Before the late 1980s, political parties were unknown phenomena in colonial Hong Kong. Since then measures of democratization initiated by the British in anticipation of their withdrawal in 1997 made available a portion of political power for public contest. The democratic reforms initiated by Chris Patten, the last colonial governor of Hong Kong, accelerated party formation and competition in the last few years of British rule.

Using a localized perspective, this paper explores the gap between the eligibility criteria for a Beijing hukou (household registration) and the reality of successfully acquiring one. By comparing those who are eligible to apply with those who actually succeed in gaining a hukou, it reveals that hukou practices are operated locally to serve the city's development needs. It also reveals huge gaps between migrants, eligible applicants and hukou winners. Most migrants in Beijing are not eligible to apply for a local hukou. However, among those limited applicants who can apply, those with a postgraduate education and who serve the capital's political functions are more likely than others to win a hukou, an advantage not pointed out in government documents. These “hidden” rules are most likely set intentionally by the city so that it can maintain absolute control over hukou transfers; however, at the same time, they frustrate migrants who meet the stated requirements but who are in reality still unlikely to ever acquire a Beijing hukou. These findings open up a novel perspective for exploring the people–city nexus in China during the migration process and highlight the gaps between policy and reality for those who can apply for a Beijing hukou and those who actually win one.

The orthodoxy of the day is that Chinese politics is now pragmatic. The China that was once the ultimate in ideological politics in both the intensity of her passions and the follies of her principles has vanished as by the wave of a conjurer's hand. The primacy of ideology, the hallmark of Chinese Communism under Chairman Mao Zedong, has been replaced by the no-nonsense philosophy of Deng Xiaoping who does not care about the “colour of the cat” so long as it catches “the mice.” With near unanimity scholars of contemporary China welcome the change. It promises not only liberation for the Chinese people from the heavy hand of doctrinal politics but also the prospect that analysis of Chinese developments can emerge from the realm of murky esoteric interpretation into the fresh air of reasoned policy evaluation.

The thirty members of Mr. Chang's society were asked to meet at his house on the 18th of the seventh month. As they were coming at his request and were going to help him with his need for funds. Mr. Chang provided a feast for his friends. A feast was served at all subsequent meetings of the [credit] society, but after the first meeting each member paid his share of the expense. (Sidney D. Gamble, “A Chinese mutual savings society,” Far Eastern Quarterly, No. 41 (1944), p. 41)

This report presents a portrait of contemporary liberal Chinese journalists. Compared with the national average ten years ago, a typical journalist in Guangzhou is younger, better-educated and more likely to be female, and less likely to be a Communist Party member. The survey shows that the literati value coexists with both the modern professional and Party journalism value during the current journalistic professionalization. Such coexistence results in a complexity in journalists' attitude and behaviour. Journalists tend to be inactively liberal: possessing liberal attitudes but not engaging themselves in action. The survey also reports evidence on the contingency of journalistic behaviour logic. Professional logic shows its popularity when journalists encounter conflicts involving legal, economic and political concerns, but not in cases involving moral or cultural conflicts. Neither professional nor commercial logic is strong enough to oppose political logic when journalists are handling severe political issues.

Perhaps the most significant development affecting the Chinese army in recent months has been the campaign to “Learn from the Experience of the People's Liberation Army in Political and Ideological Work” launched by the People's Daily editorial of February 1, 1964. In the context of the nation-wide emulation movement, the Liberation Army's achievements in this field of political work make it a model for the whole nation to “learn from, study and compare with.” Industries, commercial enterprises, government departments, trade unions, rural work cadres and other important sections of the community are reported to have taken up the challenge to “learn from the People's Liberation Army.” At the same time there has been an exceptional quantity of news about the political achievements of the Army and of its model soldiers and companies.

Nei waiyou bie, neijin wai song “treat insiders and outsiders differently,” “be strict internally, relaxed to the outside world,” so goes the Chinese authorities' line on managing foreigners. For historical and nationalistic reasons, foreigners occupy an extremely sensitive position in China today. To the outside world China's leaders talk of “friendship” (youhao guanxi) and celebrate “foreign friends” (waiguo pengyou). But in their internal documents these catch-phrases are simply the tropes of a deliberate strategy to control and manage foreigners' presence and activities in China.

