Few studies on the legacies of the Chinese Civil War have examined its effects on state consolidation in the borderland area between China and mainland South-East Asia. This paper empirically examines the impact of the intrusion of the defeated Kuomingtang (KMT) into the borderland area between China, Burma and Thailand. In the People's Republic of China (PRC), the presence of the US-supported KMT across its Yunnan border increased the new communist government's threat perceptions. In response, Beijing used a carrot-and-stick approach towards consolidating its control by co-opting local elites while ruthlessly eliminating any opposition deemed to be in collusion with the KMT. In the case of Burma, the KMT presence posed a significant challenge to Burmese national territorial integrity and effectively led to the fragmentation of the Burmese Shan State. Finally, in Thailand, Bangkok collaborated with the Americans in support of the KMT to solidify its alliance relations. Later, Thailand used the KMT as a buffer force for its own border defence purposes against a perceived communist infiltration from the north. This paper contextualizes the spill-over effects of the Chinese Civil War in terms of the literature on how external threats can potentially facilitate state consolidation.

Review of Chinese Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear Age to the Information Age. By Evan Feigenbaum. [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. 339 pp. US$ 55.00. ISBN 0-8047-4601-X.]

China's growing technological capability has become the topic of the day among Western officials concerned with the national security and economic competitiveness implications of China's growing prominence. The publication of a study which attempts to explain how security and competitiveness have been linked in the evolution of Chinese technology policies is therefore quite timely. The effort to locate this linkage in the development of an ideology of techno-nationalism resonates nicely with perceptions – held by many in Western capitals – of a China with a special passion for the acquisition of dual use technology and a determination to use political means to secure economic advantage. The appearance of Evan Feigenbaum's book, which rightly locates China's technological trajectory at the centre of many of the more important questions about the Chinese future, is thus to be welcomed.

Mass rural–urban labour migration in post-Mao China has received a great deal of attention by scholars of different disciplines. The existing research has largely focused on the causes and processes of migration; the politics of migrant identities and settlements in the cities; changing modes of governance in managing the migrant population; the questions of urban citizenship; and the cultural experiences of migrant wage workers in the reform era. Yet, we know very little about the profound social, economic and cultural impact of migrant labour on Chinese rural life and society. Rachel Murphy's book provides a timely contribution to our understanding of what has happened in rural China as a result of this unprecedented labour migration. Based on extensive, in-depth fieldwork in three counties in Jiangxi province, this is an extraordinarily insightful and fresh account of the everyday socio-economic changes brought by migration in the origin areas. Moving away from the static analysis of migration by modernization and structuralist theories, Murphy emphasizes the critical role of human agency by treating rural migrants as social agents who actively pursue their goals and utilize resources while making sense of the rapidly changing social world in which they live. Her study convincingly shows that migrants are neither passive victims of structural changes nor actors completely free of structural constraints; rather they constantly adopt strategies to negotiate with and alter the larger social, economic and political environment.

Environmental degradation in China, intensified by open-door reforms and industrialization, has been increasing at an alarming scale. Domestically, environmental governance has been poor, often due to institutional constraints and lack of “good practices.” However, recently there have been studies on how the “foreign factor” might have profound positive effects on capacity building in China and how international actors could lead to the successful introduction of good environmental governance. In this article, we present a study of a successful case: the World Bank Global Environmental Facility Cixi Wetlands project in Ningbo, China. The article examines the following: (a) the unique local context enabling the diffusion of international norms; (b) the factors which contribute to the World Bank's leverage role in restructuring local project governance; and (c) the changes in local environmental governance arising from the Bank's involvement. By evaluating this project, the article will demonstrate how the World Bank managed to introduce and socialize local actors into project-specific policy dialogues and procedures that enhanced local compliance with its international practices and standards.

This article reviews the decision-making process behind the creation of a new rural pension between the early 2000s and 2009. It finds that although policymaking was initially delegated to the bureaucratic level and hence involved a protracted bureaucratic struggle, the issue was resolved by a fiat imposed by top leaders rather than by bureaucratic compromise as a bureaucratic politics model would suggest. I call this policymaking process “delegation and then intervention.” Although the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MOLSS) persistently argued in favour of creating the new rural pension, the Ministry of Finance obstinately objected to it. This study finds that when bureaucratic organizations are in conflict because of their core beliefs, rather than resource allocation, they are less likely to reach a consensus. Faced with a prolonged bureaucratic deadlock, top leaders decided in favour of the MOLSS policy initiative, thereby adopting a progressive measure that would provide a completely subsidized basic pension for the rural elderly.

Collaboration between local governments and businesses for poverty reduction has not yet been fully explored in China. Based on an in-depth investigation of two counties during the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, this study proposes a multilayered and relational approach to understanding how different levels of officials collaborate with business to reduce poverty. Elite bureaucrats at the county and township levels prefer a growth-oriented strategy for attracting large-scale enterprises to make investment. Their coalition with businesses has created profits and employment but also hindered authentic participation of small- and medium-sized businesses and villagers in their selected villages. In contrast, in villages that were not prioritized by elite bureaucrats, local officials could utilize their discretion and indigenous resources to exploit development opportunities and support small- and medium-sized businesses to reach poor villagers. This study unpacks China's multilevel system to understand the various forms of government–business collaboration and their implications for rural poverty reduction.

This article examines two major recent CCTV documentaries on the Third Front and its afterlives. The Big Third Front (2017) and Vicissitudes of the Third Front (2016) construct strong narratives about the Third Front during the Mao era, depicting it as a heroic struggle against nature which was forced upon China by foreign enemies. However, both documentaries encounter difficulties in adhering to the usual presentation of the Deng era as a resoundingly successful transformation. Vicissitudes ambivalently characterizes the Deng era as one of relative decline in contrast to the glorious early years of the Third Front and the flourishing present. The Big Third Front, meanwhile, conflates historical footage of the 1950s–1990s in a way that undermines the usual official division of PRC history into Mao and reform eras. This paper concludes by suggesting that academic focus on the Third Front can serve as a methodological tool for complicating the periodization of PRC history.