The entrepreneurial “second generation” of Chinese policy research institutes (often called think tanks) that emerged during the 1980s played a pivotal role in the policy process of reform. Since Tiananmen, China's growing commercialization is spawning a “third generation” of think tanks characterized by even more ambiguous links to sponsoring leaders and institutions, greatly expanded commercial links, greater exposure to Western theories and techniques, and the gradual emergence of wide-ranging “policy communities.” The extent of this change varies greatly across policy sectors, however. Generational change is evident in China's previously unstudied network of public security (police) think tanks. Though clearly still of the “second generation” variety, these institutes have been in the forefront of importing and incorporating more sophisticated crime-fighting techniques and less class-based and conspiratorial theories of crime and social unrest.

Over the past two decades China's international relations (IR) think tanks have come to play increasingly important roles in China's foreign policy making and intelligence analysis, as well as serving as an increasingly important liaison to officials and specialists in foreign countries. During this period China's IR think tanks have expanded in quantity as well as improving the quality of personnel and analytical product. Publications by, and discussions with, these think tanks often offer important indications of broader policy debates and competition among institutes and their staff. This article surveys the current organization and state of research in China's IR think tanks, offers historical perspectives on the evolution of this community, and provides current information of relevance to those who interact with these institutions and read their publications.

A more pragmatic Chinese foreign policy and a more bureaucratic policy-making process have increased the opportunities for China's civilian research institutes to affect foreign policy. Beijing's growing involvement in the international community has created increased demand for research and analysis to aid Chinese leaders in making informed decisions. A more pluralistic and competitive policy environment has given analysts at think tanks more influence, but has also created new competition from analysts and authors working outside the traditional research institute system. This article examines the evolving role of Chinese civilian foreign policy research institutes, their relationships to policy makers, and the pathways through which they provide input into Chinese foreign policy formulation. It provides an overview of the key civilian research institutes, identifies important trends affecting them, and examines the roles and functions they play. The article concludes with an assessment of sources of policy influence within the Chinese foreign policy process.

The national security research community in Beijing is dominated by think tanks and other research institutes affiliated with specific governmental institutions. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) maintains its own set of internal and affiliated research institutions, performing a variety of intelligence, exchange and research functions. The growth and professionalization of the Chinese military think tank community, combined with the widening degree of interaction between PLA researchers and foreigners presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for scholarly research. On the one hand, the new environment complicates the task of outside scholars as they seek to understand the biases and reliability of new sources of information. At the same time, it offers foreign scholars an unprecedented opportunity to test theories, delve into new research and improve understanding of the PLA. This article examines the roles, missions and composition of the units in this system, assesses the influence, authoritativeness and utility of the output from these organs, and offers some preliminary implications for Western study of the Chinese military.

During the 1980s, economic think tanks played a key role as centres of expertise, with distinctive philosophies and approaches to economic transition. Although they were all government-sponsored, they served as important alternatives to the policies and advice available within the formal government bureaucracy. In the 1990s, think tanks continued to play an important role but lost some of their distinctive personality. Expertise was absorbed into the bureaucracy, but at the same time independent think tanks emerged. Think tanks were knit into a web of policy debate and advice which Premier Zhu Rongji, in particular, uses as a source of ideas and analysis. The total network of advisers has become more important, while think tanks have become less distinctive nodes of that network.

Drawing on both regime and falun gong sources, this article analyses two conflicting depictions of falun gong's organizational structure, communications system and financing base. It first presents the regime's view that falun gong was a well organized movement, with a clear hierarchical structure, a centralized administrative system, functional specialization of organizational tasks, a well-developed communications and mobilization system, and a fulsome financial base built on undue profits derived from charging excessive admissions to qigong seminars and selling falun gong publications and icons at substantial mark-ups. In stark contrast, falun gong claimed that it had no organizational structure, no membership rosters, no local offices, telephones or financial accounts; and that its adherents were prohibited from receiving remuneration for teaching falun gong, that it charged the lowest training seminars admission and cheapest prices for publications and material. The article attributes the differences to adversarial polemics, the regime's fervour to criminalize, and the falun gong's eagerness to deny those charges. Some of the discrepancies can also be explained by the status of the falun gong as an evolving and clandestine social organization with changing features and practices, survival structures and camouflage mechanisms. Both regime and falun gong could thus stake their respective claims on different manifestations of the falun gong on arguable but ambivalent evidence.

Social movement theorists have posited that it is not simply the existence of grievances but the manner in which they are interpreted and transmitted that contributes to the mobilization of dissent. Research conducted largely in liberal Western polities suggests that successful social movement “frames” clearly define problems, assign blame to a specific agent and suggest courses for remedial action. Yet dissenters in repressive authoritarian or totalitarian regimes face very different risks and political opportunity structures. Two popular contentious practices in contemporary China – ironic or ambiguous doorway hangings, and the body cultivation techniques of the recently outlawed sectarian group falun gong – demonstrate that ironic, ambiguous or metonymic frames represent adaptive strategies for the articulation of dissenting views in the face of repressive state power.

The private sector has become an indispensable part of Chinese economic growth since its revival from the early 1980s. This raises the issue of the justifiability of the abolition of private ownership by the socialist transformation from 1953. Many Chinese intellectuals now suggest the CCP put an end to New Democracy too early. With new material released since the 1980s, the author argues that the private sector had sharply declined under New Democracy as the Party tried to boost the development of the private economy in default of a market economy. This article substantiates the view that the implementation of the New Democracy policy during 1949–52 was significantly moulding and re-defining the policy goal towards the private economy.

Based on archival sources and interviews, this article relates the untold story behind several township elections. It shows that these experiments were largely the result of a discursive opening on expanding grassroots democracy, and efforts by local leaders to promote their careers by taking the lead in initiating electoral reforms. It suggests that over two decades of post-Mao reform may have encouraged a belief among some local officials that history is on the reformers' side. It also suggests that the current cadre management system may enable mid-level leaders to introduce political reforms at a lower level without seeking prior approval from their superiors. The article argues that succession politics may re-open the door for further electoral reform and that the international community can offer protection to local initiatives by pressing the Chinese government to improve its human rights record.

This article analyses Chinese local people's congresses' supervision of governments in order to see whether people's congresses have played a meaningful role in the reform era. The article will show that the main strategies of people's congresses have been to gain the support of the Chinese Communist Party and to co-operate with governments, rather than to use confrontation, in an effort to overcome their lower political status. But after primarily achieving these goals by the early 1990s, people's congresses have also started to employ the confrontation strategy towards governments. At the same time, people's congresses have actively pioneered new supervisory measures so that they overcome current problematic legal and legislative systems. As a result, legislative supervision began to influence governments and officials significantly in the early 1990s. So people's congresses, along with the Party and governments, have become important political actors in local politics, even though they are not as influential as the other two institutions.

Robert Weller has given us a virtuoso display of theoretical sophistication combined with rich primary data in a densely packed yet consistently stimulating volume. Recognizing the controversy over the applicability of the concept of “civil society” to areas outside the West, he elaborates the idea of an “alternate civility,” by which he means forms of association between the family and the state deeply rooted in society at the grassroots level (therefore not broad-based enough to qualify as “civil”) that, in his view, have provided the basis for Taiwan's democratic transition, and may provide the seeds for a similar political transformation in mainland China. He calls this the “informal social sector” and contrasts it with a sector comprising formal organizations, which are more likely to be co-opted by the state.