From the Language of Class to the Rhetoric of Development: discourses of ‘nationality’ and ‘ethnicity’ in China

In the People's Republic of China's (PRC) continuous state-building project since its establishment in 1949, the notion of nation and nationality (minzu) has been uninterruptedly utilised by the leading elite in its political programmes. The notion of the ‘nationality question’ (minzu wenti) was employed especially for addressing the issues of the officially identified minority nationalities at the time when the multinational nature of the state was made fundamental. However, how a multinational character of the Chinese state is interpreted by the state elite and how this interpretation is shaped by their policies have arguably changed along with the political and economic preferences of the regime. This paper aims to explore the meaning of ‘nationality question’ during the period of socialist construction, and traces the shift in its notion during the reform period which started in the 1970s. The essay pays attention to the change in the preferred corresponding English term of minzu wenti. I argue that the substitution of the ‘nationality question’ term, which was dominant during the socialist period, with the concept of the ‘ethnic question’ during the reform period points not only to the changing character of the government policies towards minorities, but also legitimises them as the only suitable and rightful in the context of economic reforms.     

China in the North Korean Nuclear Crises: ‘interest’ and ‘identity’ in foreign behavior

China reacted very differently to the first and second North Korean nuclear crisis: engaging in passive and ‘behind-the-scenes’ diplomacy in the first and choosing more proactive and ‘stage-managing’ diplomacy in the second. This article has sought to explain this striking contrast in China's foreign behavior. Though most studies tend to rely on Chinese strategic and security interests in explaining China's proactive diplomacy as demonstrated in the six-party talks, those strategic and security interests do not explain directly the contrasting foreign behavior of China. China faced basically equal strategic and security concerns and equally dangerous potential military conflict between the US and North Korea through the first and the second nuclear crises. This article, then, argues that ‘same interests, but different behaviors’ should be explained not by China's external interest calculus but by internal changes within China itself. By the turn of the new millennium, China had undergone an evolutionary change of state identity from a cautious accommodator to an active constructor, or from a state of ‘taoguang yanghui’ to a state of ‘fuzeren daguo’. The contrasting foreign behaviors in the first and second nuclear crises are profoundly reflective of this identity shift of China.     

The New ‘Comprador Class’: the re-emergence of bureaucratic capitalists in post-Deng China

The past two decades have witnessed increasing use of the concept of ‘bureaucratic capitalism’ to explain various endemic problems in China, including corruption and social inequalities. Yet, scant attention has been paid to the rise of key bureaucratic capitalists and the state corporations under their control. Neither has there been adequate discussion of the recent form of bureaucratic capitalism in contradistinction to that of the previous forms evolving in the republican and early reform periods. In question therefore is a small circle of bureaucratic bourgeoisie who are children, close relatives or protégés of top political leaders. They have come to control key state-corporation apparatuses, and some of whom possess close ties with the military. In conclusion, the future implications of this emergent form of bureaucratic capitalism on Chinese politics will also be discussed.     

‘Love is a Capacity’: the narrative of gendered self-development in Chinese-Style Divorce

Employing analytical tools mainly from cultural studies and feminist theories, this article examines the televisual representation of changing family values, intimate relationships and gender dynamics parallel to China's neoliberal turn. Specifically, I will offer a close reading of Chinese-Style Divorce, a mega-hit television drama, in a larger context of sociopolitical conditions and cultural trends, particularly a neoliberal market economy and the ongoing state-sponsored ‘harmonious society’ campaign. I intend to explore how cultural representations of divorce play a key role in projecting and channeling the desire and fantasy of a middle-class domestic culture and in articulating a discourse of domestic and psychic interiority. Tackling rampant gender-related social problems in contemporary China, this article also seeks to address the predicaments with which middle-aged post-reproductive divorced women are confronted in a transitional time.     

Cooking Class:Goose Webs Stewed in Light(Lushui Ezhang)

ChaozhoucuisineisabranchoftheGuangzhoucuisine.Chaozhoustressesthecuttingofingredientsandpaysattentiontotheirshape,andmostlycomprisesseafooddishes.Chaozhoucuisinefeatureslighttastesandusesoriginalsauces.Incooking,fishsauceandothercondimentssuchasredvi...     

