Performance Legitimacy,State Autonomy and China's Economic Miracle

Theories that explain post-Mao China's economic success tend to attribute it to one or several ‘successful’ policies or institutions of the Chinese government, or to account for the success from economic perspectives. This article argues that the success of the Chinese economy relies not just on the Chinese state's economic policy but also on its social policies. Moreover, China's economic success does not merely lie in the effectiveness of any single economic or social policy or institution, but also in the state's capacity to make a policy shift when it faces the negative unintended consequences of its earlier policies. The Chinese state is compelled to make policy shifts quickly because performance constitutes the primary base of its legitimacy, and the Chinese state is able to make policy shifts because it enjoys a high level of autonomy inherited from China's past. China's economic development follows no fixed policies and relies on no stable institutions, and there is no ‘China model’ or ‘Beijing consensus’ that can be constructed to explain its success.     

Introduction: China,Ltd

The study of Chinese nationalism is very popular—both in China and the West. This article introduces a special section of seven articles (four of which are in this issue) on ‘The Limits of Chinese Nationalism’, arguing that our understanding of nationalism in China is problematic. This special section aims to explore the limits of many of the statements about Chinese nationalism that have now become ‘common sense’: the rise of Chinese nationalism, nationalism filling an ideological vacuum, elites manipulating nationalism to gain legitimacy, and so on. Using critical IR theory this Introduction explores the concept of limits to argue that borders in China are not just territorial, but cultural, economic and thus political. It seeks to change the objective of our discussion of Chinese nationalism from seeking an Answer—either as a measure of the objective nature of Chinese nationalism or as a moral judgment of it as good or evil—to seeing ‘nationalism’ as a provocation which pushes us to think about China and identity in a host of different and productive ways.     

The Development of Outward FDI Regulation and the Internationalization of Chinese Firms

The Investment Development Path (IDP) model has been widely accepted for illustrating the relationship between the inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) positions of a country and its economic status based on the data from developed economies. In recent years, however, outward FDI from developing economies has increased dramatically and it has been argued that institutions are ‘forefront’ factors in addition to the economic index. In this article, we use statistical data from China, which has gone through dramatic regulation reform and FDI development, to test the validity of the IDP model. We also trace the history of Chinese FDI regulation development to answer the following question: in what way are regulations important for FDI in different periods? We use Lenovo as a case study to show how a Chinese firm ‘avoids’ and ‘adapts to’ regulation changes. We find that the FDI development of China still follows the IDP model; however, the Chinese government has accelerated the whole process through active regulation reform. In a transition economy such as China, FDI co-evolves with the regulation, and the firms which can influence or foresee the policy changes can prosper considerably.     

From Look-West to Act-West: Xinjiang’s role in China–Central Asian relations

China has been quite successful in developing its relations with Central Asian states and expanding its influence in the region since the 1990s. Most analysts contribute the success to the strategy and policy of China’s national central government. This observation certainly has a lot of truth, but at the same time we should not neglect or downplay the role that the local government in Xinjiang has played in cementing China–Central Asian ties. Xinjiang has functioned as an indispensable actor in China’s look-west and act-west policies towards Central Asia and beyond. With Chinese foreign policy elites increasingly interested in using the act-west policy as part of their counter-hedging strategy in Asia, Xinjiang appears to enjoy many more opportunities and play an even more significant role in China’s relations with countries in its western flank.     

Political Economy of Cross-Strait Relations: is Beijing’s patronage policy on Taiwanese business sustainable?

Via quantitative analysis and interviews, this article examines the credibility and sustainability of Beijing’s patronage policy towards Taiwanese business. The new finding is that the rise of economic nationalism and local protectionism in China is undermining and constraining Beijing’s patronage policy. Consequently, China’s rising economy does not deepen cross-Strait integration but rather crowds out Taiwanese business. Moreover, considering the growing influence of Chinese domestic constraints, this article attempts to provide a bilateral two-level game to grasp the new dynamics on cross-Strait relations under the new normal.     

