effect and neighbour effect. Quantitative analysis of provincial-level panel data largely endorses the hypotheses. The remarkable subnational variations in dibao standards are explained by a salient constellation of fiscal and political factors that are embedded within the country's complex intergovernmental relations and fiscal arrangements. Both a race-to-the-top and a race-to-the-bottom may be fostered by distinctive mechanisms. The unique role of provincial governments as intermediary agents within China's political apparatus is illuminated in the social policy arena.

This special section deals with China's longstanding fascination with Singapore's development experience that has preoccupied post-Maoist leaders from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping despite the obvious differences between the tiny Southeast Asian city-state and the most populous country on earth. In particular, there is great Chinese interest in Singapore's success in combining effective governance and efficient state capitalism with stable one-party dominant rule. As a consequence, Chinese observers paid much less attention to electoral democracies that were well-governed states with mature economies.

Middle-class parents in China are increasingly torn between the need to secure their child's future in an environment where competition starts in kindergarten and parenting ideologies focusing on the child's individuality, creativity and freedom. Our study, based on ethnographic fieldwork among middle-class Chinese migrants in Budapest, shows that one result of this tension is a new wave of emigration that is justified in terms of securing a relaxed, healthy and free environment for the child. These migrants consciously reject what they see as a materialistic and dehumanizing social environment in China and pursue a “European” lifestyle that they imagine as wholesome and human-centred; yet while they rejoice in the “happiness” of their children, they retain a deep-seated anxiety about their children's future. Thus, the search for a mentally and physically wholesome environment consonant with China's discourse of national revitalization becomes decoupled from its original agenda and triggers a new trend in international mobility. This study illustrates how the broader tensions in the relationship between China's middle class and the state are externalized to the global stage.

The rural economic reforms introduced into China after 1978 have wreaked havoc on the accumulated scholarship of China specialists in the west. Dozens of books and articles that had revealed the inner workings of people's communes and the merits and faults of competing work point systems were reduced to historical curiosities by the decollectivization drive that swept the nation. In the wake of the demise of the familiar and fairly standardized pattern represented by people's communes, many questions arose for debate. How much of the collective system remained in rural China after decollectivization? To what extent did the revived system of family farming represent a return to pre-socialist organizational patterns, or was any resemblance to the past superficial and misleading? Was there a general pattern of village organization across the nation in the wake of decollectivization, or had uniformity completely given way to local peculiarities?

In China, continuous rural–urban migration on a massive scale disrupts the traditional rural patriarchal society and makes the temporary non-patrilocal way of residence possible. This new residential pattern has brought profound changes to the lives of migrants. Based on participant observation and interviewing, this article intends to explore the exercise of agency and the representation of subjectivity of female migrant workers in intimate relations after migration. By emphasizing the intergenerational relationship and partner relationships of both unmarried and married women, I demonstrate a complicated picture regarding the changing status of rural migrant women and show how these women both conform and challenge the social norm of filial obligations, through which their agency is exerted and subjectivity is crafted.

Contrary to the prevailing view in the literature that Chinese courts have been notoriously incompetent in enforcement, this article contends that the situation may not be so bad. Based on in-depth fieldwork investigations of 60 debt collection cases at a basic-level court in the less developed hinterland region of China, this study finds that the majority of plaintiffs recover most of their debts through the court. Local protectionism persists, but seems to be contained within legal rules. Nevertheless, the underdeveloped economy of the region has limited the effectiveness of several core judicial reform measures. Unlike the situation in more developed regions, the forces of economic development outside the court have not been significant enough to reshape the power structure inside the court. The overall situation suggests, however, that China's efforts in the field of legal reform, including the promulgation of substantive laws as well as strengthened institution-building have, in general, been conducive to the effective processing of routine debt collection cases.

In July 2009, nearly 200 people were killed in ethnically targeted mass violence between Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi, overshadowing the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). How have ethnic relations between Han and Uyghurs descended into mass violence among ordinary people? This paper argues that the party-state exacerbates ethnic tensions between Han and Uyghurs through ethnocentric security narratives. These narratives frame China's identity as being under threat from Turkic enemies within who are supported by Islamic terrorists and Western “enemies of China” from outside. Discourse analysis of official texts, participant-observation of security practices, and interviews with Han and Uyghurs reveal the interplay between official identity discourses and everyday security practices before, during and after the violence. Since July 2009, one official solution to ethnic violence has been the construction of a shared multi-ethnic identity, officially described as a “zero-sum political struggle of life or death.” However, Han-centric conceptualizations of ethnic unity promote Han chauvinism and portray the Uyghur as a security threat. The party-state thus creates hierarchical ethnic relations that exacerbate both Han and Uyghur insecurities and contribute to spirals of violence. China's extra-judicial internment camps in Xinjiang are the logical conclusions of the ethnocentric insecurity cycles analysed in this article.

