There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the facts of Miss Chao's suicide. It happened this way. Miss Chao Wu-chieh, of Nanyang Street, Changsha, was engaged to marry Wu Feng-lin, of Kantzuyuan, on November 14, 1919. As a matter of course the match had been arranged by her parents and the matchmaker. Although Miss Chao had had only the brief ritual encounters with the fiancé, she disliked him intensely and was unwilling to marry him. Her parents refused both to undo the match and to postpone the wedding date. On the day of the wedding, as Miss Chao was being raised aloft in the bridal chair to be delivered to the home of the groom, she drew out a dagger which she had previously concealed in the chair and slit her throat.

The following two sets of notes from my files bear on the role of the Communist International in China in the 1920s. The references to them in my book, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, have been so frequently cited that I must assume that their full text will be found of some value by interested scholars. This is especially true of the first one, a memorandum based on an interview I had on 19 August 1935 with H. Sneevliet, the Dutch left-wing socialist who, under the name of Maring, went to China in 1921 as a representative of the Comintern. The second is a set of notes written at my request in Paris in 1935 by Albert Treint, who represented the French Communist Party on the Chinese sub-committee of the Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in Moscow in May 1927.

The early 1960s witnessed significant changes in the commodity structure of Mainland China's international trade. One of the most striking developments during these years was that China became a net food importer, whereas in the 1950s, when Russia was her most important trading partner, China had been a net exporter of foodstuffs, and roughly one third to one half of China's exports to the Soviet Union had consisted of processed and unprocessed food. These exports were reduced to a mere 3 to 5 per cent, of China's total exports to Russia during 1961–63. Accompanying this change was a pronounced increase of China's imports of food from western countries. During 1952–60, China's purchase of “cereals and cereal preparations” had accounted for but 1 per cent, or less of her total imports from the West. This was augmented to approximately one-half of total imports in 1961–63, about one-third in 1964–66 and roughly one-fifth in 1967. The single most important item of the imported food has been wheat, amounting to four to five million metric tons a year since 1961, and coming mostly from Canada, Australia, Argentina and France.

Before establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communists through the years had instituted revolutionary laws and courts in areas under their control. Many features of “socialist legality” in Communist China today have their roots back in the early years of the revolution. In this article I shall attempt to examine the pre–1949 development of the system of “people's justice” through: the Soviet period, 1927–34, the Yenan period, 1935–45, and the post-war period 1945–49.

Greater China refers in the first instance to the close economic ties of trade, technology transfers and investment that have emerged since the second half of the 1980s linking Taiwan and Hong Kong with the rapid development of southern China. But it also suggests that the economic links are buttressed by familial, social, historical and cultural ties of a peculiarly Chinese kind. These ties and links have developed between different Chinese communities whose political divergences had until recently precluded such a development. Consequently the emergence of Greater China poses new challenges and opportunities to the political identities of its three constituent members and to the conduct of relations between them. Greater China and its possible future trajectory affects and is also affected by the rest of the Asia-Pacific region including the major powers of the United States and Japan as well as those in the immediate vicinity of South-east Asia.

The Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) met in Beijing from 27 to 29 June 1981. On its agenda were two items: changes in the highest-level leadership of the CCP, and the “ Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People's Republic of China.” ‘ Though the Plenum's decisions to a large extent confirmed and made official trends and policies that had become apparent during most of the previous year, they were nonetheless remarkable. The western press has, not unsurprisingly, focused on the replacement of Hua Guofeng by Hu Yaobang as Chairman of the CCP's Central Committee. However, the Plenum's reassessment of the Party's history since 1949; of the roles of Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng and other CCP leaders; and of the nature of Mao Zedong Thought, are undoubtedly of greater significance in terms of the development of the People's Republic of China (PRC): as indeed is the fact of Hua Guofeng's demotion rather than his outright dismissal or “ purge.”

Deng Xiaoping's legacy as a social reformer can be considered in the context of his ideas regarding the selection and promotion of human talent, and the implications of those ideas for the political and social order. Deng's ideas are contrasted primarily with those of Mao Zedong, even though at many times and in many of the utterances of both men there is little that can be distinguished.

1. After the establishment of the Chinese People's Republic in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Government moved to the island of Taiwan and chose the city of Taipei as its new capital. In the 20 years since then, the Nationalist Government has maintained a state of “national emergency” over the whole area under its control, and administered it under martial law. It is the avowed intention of the Government to perpetuate the present situation until the day of its reconquest of the whole of China, that is, indefinitely.