ECFA与两岸关系和平发展

ECFA的签署,是两岸经济关系发展到和平发展阶段的生动体现,标志着两岸经贸关系正式步人制度化轨道,也意味着两岸关系和平发展的进一步深化,具有十分重要的意义。但也要看到,ECFA只是两岸经贸制度化的第一步,其后续的政策落实,以及两岸关系的和平发展仍将面临诸如台湾岛内政治生态制约、两岸政治军事互信较低等问题与挑战。只要两岸同胞牢牢把握两岸关系和平发展的主题,不断开创两岸关系和平发展的新局面,就一定能够展现中华民族复兴腾飞的锦绣前程。     

Chinese Perceptions of the European Union

This article uses survey data collected in 2010 and conducts a systematic comparative analysis of the perceptions of the EU by the Chinese general public and the elite. Most ordinary Chinese citizens do not understand the EU very well, but their impressions of the EU are very positive and they also hold good expectations for the future of China–EU relations. The Chinese elites and ordinary citizens differ significantly in terms of ‘favoring the EU’ or ‘favoring Russia’. The multivariate model indicates that EU travel experience, annual income level and Internet dependence have significant positive effects on ‘favoring-EU’ feelings. Those who have EU travel experience, higher levels of annual income and greater opportunities to obtain information via the Internet are more likely to be ‘favoring-EU’.     

Preservation,Prosperity and Power: what motivates China's foreign policy?

This article describes the motives behind the making of the current status-quo and risk-averse Chinese foreign policy. It identifies a three-P incentive structure that is based on the political preservation of the CCP regime, China's economic prosperity, and Beijing's pursuit of power and prestige. These three motives are stable and overlapping, featuring Taiwan and the relationship with the United States as the key issues. Beijing is expected to be motivated by these peculiar motives over the next two decades; but new internal and external developments may greatly change these motives and generate new impetus for China's foreign policy. Although the official line in Beijing is still the mild ‘peaceful development’, after a fling with the more majestic idea of ‘peaceful rise’, the rise of nationalist emotions and demands in the PRC continues.     

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.     

China's Energy Decision-Making: becoming more like the United States?

This paper investigates why some energy decisions are made faster than others in a reformed and globalized China. This investigation uncovers five factors that determine whether a proposal becomes a decision in the Chinese political system: (1) associated benefits of the proposed decision for other policy problems; (2) presence of a consistent ‘issue champion’; (3) strength of mobilized and united ‘veto players’; (4) vertical and horizontal support; and (5) clear policy preferences of the central leadership. The paper argues that the Chinese decision-making process has become increasingly consultative, iterative, and participatory and that it is also increasingly prone to deadlock, inaction, and paralysis. Thus, the Chinese decision-making process is increasingly similar to that of the United States in the era of reform and globalization. While the capacity of the Chinese state to make and implement distributive policies has remained largely unchanged, reform and globalization has weakened its capacity to make and implement redistributive policies.     

Accounting for Taiwan's economic policy toward China

This article explores the ideas, institutions, and interests in which Taiwan's economic policy toward China is embedded. The authors indicate that the ideas behind Taiwan's economic policy toward China are as vibrant as ever, the political foundation for a coherent and feasible policy is eroding, and commercial interests are digressing from the Taiwan government's policy goals. Political forces around ideas have strong hearing on the formation of Taiwan's economic policy toward China. The truthfulness or falseness of the security argument is of intrinsic value to Taiwan's decision makers. The authors also point out that in order to have a complete picture of cross‐Strait economic relations, we need to specify how trade and investment with China influence Taiwan's distribution of political interests.     

