Over the last two decades, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of Taiwan programmes at universities in America and Europe; however, few of these Taiwan programmes have attempted to develop teaching courses. Where Taiwan courses have been introduced, they have tended to be in isolation and not well integrated into existing academic programmes. Among the universities with Taiwan programmes, only two have attempted to create comprehensive teaching programmes through which students can graduate with a degree in Taiwan studies: SOAS University of London and the University of Texas at Austin. The purpose of this paper is to compare the experiences of these two institutions in developing such niche teaching programmes. It begins with a discussion of how these two programmes first emerged and then goes on to review their distinct development trajectories and key features. The paper offers an analysis of how these two programmes were able not only to survive but also to expand their offerings and thrive in an academic environment that should be hostile to such niche programmes. It concludes with a review of the remaining challenges facing these teaching programmes.

China had no Second Five-Year Plan (1958–62) only five ad hoc annual plans during that period. In basic construction and industrial production a great leap forward did take place in the first three years, only to be followed by collapse and readjustment in the last two years. In agriculture, the period started with an unprecedented bumper crop in the first year, after which there commenced an agricultural crisis that grew in intensity from year to year until 1962 when the output of food grains and green vegetables began to show recovery. This was in sharp contrast to the First Five-Year Plan period which concluded with spectacular achievements in heavy industry, moderate success in light industry and slow but steady improvement in agriculture.

This paper explores how the new Communist government developed a political consciousness of discipline and collegiality among traditional rural midwives in Chinese villages during the 1950s. It argues that selected traditional rural midwives were taught to observe discipline by attending meetings and studying, and to develop collegiality with peers through criticism and self-criticism of their birth attendance techniques and personal characters in short training courses from 1951 onwards. A legitimized midwife identity gradually formed in rural communities, but with it came conflicts and rivalry. By keeping these midwives under institutional surveillance and creating a dynamic and constant moulding process, the new government intended to foster professional and political discipline and collegiality within the group based on a normativized notion of selflessness performed within a changing series of indoctrination schemes that demonstrated continuity and complementarity and which I have described as common, preliminary, institutionalized, and dynamic schemes. This article examines how the state attempted to retrain marginalized and derided midwives with appropriate class backgrounds in order to incorporate them into the modern medical world, then still dominated by doctors and nurses with suspect class backgrounds. Ironically, in creating “socialist new people” to intervene in traditional rural birthing practices and introducing fee-for-service professionalism, the CCP accidentally created a degree of petit-capitalist thinking among women whose traditional mode of work may have been more selfless, thus complicating the process of indoctrinating selfless dedication.

How and to what extent can Chinese culture mould a political leader – his personality, behaviour, strategy in political interactions, and the way he envisions for governance – and impact on the shaping of political system and rules? To answer this question, Xuezhi Guo examines how Chinese political culture, centred on Confucianism and fused with Daoism and legalism, has evolved in terms of political pursuits for Chinese leaders.

The socioeconomic role of guanxi networks among individuals has been widely recorded, yet macro-level analysis has been sparse in empirical research. This research fills that gap by presenting the first nationally representative evidence illustrating the connection between regional guanxi culture and population mobility among cities in China, with a particular focus on instrumental guanxi culture. To quantify guanxi culture, we employ online search indices related to gift giving, a measure which is challenging to capture through traditional survey data. Applying matched prefecture-level data spanning from 2011 to 2019, the panel model reveals a strong negative correlation between a city's instrumental guanxi culture and inbound migration, while sentimental guanxi culture exhibits a positive correlation with inbound mobility. This research not only adds to the existing theories by exploring the macro-level effects of both instrumental and sentimental guanxi practices but also introduces an innovative method for quantifying guanxi culture through big data analysis.

This paper seeks to provide an original examination of the nature of the proliferation of sensitive materials and technologies by Chinese entities. A number of publications have attempted to understand the issue of proliferation stemming from businesses based in China, with many having commented on the efforts undertaken both by international actors and by the Chinese government to prevent it. However, relatively few scholars have sought, in any systematic and sustained way, to understand the types of Chinese companies involved in proliferation and the evolution of their behaviour. This paper seeks to argue and account for the declining role of, and concern regarding, Chinese state-owned enterprise in the global proliferation problem. Different accounts for this change, and the relating proliferation challenge posed by China, are examined.

