Political Process and Widespread Protests in China: the 2010 labor protest

Existing studies of collective actions in China pay most attention to frequent but localized protests, but such protests are less likely to deeply drive China's political and social prospect. By contrast, widespread protests are more likely to affect the Chinese Communist Party's authority and policies once they emerge. The goal of this article is thus to probe the conditions under which a widespread protest can happen in China today. This article proposes four necessary conditions grounded in the political process model and tests them by explaining the successful outbreak of the 2010 labor protest. Identifying these conditions helps us understand and predict the political and social development of China.     

Bashing ‘the Chinese’: contextualizing Zambia's Collum Coal Mine shooting

The 2010 shooting of 13 miners at Zambia's small, privately-owned ‘Chinese’ Collum Coal Mine (CCM) has been represented by Western and Zambian politicians and media as exemplifying the ‘neo-colonial’ and ‘amoral’ practices of ‘China’ and ‘the Chinese’ in Africa. CCM has been used to provide a sharp contrast to the supposed ways of the Western firms that own most of Zambia's mines. Embedded in racial hierarchy and notions of strategic competition between the West and China, the discourse of the CCM shootings further shapes conceptions of global China and Chinese overseas. While examining all the oppressive conditions that have given rise to protest at the mine, we contextualize the shooting and subsequent conflicts. In analyzing CCM's marginal and troubled development, we discuss aspects of the 2010 shooting incident known to miners and union leaders, but ignored by politicians and media. We look at the shooting's political fallout, focus also on the epilogue that was the 2012 CCM riot—in which one Chinese person was murdered and several others seriously injured—and trace the sometimes violent discontent manifested at other foreign-owned mines in Zambia since their privatization in the late 1990s. The empirical data for this detailed study derive from hundreds of documentary sources and interviews with union leaders, workers, officials and others in Zambia from 2011 to 2013.     

Guiding Public Opinion through Social Agenda-Setting: China's media policy since the 1990s

Guidance of public opinion (yulun daoxiang) became the buzzword of the Chinese government's media policy from the 1990s. I illustrate this idea through borrowing the concept of agenda-setting from media studies. Partly, its introduction was a response to the crisis of the propaganda model in the mid-1980s. Recognizing its declining ability to control what people think, the party state shifted its focus from political ideology to social agenda. The guidance of public opinion is indirect, flexible and subtle in nature. It allows the state-controlled media to address people's daily concerns. Also, it realizes that responsiveness to public opinion is the key to guiding that opinion effectively. The media need to guide public opinion ‘correctly’, so as to promote political unity, social stability, and boost morale. An argument is advanced that the party state seeks to accomplish attention management through agenda-setting.     

Involuntary Migrants,Political Revolutionaries and Economic Energisers: a history of the image of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia

Along the contemporary migration history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, three distinctive images have been constructed through the interaction between the overseas Chinese and Mainland China. First, the image of involuntary migrant, formulated by their migration activity and the continuous remittance they sent back to their hometowns, closely linked to the political and social-economic disturbances in the early years of the twentieth century. Second, the image of the overseas Chinese as political revolutionary was heavily politicised by the revolutionary policies of Mainland China in the 1950s and 1960s. Third, through the operational means of foreign direct investment, the overseas Chinese image of economic energiser was re-focused and mirror-imaged with the imperative of the economic reform of Mainland China in the 1970s and 1980s. On the one hand, the images of involuntary migrant, political revolutionary and economic energiser of the Southeast Asian overseas Chinese describe their situational status. On the other hand, these images also reflect the contemporary historical development of Mainland China.     

Uneven Opening of China's Society,Economy, and Politics: pro-growth authoritarian governance and protests in China

This article evaluates China's model of development, especially its main component, i.e. its model of governance. It suggests that China's model of development is marked by an imbalance between fast opening of the economy and the society and sluggish opening of the political system. The Chinese society has become much more open, reflected in the Chinese growing awareness of their legal rights. The Chinese economy has become highly internationalized and open, but much of Chinese politics is closed. China's governance is marked by pro-growth authoritarianism. The Chinese state is effective in opening up the economy, promoting reform, and generating economic growth, but offers weak protection of people's rights and ineffectual mitigation of social grievances. These imbalances help produce social protests. Viable solutions are discussed.     

