On 1 July 1981 the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation. To mark this occasion, the Party itself issued a statement summing up the experience of recent decades. It seems an appropriate time for outsiders as well to look back over the history of the past 60 years, in the hope of grasping long-term tendencies which may continue to influence events in the future.

Mexico's economic relationship with China has intensified substantially in the last decade. Based on an increasing literature on the overall and aggregate relationship, this analysis proposes a detailed examination of the auto parts-automobile chain, which is of utmost importance for both countries and will be significant for understanding the future trade relationship between them. In order to understand the industrial organization of Mexico and China, the article first gives an overview of the international trade and industrial organization patterns. After establishing the characteristics of Mexico's and China's legal framework, production, employment and trade, the analysis concludes with a group of proposals to improve binational co-operation. Both countries – China interested in increasing its export platform based on Chinese parts brands and Mexico supplying parts and components and providing decades of experiences in international networks – can benefit from these suggestions and overcome current tensions.

We have found that along the banks of the Hu, Chinese and foreign residents mix together in great numbers. Their style of life has traditionally been frivolous and flashy. There is mutual competition for profit, owing to the convenience of communications and the crass materialism. Since this is a centre where Chinese merchants are gathered together, it is a carefree place, where gentlemen and ladies take their pleasure. If one is of the upper classes, then luxurious desires are fully realized and there are many instances of behaviour overstepping proper boundaries. If one is a worthless fellow, then when he sees something different and thinks of moving ahead, he has a disproportionate expectation. He might well wait until the seas are drained and the mountains are worn down and yet still lack the craft to carry out [his plans]. Nonetheless he walks straight into danger without hesitation and willingly engages in illegal behaviour. Furthermore, Communists take advantage of the situation and think of intimidating robbers, kidnappers and bandits to wait in secret for an opportunity to behave outrageously.

It used to be a truism that 20th-century China witnessed one of the great peasant revolutions of world history. The Chinese Communist Party built a popular base in the countryside, and eventually a massive army of peasant soldiers surrounded the cities and drove the urban-based Kuomintang from the Mainland. In the comparative literature, the Chinese revolution was classified as a peasant revolution, and a number of important studies sought to explain the social origins of that phenomenon.

Population growth, small-scale agricultural development and popular beliefs concerning fengshui guided the evolution of the areal form and content of Chinese rural settlements during the imperial past. Over the last half century, on the other hand, more formal planning, top-down political decisions and the broad economic policies of the state have altered the Chinese countryside. Since 1949, on both Taiwan and the coastal mainland, quite different political and economic systems influenced the geometry and morphology of villages, affecting their inherited appearances and functions. The hybrid rural settlements that have emerged, while echoing traditional village forms, are often neither rural, urban nor suburban settlements. This article examines and compares the reshaping of village settlements in Taiwan and Fujian over the past half century and probes the role played by the state in guiding such transformations. In both Taiwa

The racial or ethnic division between aborigines and the predominant Han Chinese had seldom been considered a significant factor in shaping Taiwan's labour forces before the late 1970s. Even though the aboriginal urban migrants felt isolated or discriminated against in the urban neighbourhood and the workplace, most grievances remained at the individual level. The discontent did not become a public issue until the introduction of foreign workers was made a legal measure to relieve labour shortages. This article is concerned with the way urban aborigines have been first incorporated into and then excluded from the employment structure of Taiwanese society in the process of industrialization. A brief look at the two waves of aboriginal urban migration is accompanied by a description of the characteristics of the jobs to which most urban aborigines were recruited. The article then examines one of the major effects of globalization on the sub-proletariatization of urban aborigines through the medium of the 1989 foreign imported labour policy. Urban aboriginal opposition to the importation of foreign workers started with the deprivation of their job opportunities and then developed into a feeling of xenophobia which encouraged the formation of a pan-aboriginal consciousness in pursuit of political rectification of their long-ignored subordinate and disadvantageous position in terms of citizenship.

Scholarly interest in a cellular model for sectors of the Chinese economy dates at least to G. William Skinner's “Marketing and social structure in rural China,” published in 1964–65, but based on his field work from 1949 to 1950 and on a theoretical foundation developed by Christaller and Löch in the 1930s and 40s. New interest was sparked by Audrey Donnithorne's 1972 article in this journal, in which she attempted to demonstrate that China had recently “experienced an intensification of the tendencies towards a cellular economy,” which she claimed had been strong even before the Cultural Revolution.

