This book provides a comprehensive review of China's experience in reform and opening up from political, social, and economic perspectives. It attempts to engage existing scholarly debates in three areas — first, how the party-state has evolved in the past four decades and whether it remains a Leninist system or has departed from this system; second, how public attitudes, values and behavior have been intertwined with institutional change, and how the state is expanding its welfare coverage to enhance regime legitimacy. Second, how China has attempted to explore new engines for its growth, with consideration towards environmental protection and technological progress.
Chapters in this book are selected from three years of conference presentations co-organized by the Institute of Public Policy (IPP) at the South China University of Technology and UNESCO. Since 2014, IPP and UNESCO have co-hosted a series of annual international conferences and invited leading scholars from China, Europe, and the US to discuss the major challenges to China and the world.
Sample Chapter(s)
Introduction
Chapter 1: China as an Innovative State and its Implications for the World
Contents:
- The Reform of the Party-State:
- China as an Innovative State and Its Implications for the World (ZHENG Yongnian)
- A Turning Point (Maybe) in Reform and Opening Up (Joseph FEWSMITH)
- Social and Political Mobility of State-owned Enterprise Executives in the Reform Era: The Rise of China's Supermanagers (Kjeld Erik BRØDSGAARD)
- Political Meritocracy and Democracy: Confucian Meritocratic Democracy? (HE Baogang)
- Mass Attitudes and Social Policy:
- Public Policy Satisfaction in Urban China: Evidence from Survey Data (TANG Wenfang and Dong "Erico" YU)
- The Chinese Voter: 1993–2013 (SHAN Wei and TANG Wenfang)
- China's Social Policy Reform: The Perspective of "Fragmented Developmentalism" (ZHAO Litao)
- Evolution of Poverty Reduction Strategies in Rural China (QIAN Jiwei)
- Development: Towards Green and Technology-Driven Growth:
- The Rise of New Green Industries: A Dynamic View of China's (and India's) Eco-Modernizing Experience (John A MATHEWS)
- China's Bet on Technological Progress as an Engine of Sustainable Growth (LU Ding)
Readership: Academics, policy-makers, professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, interested in Chinese philosophy and culture.
Dr Shan Wei received his BA and MA in International Studies from Peking University and PhD in Political Science from Texas A&M University. His research focuses on the political behaviour of citizens and the elite in the context of political and economic development. Topics he has covered include Chinese citizens' political participation, changes in political culture, mass-elite relations, political leadership, and factional politics within the elite group. His research paper appears in China Quarterly and other academic journals. He is the co-editor of The State of Rural China: Peasants, Agriculture and Rural Society in the Reform Era.
Dr Yang Lijun is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology (SCUT). She has studied social changes and social movements in contemporary China, particularly the Cultural Revolution and nationalism. Her research papers have appeared in academic journals such as The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, The Review of History, Asian Studies, and Chinese Affairs. Her book Social Structure and the Cultural Revolution in China: Citizenship and Collective Violence was selected as one of the five best books in all social science subjects in the Asian Pacific region, and for this she received the Ohira Memorial Foundation Award in 2005. She has also edited and co-edited many volumes on contemporary China.
Professor Yang received her BA in media studies from Beijing Broadcasting College, now The Communication University of China, her MA in politics from Yokohama City University, Japan and her PhD in sociology from Hitotsubashi University, Japan. Before join SCUT, she held various research and teaching positions in the State Language Work Committee of the State Council China, Hitotsubashi University, Aochi Prefectural University, Aoyama Gakuin University, Waseda University (Japan), and National University of Singapore.