Looking for ‘New Ideas That Work’: county innovation in China’s health system reforms—the case of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme

Sub-national governments in China have substantial responsibility for policy development as well as for direct implementation of circumscribed policy options set out by higher levels of government, and much policy discourse emphasizes the importance of sub-national flexibility and creativity in policy implementation. Discourses of government innovation aim to encourage local initiative in policy formulation and solving of systemically-important policy problems, and policy experimentation/innovation are increasingly credited as important elements of the Chinese government toolbox in managing reform. Recent studies have tended to treat experimentation/innovation as systemic phenomena, and there are few analyses of how local governments respond to central ‘experimental’ policy frameworks and develop locally- or systemically-useful policy solutions. Given concerns around the capacity of local governments, this is highly relevant in understanding how locally-generated policy relates to systemic reform. The article presents a case study of a low tech and ‘second best’ reimbursement mechanism developed sub-nationally under the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, China’s rural health insurance framework, and its spread and incorporation into national policy. It argues for the importance of local government development of ‘appropriate’ policy mechanisms (jizhi) as underpinning central reforms and system adaptation.     

The Rise of Neoclassical Economics and China's WTO Agreement with the United States in 1999

Drawing on the historical institutionalists’ emphasis on the effects of ideas on policy making, this paper focuses on the importance of economic ideas and ideologies on China's trade policy making with regard to the signing of the WTO agreement with the United States in 1999. The paper argues that trade liberalization in China was a result of top Chinese leaders’ embrace of neoclassical economic ideas which conceive a small role for the state in the marketplace, mainly as the regulator of the macro-economic environment and as the enforcer of the rule of law, rather than as a major player in the marketplace. Top Chinese leaders’ socialization with neoclassical economic ideas enabled them to forge a political consensus to link state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms with speedy WTO accession and led to China's major concessions in WTO negotiations with the United States in 1999 which were inconceivable just a few years ago.     

策略人和策略决策模型:草原管理的智能体模拟分析

传统决策理论忽视了对人的策略性行为和策略决策的考察。本文通过对草原管理的智能体模拟分析,发展了策略人和策略决策新模型,并重点研究了策略人的四种典型策略决策:策略性投票、掩盖性、交易性和学习性策略决策。智能体模拟分析发现,在特定条件下,策略人的策略决策深刻影响个体的具体行动,并进而影响个体的行动结果(例,草原的可持续发展)。进而探讨了通过政策或制度安排来利用策略人的策略决策谋取预期政策或制度收益的可能性和其现实响应,并与策略人的四种典型策略决策相对应,依次讨论了策略约束性、保护性、诱导性以及学习性四种政策或制度安排。     

Revolving out of the Party-State: the Xiahai entrepreneurs and circumscribing government power in China

The revolving door of private entrepreneurs in China is considered to be a crucial strategy of the Chinese Communist Party to adapt to the market transition and contributes much to the compliance of private entrepreneurs. However, based on the data from the official National Survey on Private Enterprises in 2006, this article finds that the Xiahai entrepreneurs revolving out of the Party-state were significantly and robustly more confrontational than those without state employment backgrounds. We argue that the unique path of the market transition in China makes the former political and economic elites more confrontational and has a significant effect on who might turn into potential challengers of the current regime among the economically powerful social class.     

Did Policy Experimentation in China Always Seek Efficiency? A case study of Wenzhou financial reform in 2012

Policy experimentation has been widely considered a ‘magic bullet’ of policy improvement and key to economic prosperity in China. This article, however, argues that policy experimentation in China does not always seek policy efficiency. Rather, it can be manipulated as a political symbol without actually affecting practices. By taking a case study on Wenzhou's financial reform, this article illustrates that local policy experimentation can serve as a mechanism for the central government to legitimately delay reform practices—in the case of Wenzhou's financial reform in 2012, out of a desire to maintain socio-economic stability during the power succession at the 18th Party Congress. In this reform, socio-economic stability was deemed more important than developing a sustainable and effective long-term policy. This article provides a new perspective on understanding policy experimentation in China by proposing the idea of ‘symbolic reforms’.     