In 1913 the British convoked a conference at Simla; the Tibetans attending willingly, the Chinese under constraint. The purpose of the British Government in this conference was to extend and formalize the de facto independence which Tibet had begun to enjoy in 1912 as a result of the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, and of the consequent turmoil in China: Tibet would thus be maintained as a buffer state between India and China. This the British hoped to achieve by making the Chinese accept a zonal division of Tibet into “Inner” (from Peking's point of view) and “Outer” regions. (The Russians had obtained China's acquiescence in a similar division of Mongolia in 1913.) The British aim suited Tibetan aspirations, and the British and the Tibetans worked throughout the Conference in closest co-operation, not far short, indeed, of collusion.

China's trade with Taiwan has a political motive: winning the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people. The effectiveness of China's economic statecraft can be examined in the Syuejia (Xuejia) case, where Taiwan put up strong resistance to the generous benefits offered by China. This article investigates the political implications of the Chinese-designed contract farming programme in Syuejia and argues that if economic favours are delivered, and positive impressions also created, political attitudes can be revised. Without these two prerequisites, however, replicating the Syuejia results elsewhere and thus disturbing the cross-Strait status quo will be difficult. When put in a theoretical context, the changes in the political landscape of Syuejia illustrate the interplay of economic interests and political identity.

Just as China's economic programme seemed to be settling into a predictable and reasonably successful pattern of growth, politics in the form of the “great proletarian cultural revolution” again reared up to cloud the future. Although most of the details of China's economic performance during 1966 and the first three months of 1967 remain obscured, enough is known to make at least a partial assessment.

This article examines Chinese engagement in Ethiopia's telecommunications sector. It argues that while theories of developmental state and global production networks contribute important insights on the roles of state agency and inter-firm relations in the rise of global lead firms from East Asia, they are insufficient to interpret the recent overseas ventures of Chinese companies in Africa. A case study of one flagship Chinese telecommunications company in Ethiopia advances the existing literature by highlighting the influences of host government intervention and inter-firm competition in shaping firms’ local operations. Specifically, this article analyses a myriad of changes in the case company's organizational structure and business practices in response to increased market competition administered by the Ethiopian government. Findings reveal that despite benefiting from official inter-state cooperation, Chinese overseas companies are neither static nor merely state-driven players but are flexible in adjusting strategies to improve their competitiveness in the local market.

The CCP's commitment to gender equality since 1921 has produced vast gains in employment and education for countless women while overlooking established gender hierarchies in family life. Long-term research in Beijing reveals that crossing class, sectoral and generational differences, there is an apparent paradox between women's increasing access to education and employment and their abiding attachment to ideas and practices associated with their roles as wives, mothers and daughters-in-law. A reconfigured “patchy” form of patriarchy is sustained by a dominant discourse of gender difference that naturalizes women's association with the domestic sphere. Unprecedented engagements with international feminism after 1995 introduced new approaches to gender equality. Recently, young feminists from diverse backgrounds have launched public protests targeting expectations of women in marriage and family life, marking a contestation of previous articulations of gender equality. Online platforms are flooded with exchanges about women's empowerment in a market environment that grants them considerable leverage to manage their marital and domestic relationships. The focus of this new generation of feminists on social reproduction signifies a radical departure from the classical Marxist principles underpinning earlier approaches to women's emancipation. Nevertheless, a “patchy patriarchy” continues to characterize widely held gender assumptions and expectations, spanning class and sectoral difference.

This article explores the relationship between the sent-down youth movement and economic development in rural China during the Cultural Revolution. It examines ways in which sent-down youth themselves initiated improvements in rural life, and more importantly, how local officials used both their presence to acquire equipment and technical training and their skills and education to promote rural industry. The sent-down youth offices established in the cities and the countryside inadvertently provided connections between remote rural counties and large urban centres that enabled the transfer of a significant quantity of material goods, ranging from electrical wires and broadcast cables to tractors and factory machinery. Ultimately, we show how individual sent-down youths, their families, and both urban and rural officials – none of whom had a role in determining government policies – identified and made use of resources that those policies unintentionally produced.

Chinese NGOs face strong coercive pressures and limitations yet have still emerged as notable actors in several issue areas. This article studies why and explains how a group of NGOs working on AIDS-related issues have been able to progress into relatively large and vibrant operations. It documents how NGO leaders have learned to navigate opportunities and risks, circumvent formal restrictions and broker pragmatic and largely informal arrangements that have enabled their organizations to grow and advance within China's authoritarian settings. The article contributes to the literature on Chinese NGO development and new institutionalism theory, and introduces a framework for studying NGOs based on their organizational forms and activities.

