China's urban housing market development: Problems and prospects

This study analyzes the predicaments and prospects of China's urban housing market development. To this end, it examines the pre‐reform housing system in China's urban sector, presents major reform efforts, and investigates most recent reform designs and price subsidy schemes. The author maintains that China's housing market can be expected to develop vigorously as both fundamental factors and policy directives favor such a development.     

我国信息产业知识产权立法的完善与保护

中国在世界市场上的影响越来越大,知识产权已成为各国竞相采取的重要的国家发展与竞争战略,是我国对外经贸摩擦的主要问题之一。笔者在这里首先为大家分析一下我国知识产权保护立法的现状和应完善的方面,并针对情况从两个方面规划中国知识产权立法和加强保护发展的方向、策略和道路。     

The Ongoing Reforms to China's Government and State Sector: The case of the energy industry

Though the reforms announced by the Chinese government in the spring of 1998 appear to be substantial and wide ranging, by themselves they may have little impact either on the effectiveness of government or on the performance of the state industries. Two outstanding problems are the structure and allocation of responsibilities within the government, and the excessive power of the state companies. The tasks of regulation and policy formulation in the energy sector should be clearly allocated in a simple administrative structure which specifically excludes any role for the state companies. The present structure of the state-owned energy industries is such that these companies have a great deal of power, not only in the market but also with respect to the government.     

Industrial productivity in China's state‐owned enterprises: The textile industry in Guangzhou, 1979–1993

This article examines productivity growth and effects of incentive payments on it in China's state‐owned enterprises. Data spanning the 1979–1993 period were taken from 20 large‐and medium‐scale state‐owned textile enterprises in Guangzhou. The empirical study finds that the sample enterprises experienced an average increase in total factor productivity growth by 1.8% annually. The analysis of the effects of incentive payments on productivity shows that total factor productivity growth is positively tied to increases in retained profits but it bears no significant relationship with increases in bonuses. Besides, the study suggests a positive time trend of total factor productivity growth by 0.8% per year.     

Rise of the Automobiles: the costs of increased NO2 pollution in China's changing urban environment

China's rapidly growing motor vehicle fleet is changing the makeup of its urban atmosphere. While the two major problem pollutants historically have been particulates and sulfur dioxide, the growth in the number of automobiles has generated substantially increased levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). This paper examines and values the mortality health effects (reduced premature deaths) from cleaning up these three pollutants. Findings indicate that valued gains from reduced air pollution mortality can average 3% of a city's GDP. Moreover, the growing auto fleet may generate a ten-fold increase in NO₂-based mortality costs and offset other, ongoing cleanup efforts in many Chinese cities. Specifically, the paper explores how the increasing number of automobiles might diminish or offset environmental cleanup activities focused upon particulate and sulfur dioxide pollution.     

论我国反垄断执法中反垄断执法机构与行业监管机构的协调

反垄断的执法机构一直是我国反垄断立法的焦点问题之一,本文通过对目前反垄断法草案和国外相关立法实践的分析,试图在反垄断执法机构与行业监管机构的关系协调方面进行一些有益的探索。     

Participation and Competition: innovations in cadre election and selection in China's townships

Since the late 1990s, a large number of electoral reforms have occurred in China's towns and townships across the country. While scattered cases of direct election of township heads happened in the early years, recent cases have acquired very diverse and complicated institutional arrangements. Three ideal types of innovation have emerged that range from competitive selection to direct election. The actual changes to electing or selecting a township leader can be best measured in (1) the degree to which public participation is expanded; and (2) the degree of competition introduced between candidates. In the late 1990s, during the first wave of these innovations, the enterprising cadres in the regime's middle elite, mostly county and city officials, often played a critical ‘crafting’ role, as they responded to local crises in governance or competed for faster promotion. In recent years, amelioration in local governance means crises have become less pressing, while the widespread implementation of reforms means that contained forms of participation and competition are likely to become the new status quo of township institutions.     