In 1988, a year before the greatest urban mass protest in modern Chinese history, three major events took place in the cultural, ideological and theoretical realms. One was the broadcasting of the TV series River Elegy (Heshang) in June and the extensive discussions and disputes about it in July and August. The second was the controversy over the political theory of Neo-Authoritarianism, which started in the second half of 1988 and reached a peak in early 1989. The third event was the so-called Shekou Storm (Shekou fengbo) that began in February 1988 and lasted more than eight months. While River Elegy was the high tide of cultural reflection (wenhua fansi) which aimed at examining the cultural and historical roots of current socio-political problems, the Neo-Authoritarianism was a theoretical trend among some young social scientists and members of Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang's think-tanks who were struggling to address pressing issues arising from the reform. The significance of these two events has been realized by many people studying the evolution of Chinese society in the 1980s and the background of the 1989 movement. In contrast, the Shekou Storm, which made an equivalent sensation throughout the country, has received much less attention.

In the context of China's “Constructing ecological civilization” initiative, Tibetan environmentalists are proactively incorporating ecological science into their wildlife conservation efforts. This ethnographic study explores the logics, rationales and motivations behind this approach among Tibetans in Qinghai province. The article contends that Tibetan environmentalists adopt ecological science to gain legibility in the eyes of both the state and the wider environmental conservation community, thereby enhancing their political legitimacy and social recognition. On one hand, this practice counters the stigmatizing narratives that depict Tibetan pastoralists as backward. By embracing scientific discourses and practices, they challenge such derogatory views and position themselves as forward-thinking conservationists. On the other hand, this strategy indirectly preserves the traditional knowledge of pastoralists. Through their involvement with ecological science, they merge traditional insights with scientific methodologies, ensuring the protection of their cultural heritage while adapting to the sociopolitical landscape of contemporary conservation dynamics in China.

The Chinese have released a new figure for grain output in 1974 that is far larger than output claimed for any previous year. At an FAO conference held in Rome in mid-November 1975, the vice-minister of agriculture and forestry, Yang Li-kung, reported that total grain output was 274.9 million tons. And a 10 December Reuters dispatch from Peking speculated on the basis of this 1974 figure that China's 1975 harvest could be more than 280 million tons.

The grain output in China in 1974 was not only, as Robert Michael Field noted in The China Quarterly No. 65, “ far larger than output claimed for any previous year ” ; it was also far larger than the estimates made by most western economists concerned with China. Such observers, believing that agricultural production in China was “ stagnating,” had estimated Chinese grain output for 1974 as being between 255 and 259 million tons. Peking's announcement that 1974 grain output was 274-9 million tons thus set up a contradiction: either those western economists had been far off the mark in their extrapolations of growth or the Chinese figure was somehow misleading. Field opts for the second explanation.

Chinese Communist evaluations of China's foreign conquest dynasties, like those of earlier Chinese historians, have been hostile, at least on the most vulgar level of historical writing. This comes as no surprise, for the conquest dynasties occupied all or part of China by military force and often governed badly. For the Chinese Communist historians these conquerors carry the additional onus of being feudalists, or worse, feudalists who allowed the feudal economy to stagnate. This attitude is particularly marked in the treatment of the more recent foreign dynasties, the Khitan Liao dynasty (916–1124), the Jurchen Chin dynasty (1115–1234), the Tangut Hsi Hsia dynasty (1032–1227), the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty (1644–1911) and the one discussed here, the Mongol Yüan dynasty (1220–1367).

One of the most frequent questions one is asked on returning from a visit to China is whether the tour was guided or whether one could do what one liked and forage for oneself. The question worries both academics and non-academics, whatever their particular interests. The assumptions behind the question would appear to be that one can only really discover anything of value by working as an individual and that a guided tour is only a propaganda exercise. While both assumptions contain an element of truth, they certainly do not express the full reality. The academic aim of extended field work in China is a practical impossibility at the moment and, even were it possible, it would require the assistance and guidance of large numbers of Chinese. The interpretation may belong to the academic but his data depend on the co-operation of others. Similarly, the extent to which a guided tour is a propaganda exercise is a function of one's previous experience and knowledge. The more Chinese one can speak and read, for example, the less likely it is that one can be misled.

Communist literature on “Contemporary (post-May 4) History” in which China begins a “bourgeois democratic reVolution” is more than an ideological exercise; it is autobiographical. The leading character is none other than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself. The emotional inVolvement of mainland scribes is comparable to that of a public figure writing his biography. Every event from 1919 to the present is regarded in the light of the CCP's role. Communist leadership is even attributed to the May 4 Movement, which antedated the Party's formation by two years.