It is difficult to be objective about the Cultural Revolution. Difficulties were encountered during the event itself (which is variously defined as the years 1966–69 or, less usefully, the whole period 1966–76) by its proponents and its victims. With the reversal of the political fortunes of the victims, objectivity seemed even more unlikely. But as 1976 (or 1969) moved further into the past, even in China a more measured assessment of the significance of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath began to be made at all levels (both official and unofficial) of the political public.

This article analyses the nature of contemporary Hong Kong–Japan relations in their economic, political and cultural dimensions, setting the relationship within the broader context of Sino-Japanese relations, concerns about identity and nationalism within Hong Kong, and changing Japanese commercial priorities. While the commercial and popular cultural ties between Japan and Hong Kong remain dominant, since the mid-1990s political issues have become more visible in Hong Kong–Japan relations. Changing moods within Hong Kong about the handover and, after 1997, about the nature of the redefined relationship with China have had an important influence on the political economy of Hong Kong–Japan relations.

What are the consequences of nationalist unrest? This paper utilizes two original datasets, which cover 377 city-level anti-Japanese protests during the 2012 Senkaku/Diaoyu Island crisis and the careers of municipal leaders, to analyse the downstream effects of nationalist unrest at the subnational level. We find both political and economic consequences of China's 2012 protest demonstrations against Japan. Specifically, top Party leaders in cities that saw relatively spontaneous, early protests were less likely to be promoted to higher office, a finding that is consistent with the widely held but rarely tested expectation that social instability is punished in the Chinese Communist Party's cadre evaluation system. We also see a negative effect of nationalist protest on foreign direct investment (FDI) growth at the city level. However, the lower promotion rates associated with relatively spontaneous protests appear to arise through political rather than economic channels. By taking into account data on social unrest in addition to economic performance, these results add to existing evidence that systematic evaluation of leaders’ performance plays a major role in the Chinese political system. These findings also illuminate the dilemma that local leaders face in managing popular nationalism amid shifting national priorities.

Despite fruitful findings on the reasons underlying the desire for educational success and scarce credentials among students and families, there is little research on the meaning of educational success in the marketplace. As higher education in China has expanded to aid better-quality growth and the transition to a knowledge-based economy, educational success has become increasingly critical in the allocation of socioeconomic rewards. As such, insights into how educational success and concomitant credentials are valorized are empirically and theoretically significant. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 73 recruiters for elite professional service firms, this study analyses the meanings underlying the process of valorizing educational success and elite credentials. It shows that success in the gaokao, or entry to higher education, was qualitatively salient in excluding candidates, while information about subject domains and marks/class rank carried relatively less weight. Recruiters based the value of educational success on the notion of “learning ability,” which reflected their shared understandings about Chinese educational selection/institutions and wider conditions of elite professional firms. On this basis, this paper argues for the development of learning capital as a new theoretical lens for approaching educational success and credentials in transitional China.

Many China watchers argue that Xi Jinping has concentrated power in his own hands in a manner unprecedented since the death of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. This article tests the extent of Xi's power consolidation by comparing the strength of his faction during his time in power to similar periods under his two immediate predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Furthermore, we investigate whether a dominant faction is emerging under Xi Jinping, replacing the power balancing between factions that was the norm throughout the reform era. Analysing factional affiliations of Chinese leaders in the top four ranks, we find that Xi has formed a dominant faction. Through statistical analysis of the promotion chances of provincial leaders, we find that Xi has been unusually successful when compared to previous leaders at promoting his clients. This suggests that Xi has boosted the power of his faction by elevating provincial leaders to an extent not seen since the death of Mao and Deng.

In China, celebrities can dominate public discourse and shape popular culture, but they are under the state's close gaze. Recent studies have revealed how the state disciplines and co-opts celebrities to promote patriotism, foster traditional values and spread political propaganda. However, how do celebrities adapt to the changing political environment? Focusing on political signalling on the social media platform Sina Weibo, we analyse a novel dataset and find that the vast majority of top celebrities repost from official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets, though there are variations. Younger celebrities with more followers tend to repost from official accounts more often. Celebrities from Taiwan tend to repost less than those from the mainland and Hong Kong, despite being subject to the same rules. However, the frequent political signalling by the most influential celebrities among younger generations suggests that the state has co-opted celebrity influence on social media to broadly promote its political objectives.

The European Union's position on “one China” has stood since the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1975. As a union of distinct member states, the nature of the European Union's (EU) foreign policymaking complicates efforts to maintain coherent common positions. Its effective “one China policy” (and those of its member states) is no exception. In recent years, the edges of the bloc's long-standing policy have started to fray as the EU–PRC relationship has become more fraught and many member states have sought to deepen their effective, if “unofficial,” engagement with Taiwan. I explore these changes to the EU's effective “one China policy” by employing a subsystems framework, starting from the position that the EU has foreign policies (rather than a singular policy) created through three subsystems. Through the Normative Power Europe lens, I explore the extent to which the actors pulling at these “threads” at the edges of the EU's policy are motivated by normative concerns. I argue that the “fraying” of the EU's “one China policy” is not the result of a conscious decision by the EU as a collective normative actor but stems from shifting preferences within the national and supranational subsystems.