A Wave to Worry About? Public opinion,foreign policy and China's anti-Japan protests

Comparing China's 2012 anti-Japan protests against three previous rounds of anti-Japan protests in 1985, 1996 and 2005 reveals a cyclical pattern, best characterized as a wave of popular mobilization. In each case, external events sparked a swell of public anger and activism which Chinese leaders initially tolerated before cooling. This pattern of contained contention has not led to Beijing loosening control over its foreign policy. However, the 2012 protests did feature one new element: a consumer boycott augmented by China's more assertive economic statecraft.     

环境污染、集体抗争与行动机制：以长三角地区为例

长三角地区环境污染引发的集体抗争事件说明,任何一种抗争事件的发生不仅包含内在机理：道义先占、利益影响、行动联盟和政治机会结构,还包括行动机制：触发机制、动员机制、扩散机制和回应机制。抗争事件将政府卷入其中,考验政府预防和化解此类事件的能力。政府可以从事件发生的基础性机理和情境性机制的不同环节人手,建构一套治理集体抗争事件的完整有效的框架模式。     

Civil Society in Self-Defense: the struggle against national security legislation in Hong Kong

The political struggle against national security legislation in Hong Kong led to an unprecedented awakening of civil society against the state and the largest indigenous movement in Hong Kong history. The proposed laws by the Hong Kong government were seen as overbroad and ill-defined, and the government's disregard of public opinion led to an outcry from various social sectors. The Catholic Church, legal professionals and the press played special roles in opinion leadership and mobilization in the struggle. The mass protest created an internal split of the governing elite and forced the postponement of the legislation. It also encouraged local participation, re-fueled an ailing democracy movement, and put democratic reforms onto the political agenda of Hong Kong.     

More than a primitive imperialism: The colonial government and the social relief of Hong Kong in the early twentieth century

The implication of the social relief of Hong Kong in the early twentieth century has not been stressed sufficiently by researchers on social administration. The post‐colonial historiography, which would likely be dominated by Chinese communist historians, most probably will reinforce the reductionist view ‘British imperialist was indifferent to the social relief for Hong Kong grassroots’ to fit in the political correctness of the upcoming hegemony. This documentary analysis shows a different picture to the above common sense. Based on the new picture, we try to unveil the danger lurking in the anti‐imperialist nationalism, and suggest a possible new understanding of the history of Hong Kong's social welfare development.     

马来西亚华教运动与华人权益争取——以政治社会学为视角

社会运动自20世纪60年代兴起以来,已成为广大公民争取自身权益,表达利益诉求的重要管道。马来西亚华教运动的形成有其制度根源,在几十年的斗争过程中也积累了一定的经验,能为广大的海外华人及少数族裔争取自身权益提供一定的借鉴意义。虽然马来西亚华教运动在争取华人权益方面发挥了一定作用,但效果有限。这就要求少数族裔除了通过社会运动的方式争取权益外,更要积极培育及鼓励本族群的参政热情,提升本族群的政治话语权,或与国内其他少数族裔形成合力,以形成具有实质影响力的压力集团来影响政府政策的制定。     

从阿根廷华人超市被抢看华侨面临的安全困局

近些年来,阿根廷、南非等国屡屡发生华人超市①和住宅被抢劫,人身安全遭受伤害的事件,使海外华侨面临着日渐严峻的安全困局。这是由于所在国经济、政治和社会局势的影响,以及华侨自身一些原因造成的。因此,应对和破解这种安全困局,既需要我国外交、公安和侨务等部门从国内外各途径进行努力,也需要华侨自身多方面的改变。     

The ‘China Threat’ through the Lens of US Print Media: 1992–2006

China scholars have examined the ‘China threat’ theory from various theoretical perspectives, offered a range of explanations for the theory's emergence and forecast the potential implications for US–China relations. However, few scholars have empirically studied the ‘China threat’ theory through the lens of the US media. This is a critical oversight, because the media plays a pivotal role in shaping US public opinion and US foreign policy, and the media is a key channel for ‘China threat’ dissemination and popularization. This study seeks to redress this oversight by empirically examining ‘China threat’ coverage in the US print media over a 15-year period from 1992 to 2006. We use content-analysis methodology to systematically collect, code and analyze ‘China threat’ data from five major US newspapers and to track the frequency and content of this coverage over time.