In recent years, Western and Asian countries have been warning, and warned, against the so-called ”China threat.” These warnings reflect Beijing's military-related policies, primarily the consistent increase in China's defence expenditures since the early 1990s, its resumed acquisition of arms from the former Soviet Union, its continued nuclear tests, and its contribution to the proliferation of conventional, semi-conventional and, allegedly, non-conventional weapons. In their repeated attempts to refute the “China threat” syndrome, Chinese leaders stress, among other things, the 25 per cent cut of about one million troops in the size of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), announced in the mid-1980s. Reportedly slicing it from about 4.2 million to about 3.2 million, this massive demobilization is usually treated, not only byChina watchers but also by the Chinese themselves, as an essential aspect of their ongoing defence reform which goes hand-in-hand with military-tocivilian conversion.

The rapid changes in China of the past few years have quite properly focused much attention on the problems of political succession at the top levels of Chinese politics. In part this is recognized as a generational issue because of the advanced age of the first set of leaders of the People's Republic. Indeed, this is still a question of contemporary significance. Teng Hsiao-p'ing, for example, is alleged to have said that he turned down the premiership in favour of Hua Kuo-feng because he was in his 70s whereas Hua was in his 50s. Therefore, unlike Teng, the latter could expect to guide the modernization programme through to the year 2000. One of the major problems overshadowing the current Chinese leadership (both at the levels of the Political Bureau and even the Central Committee) is that soon a new generation of leaders will replace the old. It is perhaps because of this that the current leadership has been so concerned to consolidate the new order and to set the new modernization programme upon what is hoped will be an irreversible course. At the same time one of the reasons for the reluctance of many officials at all levels of China's bureaucracies to implement the new policies with the enthusiasm and initiative expected in Peking is precisely the fear that the new policies may be reversed by a new set of leaders whose succession in the nature of things cannot be long delayed.

In mid–June 1989, just a couple of weeks after the Tiananmen protests were brought to a halt, a small unit of Peoples Liberation Army soldiers occupied the headquarters of the Stone Group Corporation, then Chinas premier electronics company. The troops were accompanied by a working group composed of Beijing Municipal Communist Party and government officials, who were sent to investigate charges that Stone employees had participated in the crushed student protest movement. Just days before their arrival, three of Stones senior management, including its President, Wan Runnan, had fled China. Wan was one of 21 black hands named by the Communist leadership as having orchestrated the protests.

The institutional framework of agriculture defines the context in which the relationship between the peasant and the state is enacted. In China from the mid-1950s until 1979 that framework was characterized by a collectivist and interventionist ethos. The state–peasant relationship weighed heavily in favour of the state. The three tiers of agricultural organization–commune, brigade and production team – facilitated control of the economic activities of individual peasants by the government, whether at central or local level. Individual initiative was largely limited to those activities which could be carried out in spare time or on private plots. The relationship between effort and reward was frequently tenuous and distribution was guided by egalitarian principles.

This article examines the CCP's “falun gong problem” with reference to PRC law and policy on “heretical cults,” paying particular attention to the implications of this problem for the ongoing struggle to establish human rights under the rule of law. Official PRC commentary contends that the falun gong not only committed criminal acts but also wilfully sought to undermine the rule of law itself. Human rights critics and agencies, such as the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, have, on the other hand, attacked the PRC for a “repressive legal framework” that threatens human rights. The “falun gong problem” is an important chapter in the struggle for the rule of law in China, and it appears that the law has not been able to transcend the conceptual bias of past criminal law on counter-revolution. The related politicization of the law through a revived principle of “flexibility” challenges the internal process of criminal justice reform and the recent reform focus on the balance of human rights protection and public order.

Within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), some Party units have established a largely unknown network of writing teams which propagate the policies or perspectives of a particular unit by publishing feature articles in Party journals. These writing teams often make use of a pseudonym in the form of a person's name, leading outsiders to believe that the work is written by a journalist. In fact, the pseudonyms of the Party unit writing teams function as a form of secret code. Through this code, inner Party members can recognize which unit's views an article reflects. In order to reveal exactly which units the codes represent, we have collated the names of over 20 writing teams. In addition, we provide an introduction to the functioning of the writing teams and the manner in which articles are produced. Finally, we propose that the CCP's mechanism of “propaganda codes” is gradually undergoing the process of institutionalization.