中国经济转型期的政治稳定:经验、偏失及其修正

在我国 ,政治稳定一直被看成经济转型的前提条件和目标函数之一。在转型过程中 ,一方面 ,政治稳定比较好地配合和支撑经济转型 ,经济转型维系着政治的稳定 ;另一方面 ,政治因素介入经济转型的全过程 ,也产生了一些不规范的行为。这些行为若得不到有效地遏制 ,极有可能破坏经济转型的成果。在新世纪经济转型的攻坚阶段 ,政治稳定尤为重要 ,它将在一定程度上决定经济转型目标能否最终实现     

China's Approaches toward Regional Cooperation in East Asia: motivations and calculations

This paper explores how China's strategic motivations and calculations have both motivated and constrained its participation in East Asian regional cooperation. It argues that China's participation in regional economic and security cooperation is motivated first of all by the calculation of China's domestic interests to create a peaceful peripheral environment for its economic growth and political stability, particularly its frontier security and prosperity. The realist interests to enhance China's position in power competition with other major players in the region, particularly Japan and US, also play an important part in China's strategic calculation. These interest calculations, however, also set limits on China's participation in regional cooperation. These interest calculations have also shaped China's preference for an informal approach, emphasizing voluntarism and consensus building rather than legally binding resolutions, toward regional cooperation. This soft approach is a major barrier for many regional institutions to move beyond the stage of talking shops to effectively resolve conflicts in the region.     

River Politics: China's policies in the Mekong and the Brahmaputra in comparative perspective

China manages its transboundary rivers as a subset of its broader relations with other riparian states. This results in discernible differences in the way China approaches its international river systems. Although there is a limit to the extent of Chinese cooperation, in relative terms China is more cooperative in the Mekong than in the Brahmaputra. To China, Southeast Asian states are part of a hierarchical system where it stands at the apex. While problems exist, there are deep linkages between them, which help foster collaboration in the Mekong. India, which has greater power parity with China, is not part of China's hierarchical worldview. The territorial disputes and security dilemmas that characterize South Asian geopolitics further impede cooperation. Domestic considerations also impact on China's river policies. There is greater consensus among Chinese policymakers in managing the Mekong than the Brahmaputra, which explains the higher degree of clarity in Chinese policies towards the former compared to the latter.     

国家粮食核心产区的保护与建设——黑龙江调查报告

该文通过对东北地区的调研,提出了建设国家粮食生产核心区的构想。黑龙江省是中国重要的粮食生产基地,农业基础雄厚,拥有大量的耕地后备资源以及现代农业基础,具备了高标准增加粮食产量的潜力。在世界粮价日趋增长的阶段,加大对黑龙江地区的农业扶持,建立国家粮食核心产区,对中国保障十八亿亩耕地红线以及确保国家粮食安全,具有重大的意义。黑龙江省目前土地整理标准低、种粮农民收入增加缓慢,制约了黑龙江省成为中国粮食核心产区的进程。作者提出了黑龙江粮食核心产区保护与建设工程,以及加快农民增收的建议。     

Policy Networks and Policy Paradigm Shifts: urban housing policy development in China

A recent trend in policy scholarship is to explain policy changes and paradigm shifts by focusing on the features and interactions of policy networks. This paper aims to contribute to the current literature by exploring how policy networks affect policy paradigmatic change in China with reference to urban housing policy development. It is argued that both exogenous and indigenous factors can be attributed to the difficulties of paradigm replacement. The closed policy network in the housing field delimits the choices of policy instruments and hinders paradigmatic shifts. Contrary to mainstream studies, exogenous shocks are identified as serious handicaps to significant policy changes.     

