The foundation of this association has now been laid. People call us Blue Shirts or terrorists. That is nothing. The important problem to be solved is how to create a new revolutionary atmosphere so as to lead the revolutionary masses⃜ In China today definite action must be taken for temporary relief as well as for fundamental cure. However, what we need now is a fundamental cure. Our present problem is not the Japanese. Our problem is not the invasion of our north-eastern provinces and Jehol. If we can maintain the status quo, it will be enough for the present time. As a revolutionary government, the loss of a little territory does not mean much. A revolutionary movement has both to advance and retreat. When our strength is not enough, it is natural to retreat. We have lost territory today, but we will take it back the next day when we have strength

China's Marriage Law of 1980 went into effect on New Year's Day 1981, permitting women and men to marry at 20 and 22, respectively. This contrasts sharply with the late marriage requirements of the 1970s, whichstipulated 23 and 25 years for women and men in the rural areas and 25 and 28 years for their urban sisters and brothers. The new legal minimum ages for marriage caused an instant upsurge in the numbers of young people getting married in China. One scholar estimated that as many as 30 million marriages would take place in 1981 as millions of young women and men took advantage of the new legal minimum. It was later officially projected that first marriages in 1981 would probably reach at least 14 million, more than twice the number in 1980. And, because of the “baby boom” of the 1960s marriage rates are likely to remain high through the mid 1990s.

The Blue Shirts during the 1930s became one of the most influential and feared political movements in China. To both contemporaries and historians, however, the Blue Shirt movement has been a shadowy force, known mostly through hearsay, with little solid information regarding its doctrine or its activities. Now, on the basis of memoirs, interviews, and especially Japanese intelligence reports of the 1930s, a rough picture of this secret organization can be pieced together. And the image that emerges is not simply a terrorist organization, but a political faction that reflected the concerns and ideals of many Chinese during the troubled Nanking decade. This study will, it is hoped, not only provide an insight into the nature of Kuomintang rule, but will shed light on a previously unexamined species of the political genus, fascism.

A crucial element in China's modernization effort is the control of population growth. Months before the historic Third Plenum of the 11th Communist Party Congress in December 1978, the leadership decided that only a drastic limitation of fertility would ensure achievement of its economic goals for the year 2000. The policy to encourage all couples to limit themselves to one child was announced in January 1979. In September 1980 the Party Central Committee took the unusual step of publishing an “Open Letter” announcing a drastic programme of 20 to 30 years’ duration to restrict population growth, and calling on all Party and Youth League members to take the lead in having only one child. Thus was launched the world's most ambitious family-planning programme.

There has been little systematic research on corruption in China. Analyses so far often only reveal various cases of corruption and conclude by commenting on the retrograde aspect of the Chinese state. Work of this nature also tends to be too static – not considering the historical and cultural dimensions of politics – and too superficial – just concentrating on anecdotal aspects of corruption. As a result, one could quite simply conclude that what is required is a Weberian bureaucracy, which would be both rational and efficient, though without explaining how this should come about.

However, in the light of works dealing with the shifting role of the state in societies which are undergoing change, the causes and nature of the phenomenon of “corruption” in China can be reassessed.

This article describes and analyses changes in the environment and related policy developments in the People's Republic over the past 50 years. When discussing the quality of China's environment it must be remembered that the population of the country has doubled over the past half century and the economy has grown rapidly, particularly over the last two decades. Pessimists argue that the current population of over 1,200 million has exceeded the number which can be supported at a good living standard. Despite such views, there has been some ground for optimism in recent years, with China's greater environmental awareness and increased openness, its realization that the environment can be a tool in international diplomacy, and the increasing importation of environmental protection techniques. Yet overall, China has not done enough to maintain environmental quality and has not chosen to make many environmentally friendly transport investments.

While China has been portrayed as a reluctant supporter of UN peacekeeping in the past, it has voted in favour of every newly established UN peacekeeping operation since the beginning of the new millennium. Previous studies of China's behaviour in UN peacekeeping explained this phenomenon primarily with recent shifts in its foreign and security policy rather than with changes in UN peacekeeping itself. This article analyses China's voting behaviour in the UN Security Council on peacekeeping resolutions in the context of the evolving concepts of UN peacekeeping. It argues that China's recent enthusiasm for these missions is the result of two developments. On the one hand, Beijing was able to reinterpret its understanding of UN peacekeeping after its experience in the 1990s, especially with regard to the use of force; while on the other hand, the way UN peacekeeping missions are conducted was reformed after the Brahimi Report in 2000, which made UN peacekeeping more agreeable to the China.

