China Information current issue

Searching for a Chinese Civil Society Model

Salmenkari, T. — 2008-10-24

This study hypothesizes that the Chinese state uses NGOs as objects of consultation for improving its policymaking in the same way it consults mass organizations, democratic parties, and official professional associations to obtain specialist information. This model of consultation is based on the mass-line model and on its application within democratic centralist administrative hierarchies. The investigation shows that, apart from their main social or environmental tasks, Chinese NGOs indeed inform the state, many of them with policy formulation in mind. It also shows that the Chinese state uses democratic centralist vocabulary to describe the tasks that it assumes NGOs should undertake. However, apart from the mass-line type of consultation, both NGOs and the state have other conceptions about the proper roles for NGOs. The state now promotes the idea of civil society as an independent service provider, while NGOs seek an even larger sphere of social autonomy and self-organization.

The Anticult Initiative and Hong Kong Christianity's Turn from Religious Privilege

Nedilsky, L. V. — 2008-10-24

Excluding others from membership tends to reveal the instability of anyone's terms of belonging in society. Hong Kong's Anticult Initiative of 2001 sought to establish the legal difference between cult and religion and to exclude some from the protections offered by freedom of religion. In the context of Hong Kong's own renegotiation of political authority with China this initiative prompted Protestant and Catholic leaders to reflect on the peculiarities of their own faith and reassess their position in a post-1997 polity. This article analyzes public discourse, both newspaper editorials and interviews, to document a turn in self-perception away from privilege and toward vulnerability. Now that Christians can imagine themselves, like the assumed target of the anticult initiative, Falun Gong, vulnerable to restrictions on their freedom of religion, they indicate an acceptance of their unstable position and an emerging willingness to take on new concerns and allies. In the face of exclusivity, liberal Christians manage a shift toward greater inclusiveness whose extent is yet uncharted.

Utilizing Satire in Post-Deng Chinese Politics: Zhao Benshan Xiaopin vs. the Falun Gong

Gao, J., Pugsley, P. C . — 2008-10-24

Although China's institutional campaign against the Falun Gong has been closely observed and analyzed, researchers have failed to take note of the subversive power of satire utilized in the comic theatrical skits (xiaopin) of popular comedian Zhao Benshan to ridicule the Falun Gong. This exemplifies the Chinese Communist Party's long-established political practice of "educating the masses." Based on an analysis of what are now commonly referred to as "Zhao Benshan xiaopin" and their perceived impact on the Falun Gong issue, this article examines how satirical power in post-Deng Chinese politics has been employed, and it outlines the key features of the practice. This article reviews the use of satire as a political weapon in contemporary Chinese politics, before turning to focus on four relevant Zhao Benshan xiaopin and the way in which they create popular metaphors for propagating official views in the anti-Falun Gong campaign.

Book Review: Ildiko BELLER-HANN, M. Cristina CESARO, Rachel HARRIS, and Joanne SMITH FINLEY, eds, Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia. Aldershot, Hampshire, and Burlington,VT:Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007. xxvi + 249 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7546-7041-4 (hc). Price: {pound}55.00

Mackerras, C. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Noureddine BERRAH, FEI Feng, Roland PRIDDLE, and Leiping WANG, Sustainable Energy in China: The Closing Window of Opportunity. Washington, D.C.:The World Bank, 2007. liii + 273 pp., with boxes, figures, tables, and index. ISBN: 978-0-821-36753-7 (pbk). Price: US$45.00

Vermeer, E. B. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Sarah BIDDULPH, Legal Reform and Administrative Detention Powers in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xvii + 484 pp. with tables. ISBN: 978-0-521-86940-9 (hc). Price: US$112.00

Sapio, F. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Chak Kwan CHAN, King Lun NGOK, and David PHILLIPS, eds, Social Policy in China: Development and Well-Being. Bristol:The Policy Press, 2008. 248 pp. ISBN: 978-1861348807. Price: {pound}22.99

Lau, M. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Christian CHUA, Chinese Big Business in Indonesia:The State of Capital. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.xvi + 176 pp.,with figures,tables, notes, and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-45074-4 (hc). Price: {pound}75.00

Dieleman, M. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Antonia FINNANE, Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation. London: Hurst Publishers Ltd., 2007. xvii + 359 pp., with illustrations, notes, and index. ISBN: 978-1-85065-860-3 (hc). Price: {pound}25.00

Turner, M. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Baogang HE, Rural Democracy in China: The Role of Village Elections. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xii + 277 pp., with tables, notes, and index. ISBN: 978-0-230-60016-4 (hc). Price: US$74.95

Levy, R. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Thomas HEBERER and Gunter SCHUBERT, Politische Partizipation und Regimelegitimitat in der VR China. Band 1: Der urbane Raum (Political participation and regime legitimacy in the PR China.Volume 1: urban areas). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, 2008. 226 pp. ISBN: 978-3-531-15690-3. Price: 29.90

Alpermann, B. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Linda JAKOBSON, ed., Innovation with Chinese Characteristics: High-Tech Research in China. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xxii + 178 pp., with figures, abbreviations, and index. ISBN: 978-0-230-00692-8 (hc). Price: {pound}55.00

Suttmeier, R. P. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Ashild KOLAS, Tourism andTibetan Culture in Transition: A Place Called Shangrila. New York: Routledge, 2008. xii + 154 pp., with glossary, notes, and index. ISBN: 978-0415434362 (hc). Price: {pound}75.00

Schrempf, M. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Natasha KUHRT, Russian Policy towards China and Japan: The El'tsin and Putin Periods. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007. 228 pp., with notes and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-30578-5 (hc). Price: {pound}75

Ferdinand, P. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: James LEIBOLD, Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism: How the Qing Frontier and Its Indigenes Became Chinese. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xi + 271 pp., with notes and index. ISBN: 978-1-4039-7479-2 (hc). Price: {pound}42.50

Shin, L. K. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Richard MADSEN, Democracy's Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2007. xxvi + 191 pp., with notes, glossary, and index. ISBN: 978-0520252288 (pbk). Price: US$12.95

Chiu, H.-Y. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Gordon MATHEWS, Eric Kit-wai MA, and Tai-Lok LUI, Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. xiv + 197 pp., with notes and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-42654-1 (hc). Price: US$150.00

Pepper, S. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Yasuyuki MIYAKE, The political economy of China's reform regime. Kyoto: Minerva Publishing, 2006. viii + 243 pp. ISBN: 4-623-04548-X. Price: {yen}5,250

Kajitani, K. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: David SHAMBAUGH, China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. Washington, D.C. and Berkeley, CA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and University of California Press, 2008. xiv + 234 pp., with notes and index. ISBN: 978-0-520-25492-3 (hc). Price: {pound}23.95

Yongnian, Z. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Czeslaw TUBILEWICZ, Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies. New York: Routledge, 2007. xiv + 242 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-42252-9 (hc). Price: {pound}85.00

Cabestan, J.-P. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Wen-Hsin YEH, Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843--1949. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2007. xiii + 305 pp., with notes, glossary, and index. ISBN: 978-0520249714 (hc). Price: {pound}23.95

Murthy, V. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: Xiantao ZHANG, The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press: The Influence of the Protestant Missionary Press in Late Qing China. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 178 pp. with notes and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-38066-9 (hc). Price: US$150.00

Brokaw, C. — 2008-10-24

Book Review: ZHANG Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2007. x + 447 pp., with photos. ISBN: 978-0-8223-4074-4 (pbk). Price: {pound}15.99

Yiu Fai Chow, , De Kloet, J. — 2008-10-24