Beyond the Developmental State: The Cultural Roots of "Guerrilla Capitalism" in Taiwan

This article seeks to contribute to the emerging literature on moving "beyond the developmental state" by tracing the important role of "guerrilla capitalism" in Taiwan's political economy. The success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with little linkage to the state in Taiwan strongly suggests that more than state leadership must have been involved in the island's "economic miracle." The SMEs are quite important for the overall economy, especiaiiy the export sector where they have long accounted for more than half of total exports. Their success has resulted from the practice of "guerrilla capitalism" which includes aggressive and even audacious pursuit of business opportunities, extreme flexibility in rapidly filling even small orders, atten tion to quality and design, audacious bidding, participation in complex networks of subcontracting, and only partial observation at best of government regulations and international laws, such as those regarding intellectual property rights. The emergence of guerrilla capifalism, in turn, can be explained by the long-sfanding challenge in Chinese history to "official" Confucianism by a "heterodox counterculture" that is quite conducive to entrepreneurship and small-scale business activities.     

Coordinating the Government Bureaucracy in Hong Kong: An Institutional Analysis

The change in sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997 has brought about an interesting puzzle: despite a high degree of institutional continuity, the Hong Kong bureaucracy that was considered highly efficient during the colonial era has appeared to turn into an inept administrative structure generating blunder after blunder. The bureaucracy seems to face greater difficulties in horizontal coordination under the new governance, and has lost the ability to produce coherent policy actions.
Drawing upon a literature of institutional analysis, this article examines the institutional design for coordination in the Hong Kong government. The article argues that the bureaucracy in Hong Kong is designed upon a logic of colonial rule. Like any institutional arrangements, the colonial administrative system has inherent coordination limitations. During the colonial era, some smoothing mechanisms were developed as the lubricant for the bureaucracy's operation, but the new governance has inevitably impinged upon some of these—making the bureaucracy more prone to coordination problems.     

Depoliticization,Citizenship, and the Politics of Community in Hong Kong

This article critically examines the government discourses on citizenship and community in Hong Kong from the 1960s to the present. By making special reference to the government's discourses on three public events—the 1966 Hong Kong Government 1966 Report of the Working Party on Local Administration Hong Kong Government Printer  [Google Scholar] Star Ferry riots, the 1981 riots, and scuffles such as those that took place at the Cultural Center, Tsimshatsui, on Christmas and New Year's Eve of 2002—it reconstructs the meaning of good citizenship as promoted by the Hong Kong colonial and Special Administrative Region (SAR) governments, respectively. These three public events are selected as cases highly indicative of what the government expects an ideal citizen to be because all of them aroused substantial public attention which subsequently invoked considerable government discourses and action. Citizenship is built upon a shared sense of community. Considered in this context, this article also traces the understanding of community of the governments, as it is intertwined with the notion of citizenship, through the development of government policies on youth and citizen education in the city from the 1960s onward. It is obvious that citizenship is constituted from both above (by the government) and below (by the civil society). By reconstructing the government discourses in this regard, this paper will shed light on part of the process of citizenship making in Hong Kong.     

马来西亚华人婚宴菜名结构和寓意

中国人讲究"吃",海外华人也一样。在马来西亚,大多数华人的婚宴菜肴仍然以中式菜肴为主,菜名也延续中国菜名结构。在名称的结构和元素方面,婚宴菜名仍保留着传统方式,以1—5元素并排凑合,除了烹调动词外,其他多为名词。在寓意方面,婚宴菜名也顾及族群的文化和心理,极尽富贵吉利幸福之意。大部分菜名字数介于4—13字之间,以实指、虚指或实虚元素结合,非常多样化,体现了华人对菜肴婚宴语言的高度要求。