In 2010, according to the sixth Chinese census, the sex ratio at birth (SRB) was 118 males for every 100 females. The global SRB average is about 105. Thus, the gap between 118 and 105 is made up of “missing girls.” Scholars present three main explanations for the skewed SRB statistic: sex-selective abortion, infanticide and delayed or late registration. Most studies take a demographic and cultural approach to explain the high SRB. However, we believe the story of the “missing girls” is also an administrative one and adopt the street-level bureaucrat theory of policy implementation to explain the pervasiveness of late registration in rural China. We use descriptive statistics derived from the 1990, 2000 and 2010 census data to identify the “missing girls.” We believe the combination of late registration and unreported births may point to a larger proportion of “missing girls” than previously reported from the SRB statistic.

The future of the reforms in China ultimately depends on whether, and if so to what extent, reforms introduced in the recent past have improved the consumption and the standard of living of the Chinese people. It also depends on whether any such gains in the standard of living have been widely spread among the whole population. Since 1978 real per capita consumption in China has risen at an average annual rate of 7 per cent which is more than three and a half times that of the preceding 21 years. As a result, the standard of living of the average Chinese citizen in 1990 was more than double that of 1978. However, the growth of consumption and the living standard was rather uneven during the reform period. During the first phase of the reforms (1978–85) the consumption standard increased rapidly without widening existing income disparity. During the second phase (1985–90), however, improvements in consumption standards slowed significantly amidst rising inflation and growing income inequality. The question is whether the recent trend of a relatively slow rise in the standard of living and greater income disparity will continue in the 1990s. The purpose of this article is to examine the recent trends and changes in the level, structure and differentials of Chinese consumption and living standards, and to assess their prospects for the 1990s

Isaac Deutscher once observed that the Chinese Communist revolution presents the paradox of “the most archaic of nations avidly absorbing the most modern of revolutionary doctrines, the last word in revolution, and translating it into action. Lacking any native ancestry, Chinese Communism descends straight from Bolshevism. Mao stands on Lenin's shoulders.” This echoes the generally accepted view of the historical relationship between Maoism and Leninism. Among most western students of Chinese communism it is something of a truism that Marxism came to China in its Leninist form; for different reasons, Maoists have long been saying that Mao (and now only Mao) is the true heir of Lenin. Indeed, the “thought of Mao Tse-tung” is no longer simply considered the practical application of “the universal truths” of Marxism-Leninism to the specifically Chinese historical situation, but is explicitly celebrated as a new and higher stage of universally valid revolutionary theory; it is “invincible Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought” that now propels world history forward. In contemporary Maoist eyes, Mao stands on the shoulders of Lenin as firmly as Lenin presumably stands on the shoulders of Marx.

While Chinese academic excellence is gaining increasing international recognition, plagiarism, corruption, nepotism and other negative practices are reportedly rampant in academia in China. Many point the finger at fundamental flaws within the tizhi, the highly structured Chinese socio-political system. I propose re-examining Chinese academia and its practices by applying and expanding Pierre Bourdieu's notion of field as this framework helps to identify the predicament of the “deep water” in which Chinese scholars and institutes find themselves. The four fields I outline – ideological, quasi-official, fame–profit and guanxi fields – spotlight academic practices with “Chinese characteristics.” I elaborate on my own experiences and reflections as both an insider and outsider to these practices, a position which I refer to as a third-eye perspective. I argue that despite the constraints of the “deep water,” the field-oriented angle of investigation reveals that the depths and types of “deep water” vary from one institute to another and also that the internally generated ongoing initiatives promise a step-by-step transformation in Chinese academia. To provoke further thought, I contend that the Chinese case is both a non-exception and alternative to the Western (and other) practices. In so doing, I call for a balanced perspective to re-examine Chinese academic ecology.

This article assesses the impact of China's accession to the World Trade Organization on its foreign trade and investment regime. While the government had begun liberalizing the Chinese economy long before joining the WTO, the accession induced regulatory, institutional and normative changes that have transformed the landscape of trade and investment in China. The profound impact of the WTO stems directly from the extensive commercial and rule commitments China undertook in its accession. Focusing on the most significant of these commitments, the article examines their implications for Chinese constitutional law and their effect on the regulation of foreign trade, foreign investment, intellectual property rights and domestic governance. Additionally, it looks at the impact of WTO disputes on Chinese law and practice. It concludes that China's accession has made its foreign trade and investment regime far more liberalized and less opaque than a decade ago. More importantly, the accession has institutionalized the process of China's domestic reform externally through the force of WTO obligations. Although much uncertainty remains concerning the future direction of government policies, WTO membership ensures that the course of China's economic development will be charted within the disciplines of the WTO system.

Based on fieldwork and studies of historical and contemporary materials, this article investigates several issues key to Buddhist life in the present-day PRC, focusing on Han Buddhists, especially the monastic tradition. It argues that many current practices take their shape from the innovations that transformed Chinese Buddhist life in the late Qing and Republican periods. While profound political, economic and social changes have occurred in the past few decades, some of the most pressing issues are extensions of questions raised at that time. The most significant question of the earlier period – what is the Buddhist monastic vocation, and what training and leadership are required to safeguard that ideal? – remains central to present-day activities and conceptions. To consider how to answer this question, or indeed how it is posed within present circumstances, three interconnected matters are investigated: current training methods, the economics of monasteries and the issue of leadership. In this context, Han–Tibetan interchange in the Buddhist field and the influence of overseas Chinese Buddhists on the mainland are also considered.

