Spaces of disappearance: aesthetic responses to contemporary Beijing city planning

The construction boom of the past two decades, primarily funded by the private sector, has engendered fierce aesthetic conflicts due to intense competition for limited space in rapidly modernizing Beijing. Contemporary Chinese artists both protest the commercial exploitation of traditional cultural sites, and appropriate market devices for their ends. In this article I analyze aesthetic strategies employed in experimental art, film, and fiction, which grapple with the tensions inherent in globalization and urban culture in late twentieth‐century Beijing. Examples include installations protesting the forced relocation of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1994 to develop a ‘City of Commerce’ in its place, and renting the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the Forbidden City to exhibit domestic experimental art, as a foil to the orientalist productions promoted at this site. While much contemporary Beijing cultural production shares a realist, documentary drive to address urban, post‐industrial anxieties relative to dislocation, Chinese artists deconstruct the present with a conspicuous absence of nostalgia. The contemporaneity of the ruin is one of the most prevalent expressions of the 1990s urban aesthetic, where the past, as human sentiment, is nonexistent. Rather than anachronistically violating chronology, these works are examples of what Ackbar Abbas terms achronicities, where past and present disappear in each other. As an aesthetic strategy, disappearance is a form of hybridity that resists delimiting not only temporal, but also conceptual and normative frames of reference. By highlighting hybrid effects rather than merely conceptualizing the tensions inherent in the global city, an aesthetics of disappearance functions as a site of resistance while also working to reposition artists at the center of commercial culture.     

女性艺术与崇高

世界艺术史上的女性艺术家及其作品和男性艺术家笔下的女性往往被排斥在真正意义上的崇高之外，她们既不能成为朗吉努斯所说的：“伟大心灵的回声”，也不能代表康德所认为的：“无法把握的同时也无法与之较量的无限形式”。在此情境之下，“女性”艺术和“女性”艺术家若想摆脱“女性”这个充满歧视意味的语汇，成为艺术和艺术家，则必须在“躲避崇高”的时代语境中“重建崇高”，用自己的语言和自己的视角来审视自身的特点和价值，批判不公正的两性关系，促进形成一种更为和谐的社会关系。     

走向大众对话时代的艺术--当代审美文化理论视野中的艺术话题

当代艺术的大众化努力,标榜并正在不断实现着艺术与当代大众的广泛对话,其基本核心是艺术活动、艺术家、艺术作品与当代大众日常生活状态之间的相互趋近和认同,艺术、艺术家和大众由此获得了共同体验和表达对于当代生活/世界的情感与文化价值态度的新的可能性.这种艺术的大众化努力,在与大众对话进程中将成功地架设艺术自身与大众日常生活的文化通道,日渐改变艺术的传统职责,并在当代审美文化中实现现实生活方式向艺术活动、日常生活经验向艺术经验的"跨越".     

Song Hai＇s World of Landscapes

IN current Chinese art circles. Song Hai is regarded as an artist with a mastery of traditional Chinese techniques as well as a sense of innovation.He began to study Chinese landscape painting in the 1970s under the instruction of several noted artists. For over two decades he worked tirelessly towards acquiring the techniquus and approaches of various schools of art, and traveled extensively across the country in order to see its mountains and rivers and feel the spiritual solace they brought.This experience has imbued his brush and ink works with a fresh,yet classical,perspective.     

论公安民警文化素质教育之书法艺术欣赏

文章从提高警察文化艺术修养的角度，对中国书法的产生与发展、审美特征、名家名作、欣赏与品评等问题进行了阐述，以引导广大公安民警加深对祖国传统艺术的了解、提高公安民警的书法欣赏能力、丰富警察队伍的文化内涵、建设良好的警察文化。     

US‐China relations and the Taiwan factor

With the diplomatic warming of US‐China relations, the recent resumption of the Koo — Wang meeting and Taiwan's elections for legislators, mayors, and city councilors, cross‐Taiwan Strait relations are at another historical turning point. While the improvement of US‐China relations tends to relieve both sides from rhetoric exchanges of ‘China threat’ and ‘US‐Taiwan conspiracy’, Clinton's oral declaration of the ‘Three No's’ has raised serious concerns in Taiwan. With such a background, a group of experts and policy‐making participants from the US, Taiwan and Mainland China gathered again at a conference on ‘US‐China Relations and the Taiwan Factor’ in Washington, DC in mid‐October 1998. This was the second episode in a series of symposia on US‐China relations sponsored by the Association of Chinese Political Studies (ACPS). The symposium attempts to provide a free, intimate, and long‐term forum for a group of influential experts with different perspectives from the US, Taiwan and Mainland China. As a result, a deep understanding of common interests has been reached and clear differences have also been recognized through direct dialogue and frank exchange of ideas.     