The Localism of Local Leadership Cadres in Reform Shanxi

The changing face of China's politics is to be found as much in the cadre force as in the categories of ‘new rich’ engendered by economic reform and rapid development. A series of interviews undertaken in 1996 and 1997 with local cadres—at sub-provincial, county and section levels—in Shanxi Province provides evidence as to the extent of change and continuity in their social backgrounds, careers and political attitudes. Analysis focuses in particular on five common hypotheses about the cadre force in reform China: that they are conservative upholders of the status quo; a priviligentsya; imposed ‘from without’; the source of a ‘new class'; and one which has come in the reform era to be dominated by ‘technocrats' (rather than former revolutionaries). Though local political and administrative leadership in the 1990s appears to have become more localist, and even in some senses parochial, such analysis must be kept in perspective. The local cadre force is considerably less local, parochial and ‘privileged’ than their counterpart local business elites; and the agency of the provincial organisation of the Chinese Communist Party is still very much in evidence.     

Business as usual: The dynamics of government‐business relations in the Hong Kong special administrative region

This is an attempt to evaluate the implications of Hong Kong's political transition to post‐colonial rule for economic governance in the SAR beyond the ‘Beijing versus Hong Kong’ perspective. The article examines the changing government‐business dynamics in Hong Kong after the reversion by focusing on three inter‐related dimensions: economic ideology; institutional and policy framework; and the new political environment in post‐colonial Hong Kong. By challenging the assertion that Hong Kong is returning to the pre‐Patten colonial order under Chinese management, it argues that economic governance in Hong Kong has always been more complex than has been characterized in the literature. A conceptual framework incorporating the dynamic interplay of domestic and international factors is needed to comprehend the changing nature of government‐business relationships in the SAR.     

China Goes to Africa: a strategic move?

Entering the twenty-first century, particularly under the reign of Hu Jintao, China began to pursue an increasingly pro-active diplomacy in Africa. Most analysis on China's offensive diplomacy in Africa focuses on Beijing's thirst for energy and raw materials, and for economic profits and benefits. That is why it is often called ‘energy diplomacy’ or ‘economic diplomacy’ as if China, just like Japan in the 1980s, became another ‘economic animal’. But if one looks at the history of the PRC's foreign policy, Beijing has seldom pursued its diplomacy from purely economic considerations. Is this time any different? This article exams China's diplomacy in Africa from a strategic and political perspective such as its geo-strategic calculations, political and security ties with African countries, peacekeeping and anti-piracy efforts in the region, support for African regionalism, etc. It argues that China's diplomatic expansion in Africa, while partially driven by its need for economic growth, cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration its strategic impulse accompanying its accelerating emergence as a global power. Africa is one of China's diplomatic ‘new frontiers’ as exemplified by new Chinese leader Xi Jinping's maiden foreign trip to Africa in 2013.     

The Democratic Concepts Held by Local Elites on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait: The perception of political participation,economic equality,and conflict reconciliation

The research results given here show that Taiwanese local elites, in terms of breadth of political participation, support the common people's right of participation more than those in Mainland China. In terms of depth, local elites on neither side support having people with special family backgrounds as leaders, but the Taiwanese do not narrowly define the qualifications of leaders or managers, requiring, for example, a certain degree of capability. Mainland Chinese local elites are more conservative in this respect. On the issue of economic equality, the concept of establishing a limit on income varies greatly on the two sides. The percentage of those in favor of such a limit is lower in Taiwan, yet the Taiwanese endorse more the idea of taking care of the poor and correcting unequal income distribution. The overall perspective on conflict resolution is quite the same for both sides' local elites. That is, they all strive to maintain harmony and avoid conflict, even at a price of sacrificing plans for local development. The most probable factor behind these trends is the great difference between the two sides' politico-economic systems, the process of their development and the status quo. Thus, there are differences between the two sides, either on certain perspectives on the three dimensions of the concept of democracy, or on other possible factors, which affect these perspectives. Elites on both sides are especially similar in their efforts to avoid conflict and their tendency to respect experts, showing the effect of a relatively homogeneous culture as we compare such attitudes internationally, but such cultural tastes might hinder future democratization on both sides. Other possible inferences, including the prospects for the development of democracy on both sides, will be dealt with briefly in this paper.