There is practically no knowledge in the west regarding the status of psychiatry in the People's Republic since the time of the Cultural Revolution. The three publications on Chinese psychiatry that I was able to find, all of which are based largely upon the primary literature, terminate abruptly at the Cultural Revolution. At that time the Chinese Journal of Neurology and Psychiatrystopped publication and has not been reinstituted. The only medical journal which has begun publication, the China Medical Journal, carries occasional papers in neurology but thus far there have been none in psychiatry. A group of American psychiatrists who had been hoping to participate in an exchange visit to China under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychiatric Association had not succeeded in making the necessary contacts, and were in fact unable to give me the names of any Chinese psychiatrists in responsible positions.

The international relations scholar Arnold Wolfers once noted that national security was an “ambiguous symbol.” While the Republic of China on Taiwan's (hereafter ROCOT or Taiwan) international status has certainly been ambiguous in recent years, its security has been crystal clear. Taiwan has lived under the threat of military attack or other coercive measures from the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 1949. The mainland Chinese authorities have repeatedly refused to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, claiming it a potentially necessary tool to reunify what it considers to be a renegade province with the “motherland.” As long as Taiwan lives under the threat of military force and coercion from the PRC, this will have a defining impact on the island's domestic life and international profile.

Soon after the People's Republic of China resumed publishing economic data series in the late 1970s it became clear that current definitional conventions for statistical categories often differed from those of the 1950s. For example, tractor stock, in standard 15 horse-power units from the 1950s, was recorded in series linked with current physical unit data. Sporadic efforts have been made clearly to define categories in different periods, pin down transition dates, and occasionally develop consistent series. In some instances, Chinese statistical organizations have produced series making adjustments for specific inconsistencies in previously published data. Soybeans, for example, are now included in the entire official series for foodgrain production and sown area from 1949 to the present; they were previously excluded from 1949–57 data. Articles by Walker and by Field and Kilpatrick were among attempts to correct for this inconsistency, considerably pre-dating the official published adjustment. At around the same time several researchers noted that roots and tubers were valued at one-fourth natural weight in the 1950s, but one-fifth under current convention. For a few years the transition date was open to question and arguments were tendered in support of 1977, 1970 and 1964. Members of a United States Department of Agriculture delegation to China seem to have ended the debate by simply asking their Chinese hosts. They were told categorically that the official change was in 1964, although it is always possible that the effective date differed somewhat among reporting units or even among provinces. Some four years later the date was confirmed in the 1983 Statistical Yearbook.

One of the most notable features of post-1949 China has been its striking periodicity. Through their pronounced policy changes and frequent political campaigns, Chinese leaders have incidentally provided the foreign analyst with a set of periods according to which events may be readily classified. Indeed, the temporal variable is the chief qualifier on which our generalizations must be contingent. There are few statements about the People's Republic, particularly those dealing with its conscious efforts at “development,” which can be made without a modifying phrase such as “before the cultural Revolution …” or “as a result of the Great Leap….” Thus, though considerations of time are obviously important for any developmental analysis, they are particularly significant with regard to China where one is struck by the frequency, suddenness and apparent disjointedness of change. The untidy set of events since 1949 which comprises China's developmental experience violates the sense of orderly progress on which so much of our thinking about development has been based.

The awakening Tibetan national sentiment foreseen by Sir Charles Bell has exploded into a major revolt against China. It has brought the Sino-Indian “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence” policy into disrepute, has altered the balance of power in Asia and may yet in its continuing repercussions be the prime cause, in the solemn words of Prime Minister Nehru, of the Third World War. In 1960 it is imperative that Sir Charles Bell's warning concerning the importance of not overlooking ethnographic Tibet should be heeded. The cartographic manipulation which has taken place in the past has been possible because of the peculiar isolation of Tibet and can be partly ascribed to foreign ignorance. It will no longer be possible now that the Dalai Lama and his government is in India and the new generation of leaders is educated. It must be remembered that those responsible for the success of the revolt themselves come from what has been casually referred to as “ethnographic Tibet,” “de facto Tibet,” “Inner Tibet,” Sikang-Chinghai, Kham-Amdo and Szechuan, according to preference. Not only did the revolt begin in this area, it was carried on with increasing success until this year, and it is not unlikely that it will explode again at any time.