From functional integration to structural readjustment: Taipei–Beijing relations and the role of the United States

Regardless of the continued stalemate in the political arena, trade and economic interactions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have increased steadily. Both aggregate data and the results of survey research have testified to the existence of functional integration of the two societies across the Taiwan Strait. In addition to functional integration, structural readjustments have also been made by political authorities both in Taipei and Beijing so as to facilitate continuity of trade and economic relations. These types of mutual accommodations include: establishing proper ‘unofficial’ agencies on both sides to serve as instruments of practical contacts and negotiation; the more flexible definition of ‘One China’ by Beijing; and the opening of ‘small links’ between Quemoy and Amoy by Taipei. Beijing's refusal to grant Taipei any official diplomatic status and Taipei's reluctance to accept the ‘One China’ principle remain major obstacles to cross‐Taiwan Strait relations. The United States will continue playing a key role in future cross‐Strait relations. Beijing seems to be content, at least temporarily, to maintain cordial relations with the United States in exchange for the latter's adherence to the ‘One China’ principle and rejection of the option of Taiwan independence. Whether Taipei will use enhanced US commitment to Taiwan's security to strike a better deal with Beijing for gradual cross‐Strait integration or to utilize increased American protection to move onto the separatist road will be affected by domestic politics in Taiwan, future US policy toward to the island, and Beijing's response to Taipei's demand for security and international recognition.     

科学发展观的三个维度:真、善、美及其统一

科学发展观体现的是科学的发展,核心是以人为本,目标是人的全面发展。因此,科学发展观蕴涵三个维度:真、善、美。"真"即科学性,包括规律、真理、方法三个层次;"善"是核心,其内涵是以人为本和与民共享;"美"是目标,体现的是和谐发展和人的全面发展两个方面。"真"是基础、"善"是本质、"美"是目的,真、善、美辩证地统一于我国的社会主义建设实践中。     

Environmental management by law in China: The Guangzhou experience∗

Taking enviornmental management in Guangzhou as an example, this article explores the theory and practice of Communist China's idea of “environmental management by law.” Based on the Guangzhou experience, it argues that environmental management by law in China is mainly an administrative system of environmental management which takes law strictly as a tool for efficient and effective environmental protection. This system is operated on the principle of ‘rule by law’, and is the antithesis of the Maoist practice of “rule by person.” Contrary to its Western counterpart, China's environmental management system is built on a state‐centered conception of administrative law instead of a ‘right‐centered’ one which is the core of the ‘rule of law’ tradition.     

Identity,Sovereignty, and Economic Penetration: Beijing's responses to offshore Chinese democracies

Investigating how the PRC responds to democratization in Taiwan and Hong Kong, this paper argues that the Chinese Communist leadership has mainly developed three strategies in managing the complicated crises, including Beijing's own legitimacy crisis and the integration crisis of the Chinese nation, caused by the rise of offshore Chinese democracies. These strategies are: identity politics, sovereignty politics, and economic penetration. With ‘identity politics’, Beijing identifies ‘identification with the Communist leadership’ as the sole Chinese national identification, and utilizes the nationalistic passions of mainland and even overseas Chinese people against democrats in Taiwan and Hong Kong, by labeling the latter as ‘separatists’ or ‘national traitors’. Further, Beijing defines ‘sovereignty’ in a way in which the ‘central’ government monopolizes all possessions of the nation, and excludes ‘people's sovereignty’ from the politics of national reunification or the ‘one country, two systems’ model actualization. While appealing to both ‘soft power’ based in ‘patriotic nationalism’ and ‘hard power’ embedded in national sovereignty, however, the Chinese regime also mobilizes business resources and opportunities provided by China's growing economic power and China's dominance in Greater Chian economic integration for its political purposes of curbing offshore Chinese democracies.     

Can She Say No to Zhang Ailing? Detail,idealism and woman in Wang Anyi's fiction

This article is a study of aesthetic idealism that characterizes the fictional works written by the contemporary Chinese writer Wang Anyi during the 1990s. I start with a comparison of Wang Anyi with Zhang Ailing, arguing that Wang's ambivalence towards Zhang's aesthetics of details is translated into a dilemma the former faces in her own writing. On the one hand, Wang Anyi appreciates Zhang's passion for life's details. Wang's own works show a high penchant for details. On the other hand, Wang is critical of Zhang's aesthetic leap from the sensuous (detail) to the nihilistic (meaning). Wang's anxiety over the ultimate value of detail can be attributed to her ideological allegiance to a May Fourth leftist tradition as well as to her awareness of the derogatory association of detail with women's writing in China. So in what way can Wang Anyi say no to Zhang Ailing? How does she try to steer clear of the danger of ‘materialistic’ trivialization that she sees lurking in details? I observe that in Wang's fiction there is neither a full embrace of idealism nor a total rejection of detailed realism à la Zhang Ailing. Instead, Wang Anyi treasures the use of details as a signifying practice to embrace her idealism.