Global Human Rights Governance in the United Nations Arena:China's Participation and Contribution

This paper expounds how China participates in and contributes to global human rights governance from the perspective of its participation in United Nations' human rights affairs. For more than 70 years since the United Nations was founded, it has done a good deal of work in establishing the principles and standards for human rights, developing the connotation of human rights, setting up the international human rights treaty system, and reforming the specialized United Nations' body on human rights, and so on. Since the United Nations was founded, China has been an active participant in and made important contributions to global human rights governance under the framework of the United Nations' human rights conventions. It has contributed to the establishment of the principles and standards for human rights and the connotations of human rights. It has also actively joined international human rights treaties and conscientiously fulfilled its obligations.     

The Changing Limits and the Limits of Change: the state,private firms,international industry and China in the evolution of Taiwan's electronics industry

This paper examines the changing role of the state and private enterprise in Taiwan's electronics industry as the industry responds to growth of intra-firm capabilities and the rise of China as a manufacturing base. The industry has a sharp dichotomous outcome between the technologically strong IC sector, which has been able to create interdependence with global lead firms, and the systems manufacturing firms, which find themselves trapped in a dependent position vis-à-vis the global lead firms. Due to different positions in global value chains, the IC industry firms have been better able to create advantages out of the opportunities of new firm capabilities and China than the systems firms even as the balance of policy has shifted somewhat away from the state and towards private enterprise.     

Allocating scarce resources: The distributive principles in China's cadre system and Taiwan's civil service system

Using China and Taiwan as relevant cases, this study intends to compare the patterns that can be distinguished in the principles and mechanisms employed by the two Chinese societies to allocate public offices and to examine the historical, cultural, and political roots of the similarities and differences between them. After 1949, the distributive principles used in China's cadre system and Taiwan's civil service system first diverged from the same pre‐1949 starting point and took different paths, and then began to show a tendency to converge toward the same point. Such dynamic divergence and convergence centered around the rise and fall of two opposing principles—meritocratic egalitarianism and redistributive egalitarianism.     

Introduction: The Basic Law,Governance and Electoral Politics in China's Hong Kong and Macao since 1997

1 July 2007 marks the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty to become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC. The HKSAR has functioned under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework as enshrined in the Basic Law, its mini-constitution. Upon the resumption of Chinese jurisdiction over Macao on 20 December 1999, a similar ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula also came into effect for the new MSAR under its Basic Law. The ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula that guarantees a high degree of autonomy in both Hong Kong and Macao is also a cornerstone of the PRC's strategy toward peaceful reunification with Taiwan. To provide a more balanced and informed understanding of these two Chinese SARs in actualizing the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model, this special section of four articles adopts a bi-focal approach. On the one hand, it presents in a joint article the views of two leading mainland Chinese legal scholars (Professors Geping Rao and Zhenmin Wang, both National People's Congress Hong Kong Basic Law Committee members) on some vital dimensions of the Basic Law. On the other hand, it offers three articles with a more locally anchored perspective—a comparative analysis (by Professor Sonny Lo) of the contrasting HKSAR and MSAR experiences, and two case studies (by Professors Bruce Kwong and Eilo Yu) that highlight key features of patron–client linkages and informal politics dynamics in HKSAR and MSAR elections and politics.     

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 Political Economy of Rank: the territorial administrative hierarchy and leadership mobility in urban China

The level or rank of an administrative division (行区等级 or 政区级别) in China—a structural condition of the sub-national territorial administrative system—is a correlate of administrative rank (行政级别). State reterritorialization of the administrative divisions (行政区划), through establishment and expansion of hundreds of cities, introduces a political economy of differentiation and change by which city governments take the measure of their administrative reach and economic capacity. How do changes to the administrative divisions involve administrative rank, economic status and territorial governing power? In Suzhou, a prefecture-level city, incommensurability between the economic status of the city and its administrative rank reveals how ‘unfair’ rank in the administrative hierarchy becomes implicated in negotiations over territorial adjustments and cadre appointments, leading to creative forms of rank adjustment. Dynamics of the administrative divisions reflect rank consciousness, influence official positions and structure urban transformation in contemporary China.