Cooking Class:Stir-Fried Shrimp and Green Peppers (Feicui Xiaren)

Jiangsucuisine,oneofChinaseightmajorcookingschools,isrepresentedbySuzhouandYangzhoudishes.JiangsucuisinecomprisescookinJmethodssuchasstewing,braising,simmering,steamlug,deep-frying,andstir-frying.Thedisheslookinvitlugandtastelightanddelicious.Emphasi...     

State–Society Interdependence Model in Market Transition: a case study of the ‘Farmers’ City’ in Wenzhou during the early reform era

Based on first-hand field research data, this paper explores the construction of a ‘Farmers’ City’ in Wenzhou in the early 1980s. It studies the actors, their relationships, and the institutions, and proposes a ‘state–society interdependence model’. It concludes that the spontaneous, bottom-up urbanization process initiated by farmers as described in the texts was actually the win–win result of an interactive and interdependent relationship between the farmers and local government. The reasons are: (1) the actors, including the local government, the specialized farmers (zhuanye hu), and the other farmers, collectively owned, controlled, and obtained the resources; (2) in terms of the mobilization-response process, the close patron–client ties between the farmers and local government formed a strong interdependent relationship; and (3) in terms of the institutional reforms, the folk interests and demands were always a reference point for the local government. The farmers and their government were partners, participants, and practitioners in grassroots institutional reform.     

Villains,Victims and Aspiring Proprietors: framing ‘land-losing villagers’ in China's strategies of accumulation

This paper examines how debates in the media are providing the discursive conditions for, and thereby giving impetus to, diverse strategies of ‘so-called primitive accumulation’ in China. Taking as its empirical referent Chinese news and journal articles on land enclosure, the paper analyzes three frames in which policy entrepreneurs craft varying class positions for land-losing villagers. Grounded in different ontological premises, problem diagnoses and recommendations centering on the adoption of either a statist, neo-collective or liberal rural land regime, and backed up by evaluations of local policy experiments, the frames illustrate the diversity of ideational, political and institutional configurations that could facilitate the separation of peasant producers from the land, place land-losing villagers in different relationships with the state and capital, and sustain accumulation. In foregrounding these debates over land-losing villagers' future class positioning, the paper aims to offer a corrective to the historical determinism implicit in contemporary analyses that characterize enclosure in China as simply one national manifestation of homogenous, global neo-liberal projects of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ or ‘gangster capitalism’.     

‘Rise of the Great Powers’=Rise of China? Challenges of the advancement of global history in the People's Republic of China

Ever since it was first broadcasted in 2006, the Rise of the Great Powers, a popular Chinese TV mini-series of 12 episodes, has received great attention both at home and abroad. Some have suggested that the showing of this series marked a new orientation in China's foreign policy and a new perception of its position in the world. Using oral interviews and written works by the historians who masterminded the project, this article analyzes the view of the Chinese historian, and of current Chinese leadership, about the globalizing world today and China's position in and relation to it. Using the documentary as a starting point, it discusses the status quo of world-history study in China today and argues that though receptive to the incentive for globalizing history writing, historical scholarship in China remains grounded in a Eurocentric understanding of modern world history. China's recent economic expansion has paradoxically reinforced this tradition, as the country is bracing for its own world power status.     

The Terrorist Risk and China's Policy toward Pakistan: strategic reassurance and the ‘United Front’

This paper examines how growing insecurity in Pakistan—affecting the security of Chinese expatriates and neighboring Xinjiang—impacts China's policy towards its ‘all-weather’ friend. It argues that managing the terrorist risk in a changing regional environment has led to a double adjustment in China's policy towards Pakistan. First, counterterrorist cooperation has moved up the policy agenda, albeit with a peculiar modus operandi, focused on sustaining a pro-Chinese ‘United Front’ in Pakistan. Second, Beijing has positively reassessed Pakistan's strategic value and moved towards strategic reassurance, although the construction of a trade-and-energy corridor between Gwadar and Xinjiang has been negatively affected by the risk of violence.     