In her 1990s' fictional works, Wang Anyi's effort to circumvent the dichotomy between detail and idea is complicated by her attempt to use details to reconstruct pictures of the past. There are several aspects to this issue. First, although nostalgic details in Wang Anyi's ‘memory stories’ help to give expression to idealistic longings of the author, they also tend to conspire with the official ban on the discourse of the traumatic socialist past. Second, while details are regarded as important in sum total, they are actually relegated by the writer to a secondary place as mere constructing materials to serve the function of bringing out the larger idea. In terms of actual narration, the highly ‘authoritative’ voice often suppresses the depth of individual subjects in her fiction. Third, Wang's ambiguity with regards to details and ‘feminine materials’ affects her characterization of women. A reading of Wang's two fictional works, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (Changhen ge) and Fu Ping (Fu Ping), demonstrates that the writer's instrumental approach tends to render female characters stranded between allegorical figures and individual subjects.     

Britain's ‘betrayal’ of Hong Kong: A second look

Claims of British bungling and betrayal were repeatedly raised during the prolonged run‐up to the 1997 Hong Kong handover. This paper seeks to evaluate such claims. It examines five controversial episodes of reputed British mishandling of the Hong Kong transition: (1) Governor Murray MacLehose's reputed double faux pas of March 1979, when the governor first putatively erred by prematurely (and unnecessarily) raising the ‘1997 question’ in a routine meeting with Deng Xiaoping and then compounded his error by misrepresenting Deng's less‐than‐reassuring response; (2) Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's 1982 miscalculation in requesting a 50‐year extension of the New Territories lease when it was already abundantly clear that Chinese leaders regarded the original lease as ‘unequal'—and therefore non‐binding; (3) Britain's 1987 decision to unilaterally postpone Hong Kong's first direct legislative elections, a decision defended on the disingenuous grounds that government surveys had revealed a majority of the Hong Kong public to be opposed to rapid democratization; (4) Britain's ostensible failure, in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen debacle, to secure the inclusion of adequate democratic safeguards in the final draft of the Hong Kong Basic Law, completed early in 1990; and (5) Governor Chris Patten's ill‐starred democratic reform initiatives of 1992–95, which sharply reversed Britain's previous ‘convergence’ policy and ultimately led to the derailing of Hong Kong's vaunted ‘through train’. Examining available evidence on these five episodes (and one or two other, related cases), this paper argues that despite occasional, palpable policy miscalculations and a notable lack of official candor, Britain did not do serious harm to the vital interests of Hong Kong. On the contrary, the paper argues, given the substantial advantage in resources and leverage enjoyed by the Chinese side throughout the transition period, a more favorable outcome could hardly have been achieved. The one residual allegation of British betrayal that cannot readily be countered, however, is the charge that racism within Britain's ruling Conservative Party—manifested in Parliamentary legislation severely restricting the flow of immigrants from British colonial territories—played a significant role in the British Government's choice of tactics in dealing with the ‘1997 question’.     

Complete autonomy: The best approach to peaceful resolution of the Tibet problem

Political, economic, cultural, and ethnic conflicts exist in Tibet and its surrounding areas. Peaceful resolution of the Tibet Problem will rely upon rationality of each side involved. The Tibet Problem has roots in the British invasion and in Mao Ze‐dong's historical mistake of replacing the Tibetan serfdom system with Communism. The welfare/carrot‐and‐stick policy used to govern Tibet since the 1980s has been proved ineffective for the social development in Tibet. The Dalai Lama's ‘Great Tibet’ claim will cause civil and ethnic wars among the Tibetans and between them and other Chinese ethnic groups. However, the Dalai Lama's ‘one country with two systems’ proposal that follows the Hong Kong model seems to be a realistic approach to a peaceful resolution of the Tibet Problem.     