Chen Shui-bian achieved an international reputation for his promotion of Taiwan independence. Whilst that reputation may have been well earned, the analyses on which this conclusion is based are frequently flawed in two ways. First, by using an undifferentiated notion of independence, they tend to conflate sovereignty with less threatening expressions of Taiwanese identity and pro-democracy discourse. Second, by failing to take into account the impact of immediate strategic context, analysts ignore a fundamental element of democratic political communication. In our empirical analysis of more than 2,000 of Chen's speeches, we seek to avoid both flaws by unpacking the concept of independence and taking into account Chen's strategic relationship with his primary audiences. Our findings challenge popular portrayals of Chen, but more importantly they have strong implications for policy makers and students of political rhetoric with regard to current and future ROC presidents.

In 2002, the Chinese leadership announced a change in national welfare policy: Voluntary medical schemes at county level, called the “New Rural Co-operative Medical System” should cover all counties by 2010. This article addresses the main characteristics of this system, analyses the introduction of local schemes based on our own field studies in one Kazak county of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2006, and argues that the fast progressing of the local scheme and the flexibility shown by local administrators in considering structural and procedural adjustments are not the result of central directives but of local initiatives. Recentralization from the township governments to functional departments in the provincial and the central state administration is only one aspect of current rural governance. Complementary forms of locally embedded responsiveness to the needs of health care recipients are crucial in restructuring the administration and discharge of health care. These new modes of governance are different from the hierarchical control and institutionalized representation of interests of the local population.

Taiwan is a geographic location, an economic force, a political presence, a social reality and a cultural expression. The “precious island” (baodao), in the minds of those who are vaguely familiar with East Asia in the English-speaking community, evokes sensations of stunning natural beauty, hard-working people and troubled international status. Those who have travelled there as tourists in recent years are easily impressed by the vibrant economy, cuisine, traffic jams, air pollution, rich folk traditions and colourful popular culture. While journalists and business executives may be fascinated by the transformative power of marketization and democratization in Taiwan's political economy, many students have been overwhelmed by the profound impact of economy and polity on all dimensions of the cultural world - literature, art, dance, music and drama - since the lifting of martial law in 1987.

With the end of the Deng Xiaoping era, China is struggling to define its future. Ongoing socioeconomic changes, impelled by Deng's reform since 1979, pose an unprecedented challenge to the post-Deng political leaders in terms of how to govern an increasingly open and economically prosperous but tension-ridden and potentially unstable society. This question also concerns many Chinese intellectuals and has actually become a new locus of intellectual political thinking. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that expanded economic freedom would foster the demands of political liberalization, the view prevailing in current Chinese intellectual circles is that of so-called neoconservatism.1 This term is loosely used to label a body of arguments calling for political stability, central authority, tight social control, role of ideology and nationalism.2 Such calls are also made by the government, but neoconservatism distinguishes itself from the official statements by defending the current political order from somehow different approaches and with very different rhetoric.

This article analyses the data from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to investigate the effects of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) on people's political trust and policy expectations in China. Results from difference-in-differences (DID) analyses show that those in the NRPS pilot areas reported higher levels of trust in government at both central and local levels than their counterparts in non-NRPS areas, with the former gaining more support than the latter. Moreover, the potential NRPS beneficiaries show similarly higher levels of trust in both central and local governments than non-NRPS beneficiaries. However, the policy did not increase rural residents’ rights consciousness that the government should take the main responsibility for the provision of the old-age support. These findings suggest that citizens' political trust under an authoritarian regime is mainly determined by the material benefits they receive.

Countries endowed with rich natural resources such as fuels and minerals often fall behind in human development. Does resource endowment hamper human capital development in China, a country that hosts rich resources in many of its regions? Through cross-regional and longitudinal statistical analysis and field research in selected mining areas, this study finds that resource dependence reduces government expenditure on human capital-enhancing public goods including education and health care. The local economic structure and reduced demand for labour, the shifting of government responsibilities onto mining enterprises, and the myopia of local residents and officials all discourage the local governments in resource-rich regions from investing in human capital.

This article examines the relationship between democratic and media reforms and political corruption in Taiwan. Has liberalization resulted in increased corruption or has it created a cleaner political system? I argue that the Taiwan case reveals the potential positive effects of multi-party democracy for tackling political corruption, as opposition parties have exploited a liberalized media to challenge and alter accepted but corrupt norms of governance. Pillars of the KMT party state such as its party assets, vote buying and the corrupt patron–client relationship with local factions were until the 1990s either openly or tacitly accepted as legitimate. The Taiwanese opposition parties took a latent political issue, corruption, and progressively broadened the scope of what is publicly acknowledged as corruption. By exposing cases of KMT government corruption and establishing new norms of clean governance it is possible that in the long term opposition parties can contribute to the creation of a cleaner political system.