Documents of the Central Committee of the CPC and the NPC,Speeches(Articles)of Leaders and News Briefings

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Hami：Going Green on the Silk Road——Wind and solar power drive the development of Hami Prefecture in Xinjiang

MENTION Hami and invariably the first thing that comes to the mind for most Chinese is the region’s name sake melon - hamigua     

Installing a Safety on the ‘Loaded Gun’? China’s institutional reforms,National Security Commission and Sino–Japanese crisis (in)stability

As China’s active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military and paramilitary forces, the risk of a Sino–Japanese crisis has reached unprecedented heights. Neither side wants conflict, but the increased frequency and proximity at which vessels and aircraft encounter one another means that overall risk has grown proportionately. Were a miscalculation or even an unintended low-level incident to occur, de-escalation would hinge on each side’s respective internal crisis management capabilities and political leaders’ ability to communicate expeditiously. This article analyzes China’s side of the ledger. Specifically, it assesses the extent to which institutional reforms since the 2001 US–China EP-3 crisis have ameliorated longstanding weaknesses in China’s crisis management capabilities and its ability to communicate via hotlines with Japan. While significant issues and obstacles to further urgently needed improvements remain, with the establishment of a Central National Security Commission (CNSC) and other recent reforms, Beijing may finally be achieving modest improvements. Bilaterally, however, no Sino–Japanese crisis hotline exists to date.     

School Social Workers’ Perceptions of School Safety and Security in Today’s Schools: A Survey of Practitioners Across the United States

To understand the effects of school safety practices and strategies on the school environment, researchers have consistently investigated the perceptions of students and various school personnel concerning school safety. Yet school social workers, professionals commonly employed in today’s schools to address the mental health needs of students, are often left out of the school safety discussion. Data were collected from 229 school social workers across the United States to examine: (a) school social workers’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of various school safety strategies; (b) differences in these perceptions based on student- and school-level variables; and (c) comments from participants regarding school safety in U.S. schools. The purpose of this article is to provide timely implications concerning school safety from a unique and unstudied perspective.     

Why Do We Need ‘Myth-Busting’ in the Study of Sino–African Relations?

The literature on Sino–African relations has debated whether or not China's growing presence is a threat to Western or African interests, and has come to the conclusion that China's behavior is not uniquely immoral. Many countries, including Western liberal democracies, similarly give aid to local autocrats to secure natural resources. Why, then, has so much effort been made to come to this perhaps unsurprising conclusion? We argue that the literature on Chinese foreign policy remains heavily influenced by Western states' policy interests, resulting in an impoverished debate that is primarily concerned with the idea of a China threat. In order to recover the diversity in our research on Chinese foreign policy, we argue for the need to go beyond the confines of Western strategic interests.     

Xi Jinping’s ‘Big Power Diplomacy’ and China’s Central National Security Commission (CNSC)

The current Chinese foreign and national security system suffers from problems of inefficiency, a lack of coordination and information sharing, and accountability of decision makers. China’s newly established Central National Security Commission (CNSC) is designed to build a strong platform to coordinate national security work and to strengthen unified leadership of national security at the central level. This article examines the CNSC’s foreign policy and institutional rationales. It argues that the establishment of the CNSC must be viewed in light of China’s growing power and Xi’s aspiration to play ‘big power diplomacy’ in world affairs as well as his ambition for overall institutional reforms of foreign and national security policymaking in China.     

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.     

The Winds of Change The legendary Tuvans, one of the oldest nomadic peoples in northern Xinjiang, feel the impact of embracing the outside world

Next to the Kanas Lake “monster,” to many people the Tuv ans are the second most mys t e r ious inhabi - tants of the Kanas region in north - er n Xinjiang Uygur Aut o n o m o u sRe gion. The Tuv ans, however , actually are one of the oldest nomadic peoples in north - west China. The Kanas region is the only place in China that is home to the Tuv ans, who number 2,000 and mainly live in three vil- la ges around the Kanas Lake. The r e are about 200,000 Tuv ans wor ld wi d e , with 30,0…