‘I don't know’ in public opinion surveys in China: Individual and contextual causes of item non‐response

Why do some people say ‘I don't know’, ‘I have no opinion’, or simply refuse to say anything in a public opinion survey? The Western literature on public opinion research suggests two major types of causal factors for the non‐response: the respondent's individual characteristics (e.g. age, education, and occupation), and the survey's contextual characteristics (e.g. the length of the survey, the nature of the question, and the setting of the interview). The emphasis, however, has been on the individual factors. This study applies these theoretical predictions to a pool of 14 survey data collected in China during the 1980s. The results show that both the individual and contextual factors are equally important in determining the occurrence of non‐response. In particular, farmer respondents, questions involved a politically sensitive topic, and surveys sponsored by a government agency are more likely to cause ‘I don't know’ answers. Interaction analysis provides some preliminary evidence to suggest that lack of cognitive ability may be a primary source of non‐response on knowledge‐related questions while fear of political consequences may be responsible for non‐response on political sensitive questions. Based on the findings, we discuss the implications for analysis and interpretation of Chinese survey data.     

China and Asian regionalism: Challenge and policy choice

Regionalism has become an interesting phenomenon in Asian international relations. Driven by fast growing trade and investment, Asian countries have developed variegated patterns of economic co‐operation and a complex level of interdependence among themselves. Although the growing Asian regionalism is very much an economics‐driven process, it has profound impacts on regional political organization. This analysis examines Beijing's changing attitudes toward Asian regionalism and its policy choice in the regional economic integration. It is argued that the integration of the Chinese economy into the regional structure is promoted by the government as well as driven by market dynamics. Although Beijing has let the Chinese economy develop into the regional ‘flying geese’ structure, the best policy choice for China, as many Chinese scholars have argued, would be a three‐circle strategy of integrating into the world economy and a strategy of ‘market for technology’ in regional economic co‐operation. This analysis also discusses the regional political obstacles impeding co‐operation across national borders. It is argued that healthy bilateral relations and more political will toward regional multilateralism on political issues would be instrumental for future regional prosperity and stablity in Asia.     

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.     

Plural institutionalism and the emergence of intellectual public spaces in contemporary China: Four relational patterns and four organizational forms

This article discusses the relationship between intellectuals and the party‐state in 1980s China. By drawing insights from the new institutionalism, the author proposes a new theoretical model, which is called ‘plural institutionalism’, as an alternative to the conceptual schema of ‘civil society against the state’ currently prevalent in the related literature. To examine the explanative power of the new model, an empirical study of the activities of four groups, which represented the four organizational forms of Chinese intellectual public spaces in the 1980s, is presented. The shaping influence of historically evolving institutional configuration upon different actors’ political preferences is highlighted to explain the diversity of the relational patterns between intellectuals and the party‐state. In the final part, the analysis centers on the institutional channels that linked intellectuals and students, and reveals the role of the institutional factors in shaping intellectuals’ political preferences, choices, and actions in the Tiananmen Movement of 1989, giving an explanation of why Chinese intellectuals failed to prevent the student's movement from its tragic radicalization.     

Xiao‐kang: Deng Xiaoping's socio‐economic development target for China

Ever since xiao‐kang or XK, literally meaning a ‘relatively comfortable life’, was first slated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to be China's main development target, the concept has become a codeword for China's socio‐economic development. It was incorporated in several major Party documents and formally adopted as the key development target by three consecutive Five‐Year Plans. What is the real meaning of XK? This paper analyses China's first XK Index which was published in 1992, based on a cluster of economic and social indicators relating to income, food consumption, housing, and human resource development. It will be seen that XK is actually a normative concept, fuzzy and grossly imprecise, especially when applied to a transitional economy like China. What constitutes XK to Deng may well be perceived differently by the new generation of Chinese. Such is the continuing social challenge of China's economic development.     

How (Dis)Satisfied is China? A power transition theory perspective

The uninterrupted rise of China, concomitant with the progressive erosion of the US unipolar moment, has generated increased interest for the (Power Transition Theory) PTT in the last decade. Observers and scholars have, however, often focused on the possible overtaking of the United States by China, and overlooked the importance of the challenger's ‘satisfaction’ in the PTT. This article fills this gap by providing an assessment of China's satisfaction with the contemporary East Asian ‘status quo’. Contrary to recent assessments depicting China as a ‘status quo’ actor, the use of the main three indicators developed by the PTT suggests that China is a strongly dissatisfied power.     

Chinese Employee Class: an analysis using a three-dichotomy segmentation approach

As the ‘World's Factory’, China now has the biggest worker/employee class in the world. Though this newly emerging social group has captured much attention, relatively few scholars have paid attention to such sociological questions as raised by this paper: rather than referring to such a huge group of almost 500 million people simply as ‘Chinese workers’ or ‘Chinese employees’, can this social class be stratified and in what way? What is the current situation of the employee class in China's contemporary industrial relations? This paper attempts to concisely answer the above questions by proposing a three dichotomy segmentation approach and a review of the existing literature on the matter, providing a broader picture to the readers with regards to the current situations of different employee groups in the context of China's unprecedented transitional economy.