Environmental protection in the international context constitutes a type of soft or functional regime directed at the control of behaviour by states which generally does not present an overt threat to their neighbours. Rather, the principal danger is one of everyday social or economic activity presenting risks within the state in which it originates, to that state's neighbours and, possibly, the global commons. Thus, it is typically the activity's externalities rather than any intent to cause harm or encroach on neighbours' territory which is the cause of concern. Control is complicated by sovereignty issues, which become paramount when externalities cross a country's boundaries and affect the originator's neighbours and/or the wider international community. Although there have been cases of countries obtaining judicial relief for environmental harms that originated in another country, such issues are overwhelmingly non-justiciable. It is more likely that any international regimes that are established will provide no avenue for judicial relief.

In 2011 and 2012, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) published its first “guiding cases.” Guiding cases serve as decision-making models that must be taken into account by lower courts when deciding similar cases. This study argues that the establishment of a national formal legal mechanism to improve consistency in adjudication across jurisdictions and geographical boundaries will strengthen judicial professionalism. The guiding cases system provides the SPC with an instrument to steer adjudication in lower courts discreetly, thereby allowing it to exercise significant influence over legal developments. Given the complexity of cases, compared to law set out in statute, non-lawyers may have tremendous difficulty in understanding and assessing the effects of guiding cases; this in turn acts as a protective mechanism against extra-legal interference. The reform is an example of the SPC's delicate manoeuvring in order to retain judicial professionalism in a hostile yet politically conservative environment. It reflects an attempt by the SPC to strengthen its position vis-à-vis other actors of the party-state and to consolidate the judiciary's function as an adjudicative institution that works on the basis of formal legal mechanisms.

The main aim of China's agricultural policy during the Readjustment has been to raise the production of all branches of the sector in order to increase employment and incomes and to reduce the country's growing dependence on foreign agricultural imports, especially sugar, cotton and edible oil. In adopting this policy the government has recognized and accepted the need to maintain and even to increase foreign grain imports during the foreseeable future.

Analyses of regional economic disparities in China mostly refer to the level of the province. The report provides a survey of the prospects and limitations of using prefecture-level data in order to understand the spatial dynamics of growth. A new database has been built that is based on the original data available in the provincial yearbooks. The data are in the GIS framework. A large set of maps is accessible via www.on-China.de. Preliminary observations on possible new insights include, amongst others, a more complex picture of rural development.

This paper compares the key arguments of ecological modernization theory (EMT) with the reality of recent environmental reform in China. Based on data gathered from a survey and in-depth interviews with executives from Hong Kong-based enterprises operating in Guangdong province, we examine the changing roles of government, market, and civil society actors in the reform process, focusing on various types of pressures these actors have exerted on business enterprises. Compatible with Mol's (2006) conjectures, ecological concerns have gradually gained a foothold in existing political, economic, and to a lesser extent, social institutions. Yet, the relevant actors and their patterns of interactions differ from what EMT generalizes from Western European experiences. Specifically, local governments are assuming a more formalized relationship with firms in regulatory enforcement. Among market actors, organizational buyers along the supply chain have exerted more noticeable pressures on manufacturing firms than industrial associations and individual consumers. Civil society, while remaining less of an institutionalized actor in the environmental policy process, appears to pose a perceptible threat to at least some firms.

This article uses theories of industrial policy to analyse the growth of China's telecommunications equipment industry over the past 20 years. It highlights the role of the Chinese government in shaping the sector, by first utilizing imported equipment, then promoting Sino-foreign joint ventures and finally fostering domestic companies. Significantly, the government encouraged market competition, and avoided the pitfall of monopoly state control. Today, key telecommunications players include joint ventures, state-owned companies and even a major Chinese private corporation. The article concludes that the government's fiscal and regulatory industrial polices were successful, in that they rapidly built a modern communications network while promoting a vibrant free-market competitive environment.

While most mainland Chinese today have extremely few direct contacts with either America or Americans, their indirect contacts with both, via globalized American popular culture, are increasing rapidly. Do daily parasocial contacts with American celebrities shape Chinese views of America? Based on two experimental studies, this paper argues that even indirect, subconscious exposure to American celebrities via popular magazine covers shapes Chinese views of America. However, the impact of that exposure depends upon both the specific nature of the bicultural exposure and the psychological predispositions of the Chinese involved. Not all Chinese are alike, and their personality differences shape whether they experience American popular culture as enriching or threatening, leading to integrative and exclusionary reactions, respectively.