Our analysis reveals many interesting patterns in ‘China threat’ media coverage. First, the initial emergence of ‘China threat’ arguments in the US print media corresponded with the sharp upward turn in China's economic growth rates in the early 1990s. However, since the early 1990s, ‘China threat’ coverage has not mirrored China's steady growth. Rather, the media coverage was cyclic, featuring three key peaks (1996, 2000 and 2005) followed by subsequent declining interest. Second, our analysis reveals that the focus of these stories also varied over time. Perceptions of China as a political/ideological threat dominated media coverage in the earlier years (1992–1994) but steadily declined after 1995 and totally disappeared from the US print media after 2001. Perceptions of China as a military/strategic threat replaced political/ideological concerns in 1995, and the military focus has dominated media coverage ever since. Perceptions of China as an economic/trade threat persisted steadily throughout the 15-year time period with a clear uptick in recent years. We conclude this analysis by turning to the literature on realism, agenda setting and information processing to offer possible explanations for these empirical trends.     

The Television Play,Melodramatic Imagination and Envisioning the ‘Harmonious Society’ in Post-1989 China

The television play has been recognized by scholars as the most influential genre in the flourishing television industry in China's new media landscape; yet little critical attention has been given to inquiry of why and how it functions as a dynamic cultural agent in the Chinese people's reconfiguration of their past and imagining of their everyday life. This paper investigates the intriguing socio-historical environment from which the genre emerged and its unique modes of operation by focusing on the television play of sentiment. It demonstrates that the television play embodies the many complex aspects of social forces and relationships contested in China's reform, suggesting, all at once, commercialization in Chinese society, the popular imaginary of morality and the state's conceptualization of a ‘harmonious society’, a strategic policy aiming at maintaining social balance while bypassing some of the thorny political questions in the post-revolution era.     

华人精英对“中国梦”的态度与成因初探

中国高层对"中国梦"的倡导及其内涵阐述引起了海外华人精英的高度关注。这些主要由侨领、留学生、学者等群体构成的海外华人精英对此表达出几种观点看法:一是期待与共鸣;二是担忧中国内部出现的如食品安全、道德滑坡等社会问题羁绊"中国梦"的实现;三是强调人本理念的植入,呼吁中国借鉴西方普世价值文明。这些观点反映出具有家国情怀的侨领和"跨国认同"的华人精英对中国形象和民族复兴的期待,同时他们正视中国内部目前现存问题与挑战,华人精英倾向于从政治文明和文化角度来设计中国圆梦的路径方法。华人精英俨然是海外华人社会的"意见领袖"。于是,通过发挥其在侨务公共外交中的桥梁作用,有利于聚合海外华侨华人的资源力量,为实现"中国梦"而共同奋斗。     

Chinese Nationalism and its Political and Social Origins

Using the 2008 China Survey, this paper examines Chinese respondents' feelings toward their country and how such feelings are related to their democratic values. First, it compares Chinese nationalism with that of 35 countries and regions in the 2003 National Identity Survey. Second, it looks at the origins of Chinese nationalism as embedded in the social and political characteristics of individuals. Third, it further examines the impact of nationalism on people's political attitudes. The findings show that nationalism in contemporary China is better predicted by the political and economic characteristics of an individual rather than cultural attributes, and that nationalism serves as a powerful instrument in impeding public demand for democratic change.     

Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: the strident turn

This paper revisits the debate about foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism in the context of China's increasingly confrontational and assertive behavior in recent years. It argues that while the Chinese government made effective efforts to control popular nationalism and Chinese foreign policy was therefore not dictated by emotional nationalistic rhetoric before 2008, it has become more willing to follow the popular nationalist calls to take a confrontational position against the Western powers and to adopt tougher measures in maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors. This strident turn is partially because the government is increasingly responsive to public opinion, but more importantly because of the convergence of Chinese state nationalism and popular nationalism calling for a more muscular Chinese foreign policy. Enjoying an inflated sense of empowerment supported by its new quotient of wealth and military capacities, and terrified of an uncertain future due to increasing social, economic and political tensions at home, the communist state has become more willing to play to the popular nationalist gallery in pursuing the so-called core national interests. These developments have complicated China's diplomacy, creating a heated political environment to harden China's foreign policy.     

Dispersive Containment: a comparative case study of labor politics in central China

Why is there no large-scale labor movement out of intense labor conflicts in current China? Based on a comparative case study of two groups of workers—state workers vs. temporary workers—this paper is an attempt to explore the concrete processes and mechanisms of workers' struggles—how they navigated among street protests, office petitions and court prosecutions through their interaction with state agencies. The argument is that different workers obtained different symbolic rewards instead of material concessions, based on their different social positions and historical trajectories. Unlike the classical ‘fragmentation’ argument which attributes the working class's inaction to its internal divisions, this argument focuses on the interaction between the differentiated workers and the local state agents, during which the workers lost their radical momentum and became subjected to the state's peaceful taming based on the workers' differences. This is a process called ‘dispersive containment’, i.e. dissipating the labor conflicts through divergent symbolic treatment of working-class protest without granting material rewards to them.     

Acquiring Political Information in Contemporary China: various media channels and their respective correlates

Using complementary information from two national surveys conducted in 2008, i.e. the China Survey and the ABS II Mainland China Survey, this paper presents a comprehensive picture of the media channels that Chinese citizens use for political information, as well as their relative importance as assessed by the Chinese people. Moreover, assisted by multiple regressions, this paper also identifies which groups of Chinese are more likely to use each of these channels for political information. This paper contributes to our understanding on (1) the relative significance of various media channels in contemporary China's political communication; and (2) how Chinese citizens select themselves into specific channels for political information, given their increasing autonomy in acquiring such information from China's changing media.     

国外辅警研究与我国辅警构建

我国在计划经济时期,人民群众参与社会治安防范的热情普遍较高,公安机关调动社会群防群治力量用于治安防范的能力也较强。但在经济转型期,由于人们价值观的变化和辅警机制自身存在的问题,公众参与社会治安防范的热情降低,公安机关调控群防群治队伍的能力下降。目前,随着我国犯罪种类和犯罪数量的逐渐增多,单纯依靠公安机关自身的力量,日益显得势单力薄。在新形势下,认真研究国外辅警,构建具有中国特色的辅警制度和机制,是公安机关切实履行责职的重要保障。     

The Sichuan Earthquake and the Heavenly Mandate: legitimizing Chinese rule through disaster discourse

In the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese authorities launched a major public relations campaign to relay positive images of their relief effort and strengthen their political legitimacy. The effect has been a proliferation of symbols and political statements related to the disaster, not only in the official media, but also in cultural products such as movies or mass-media events. The earthquake has become part of the discourse of suffering, struggle, solidarity and ultimately victory. This article examines the ways in which various cultural products present the Sichuan earthquake and asks what meanings national crises have in the Chinese discourse on political legitimacy. The article analyses two cases: Chinese film, here in the form of Feng Xiaogang's blockbuster Aftershock, and performance-based discourses during the Beijing Olympics, the PRC's 60-Year Anniversary and the Shanghai Expo. By conducting a discourse analysis, we show how the earthquake has become part of a recurring discursive formation that is used by state and non-state actors alike to legitimate China's developmental model. Within this discourse, the leadership of the Party, the mastery of free markets and a revamped version of the Confucian idea of benevolent rule are marshaled as the decisive factors for winning any ‘battle’.