It turned out that MFN was useful as a tool only to bludgeon George Bush. Democratic Staff Member in the House of Representatives

President Clinton's determination to put economic policy at the heart of our foreign policy is evident in the areas where we have succeeded…. Secretary of State Warren Christopher

In Asia – excluding Japan – they will spend a trillion dollars in infrastructure of all types in the next decade. That's a Century Freeway every week…. I'm from Texas. I'm used to big. But it is difficult to comprehend how big that market is and how those economies are transforming. Secretary of Treasury Lloyd Bentsen speaking in California

[President Clinton has] enmeshed himself in a web of his own spinning… If a politician always sets such deadlines, then he will only have his own hands and feet bound. Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen

The United States maintains a triple standard. For their own human rights problems they shut their eyes. For some other countries’ human rights questions they open one eye and shut the other. And for China, they open both eyes and stare. Chinese Finance Minister Liu Zhongli

In the end, economic interests won the day. It wasn't really even close…. This is the age of the Finance Minister. Thomas L. Friedman, journalist

This essay attempts to describe and contrast the social and political norms which the governments of China and Taiwan encourage their respective citizens to adopt. It endeavours to highlight contrasts in the goals of socialization in the two societies, so different in their vision of the ideal Chinese polity, by examining the norms presented to children through elementary school textbooks.

Tibet in 1950 was an isolated, working theocracy, possibly unique among the various political systems of the modern world. She might earlier have been colonized by Britain had the prospect been economically attractive. Instead she was doomed as a result of conflicting British, Chinese and Russian imperialist interests in Central Asia and the manoeuvrings arising therefrom to a virtually complete isolation, reinforcing the natural mountain-bound isolation of her geography. Both the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904 and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 were basically aimed at making Tibet an area free from any struggle for spheres of influence and colonization. In so doing, they indirectly denied Tibet any alternative source of social change.

Not until the Tenth Party Congress in August 1973 did the Chinese mass media openly refer to the “Lin Piao affair.” Yet, almost all Chinese - including Kwangtung commune members - had been given an explanation for his demise sometime previously, so the revelations of the Tenth Congress came as no surprise. Without help from the mass media, but with guidance from the network of political study groups, the Chinese had been taught how to decode such esoteric phrases as “Liu Shao-ch'i type swindlers” which appeared in the media. The dissemination of information about Lin Piao was the most dramatic but not the first indication of China's dual communication network: the open, mass media and the closed system contained within the bureaucracy (except for the final link to the populace). To cite other prominent examples, a recorded tape of Mao's important 27 February 1957 speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” was played for select audiences long before the revised version was published in June 1957. The series of edicts on agriculture and the socialist education campaign in the early 1960s were widely disseminated; yet the open press only reflected the spirit of the documents. Mao's interview with Edgar Snow that explained and sanctified Nixon's visit went unrecorded in the open media, but circulated widely among cadres.

When the victorious Tokugawa rulers of early seventeenth-century Japan brought an end to decades of warfare, the warrior class, the samurai, no longer had any wars to fight. However, the ideals of the samurai warrior did not die quickly, and new generations of samurai continued to learn the “martial arts” and to give obeisance to the model of the loyal and fearless warrior. In fact, however, under peaceful Tokugawa rule, the samurai gradually became an administrator-bureaucrat and took up the study of the “literary arts” which were more suited to his daily activities than studies of the martial arts.

In recent decades, China has transformed from a relatively egalitarian society to a highly unequal one. What are the implications of high levels of inequality for the lives of children? Drawing on two nationally representative datasets, the China Family Panel Studies and the China Education Panel Survey, we develop a comprehensive portrait of childhood inequality in post-reform China. Analyses reveal stark disparities between children from different socio-economic backgrounds in family environments and in welfare outcomes, including physical health, psychosocial health and educational performance. We argue that childhood inequality in China is driven not only by the deprivations of poverty but also by the advantages of affluence, as high socio-economic status children diverge from their middle and low socio-economic status counterparts on various family environment and child welfare measures.