Many studies put forward the argument that local policy experimentation, a key feature of China's policy process in the Hu Jintao era, has been paralysed by Xi Jinping's (re)centralization of political power – otherwise known as “top-level design.” This narrative suggests that local policymakers have become increasingly risk-averse owing to the anti-corruption campaign and are therefore unwilling to experiment. This article, however, argues that local governments are still expected to innovate with new policy solutions and now will be punished if they do not. By introducing the analytical framework of “experimentation under pressure” and drawing on an analysis of over 3,000 local government regulations and fieldwork data related to foreign investment attraction policies in two localities, Foshan and Ganzhou, the authors highlight new features developing within current experimental policy cycles. Local cadres now have no choice but to experiment as the political risk of shirking the direct command to experiment may be higher than the inherent risk of experimentation itself.

Sceptics query China's economic and political ability to realize its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Less attention has been paid to BRI's implications for one of the defining features of China's foreign policy: low engagement in areas beyond its traditional sphere of influence. The Middle East is such a case. Addressing this issue, the article explores the mutual impact of China's low political involvement in the Middle East and BRI's realization. Distinguishing cross-border connectivity projects from other BRI-associated activities, the article examines the challenges to executing BRI-related projects in Israel. It finds that realizing connectivity projects – the essence of the BRI vision – will require China to increase its regional engagement, a shift that it has so far avoided.

The Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's 11th Central Committee that convened in December 1978 marked the beginning of a new phase in China's economic development. This article examines the major development policies and broad economic trends since 1978, and assesses the prospects for future growth. Section I sketches the economic legacies of the 1970s that shaped the economic policies and performance of the current period. Section II outlines the new development strategy and compares it with the strategies of the past. The rate of economic growth and structural changes are discussed in Section III. Section IV summarizes the findings and concludes with brief comments on the major constraints on future economic growth. One important issue, economic reform of the system, has been deliberately omitted because (with the exception of those in the agricultural sector) they are still in an experimental stage. While the focus of this study is on macro-economic policies and trends, these issues are closely related to micro-economic developments because economic policies are based on the leadership's perspective on developments at the micro level and economic trends reflect the implementation of macro policies by the micro-economic units.

Any treatment of such a basic topic as the role of law in China, old or new, becomes meaningful only if it is related to a discussion of the philosophy of law in our own tradition. In order to make an evaluation that brings the Chinese situation into relief, one has to compare, contrast, or relate the role of law at the different stages of China's development with its role in the Western tradition. Since the basic philosophical assumptions, on which all definition and discussion of law are based, are themselves controversial in our own tradition, this is a very hazardous undertaking; but it is crucial to any understanding of China, past and present.

Over the course of the 1990s, China's arms control and nonproliferation policies have undergone a remarkable evolution. Since 1992, China has signed three major, international arms control treaties – the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which it had previously lambasted for years. In addition, Beijing has continued to improve on and clarify many of its previous nonproliferation commitments as well as to adopt a legally based export control system covering a variety of sensitive materials, equipment and technologies. These developments are mirrored by the expanding roles and growing influence of a number of new bureaucratic actors in China devoted to examining its participation in the international arms control and nonproliferation regime. Most notably, in 1997 China's Foreign Ministry established a department exclusively devoted to arms control and disarmament issues. Yet despite these broad trends, little is known about the actors and influences (external and internal) affecting Beijing's arms control and nonproliferation decision-making. Chinese writings on arms control, while growing in number, tend to be descriptive rather than analytical and usually provide little insight into China's policy-making on arms control and nonproliferation.

In recent years, the governments of China and India have initiated a strategic partnership. Talks of creating an integrated “Chindia” economic hub have been commonplace. Many studies have been undertaken from conflicting perspectives on bilateral relations at the high level, but how ordinary Chinese people view their contemporary Indian counterparts and how this provides a civic dimension to the partnership remains under-explored. In an authoritarian nation where exhibiting sentiments contrary to the party-state's policy is not encouraged and remains uncommon, the Chinese have increasingly relied upon the internet to express their views on various aspects of policy, including that towards India. Using systematic, qualitative research on the online community, this article categorizes the various opinions expressed by Chinese internet users about India, the Indians and Beijing's Indian policy; analyses the apparent huge gap between these perceptions and the official rhetoric of Beijing; and forecasts how such perceptions might influence future Sino-Indian relations.