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Female Infanticide in China: an Examination of Cultural and Legal Norms
FEMALE INFANTICIDE IN CHINA: AN EXAMINATION OF CULTURAL AND LEGAL NORMS Julie Jimmerson* I. INTRODUCTION For the past ten years China has been carrying out an ambi- tious program to keep its population under 1.2 billion by the year 2,000 by limiting most couples to one child.' The program is his- torically one of the most extensive exercises of state control over fertility and is especially significant in a society where the state has traditionally intervened in family matters only rarely and with much reluctance. Not surprisingly, the policy has encountered great resistance, particularly from rural areas, where roughly eighty percent of China's population lives. Pronatal norms have been tra- ditionally strong in the countryside, and these norms have been re- inforced by the recent introduction of economic policies that tend to encourage large families. Government policies have thus placed much of rural society in a dilemma. Couples may either reject the one-child limit and at- tempt to have more children, thereby increasing their net household income (but subjecting them to government sanctions); or they may obey the one-child limit and suffer the economic consequences of a smaller income. Couples whose one child turns out to be a girl are in an even more painful dilemma: cultural norms dictate that daughters marry out and transfer their emotional and economic * J.D. expected 1990, UCLA School of Law; B.A. 1981, University of California, Berkeley. The author would like to thank Professors William Alford and Taimie Bry- ant for their help and encouragement. Any errors are the author's alone. -
Governance and Politics of China
Copyrighted material – 978–1–137–44527–8 © Tony Saich 2001, 2004, 2011, 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identifi ed as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition 2001 Second edition 2004 Third edition 2011 Fourth edition 2015 Published by PALGRAVE Palgrave in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave is a global imprint of the above companies and is represented throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–1–137–44528–5 hardback ISBN 978–1–137–44527–8 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. -
China's Fear of Contagion
China’s Fear of Contagion China’s Fear of M.E. Sarotte Contagion Tiananmen Square and the Power of the European Example For the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), erasing the memory of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre remains a full-time job. The party aggressively monitors and restricts media and internet commentary about the event. As Sinologist Jean-Philippe Béja has put it, during the last two decades it has not been possible “even so much as to mention the conjoined Chinese characters for 6 and 4” in web searches, so dissident postings refer instead to the imagi- nary date of May 35.1 Party censors make it “inconceivable for scholars to ac- cess Chinese archival sources” on Tiananmen, according to historian Chen Jian, and do not permit schoolchildren to study the topic; 1989 remains a “‘for- bidden zone’ in the press, scholarship, and classroom teaching.”2 The party still detains some of those who took part in the protest and does not allow oth- ers to leave the country.3 And every June 4, the CCP seeks to prevent any form of remembrance with detentions and a show of force by the pervasive Chinese security apparatus. The result, according to expert Perry Link, is that in to- M.E. Sarotte, the author of 1989: The Struggle to Create Post–Cold War Europe, is Professor of History and of International Relations at the University of Southern California. The author wishes to thank Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, the Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Southern California for ªnancial and institutional support; Joseph Torigian for invaluable criticism, research assistance, and Chinese translation; Qian Qichen for a conversation on PRC-U.S. -
China's New Top Government Leaders
China’s new top government leaders China’s state leaders were revealed on March 18th, 2018 at the conclusion of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC). Most notably, the NPC approved a constitutional change abolishing term limits for China’s president Xi Jinping. Below are background profiles for the seven top government leaders. Compiled by Cheng Li and the staff of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings 1 Xi Jinping 习近平 Born 1953 Current Positions • President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (2013–present) • General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (2012– present) • Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) (2012–present) • Member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) (2007–present) • Chairman of the National Security Committee (2013–present) • Head of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms (2013–present) • Head of the Central Leading Group for Foreign Affairs and National Security (2013–present) • Head of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs (2012–present) • Head of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Work (2013–present) • Head of the Central Leading Group for Network Security and Information Technology (2014–present) • Head of the CMC Central Leading Group for Deepening Reforms of National Defense and the Military (2014–present) • Commander in Chief of the Joint Operations Command Center of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) (2016–present) • Chairman of the Central Military and Civilian Integration Development Committee (2017– present) • Member of the Politburo (2007–present) • Full member of the Central Committee of the CCP (2002–present) Personal and Professional Background Xi Jinping was born on June 15, 1953, in Beijing. -
Xi Jinping and the Party Apparatus
Miller, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25 Xi Jinping and the Party Apparatus Alice Miller In the six months since the 17th Party Congress, Xi Jinping’s public appearances indicate that he has been given the task of day-to-day supervision of the Party apparatus. This role will allow him to expand and consolidate his personal relationships up and down the Party hierarchy, a critical opportunity in his preparation to succeed Hu Jintao as Party leader in 2012. In particular, as Hu Jintao did in his decade of preparation prior to becoming top Party leader in 2002, Xi presides over the Party Secretariat. Traditionally, the Secretariat has served the Party’s top policy coordinating body, supervising implementation of decisions made by the Party Politburo and its Standing Committee. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Xi’s Secretariat has been significantly trimmed to focus solely on the Party apparatus, and has apparently relinquished its longstanding role in coordinating decisions in several major sectors of substantive policy. Xi’s Activities since the Party Congress At the First Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s 17th Central Committee on 22 October 2007, Xi Jinping was appointed sixth-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee and executive secretary of the Party Secretariat. In December 2007, he was also appointed president of the Central Party School, the Party’s finishing school for up and coming leaders and an important think-tank for the Party’s top leadership. On 15 March 2008, at the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC), Xi was also elected PRC vice president, a role that gives him enhanced opportunity to meet with visiting foreign leaders and to travel abroad on official state business. -
China Perspectives
China Perspectives 2016/1 | 2016 Photo Essay: Deng Xiaoping’s Failed Reform in 1975-1976 A Photo Essay of a Failed Reform Beida, Tiananmen Square and the Defeat of Deng Xiaoping in 1975-76 David Zweig Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6893 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.6893 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 March 2016 Number of pages: 5-28 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference David Zweig, « A Photo Essay of a Failed Reform », China Perspectives [Online], 2016/1 | 2016, Online since 01 March 2016, connection on 28 October 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ chinaperspectives/6893 ; DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.6893 © All rights reserved Photo Essay China perspectives A Photo Essay of a Failed Reform Beida, Tiananmen Square and the Defeat of Deng Xiaoping in 1975-76 DAVID ZWEIG ABSTRACT: In mid-1975, Deng Xiaoping, with Mao’s blessing, initiated reforms that targeted the negative consequences of the Cultural Revolution. To bolster Deng’s effort, Mao endowed him with penultimate authority over the Party, government, and military. However, in late October, Mao turned on Deng, and within five months, Mao and the radicals toppled Deng from power. As a foreign student at Peking University, David Zweig observed and photographed four key points in this historic struggle: (1) the initial establishment of a “big character poster” compound at Peking University; (2) emotional mourning for Zhou Enlai in Tiananmen Square following his death: (3) the intensified assault on Deng in February 1976 in the posters at Peking University; and (4) the massive demonstration of support in Tiananmen Square on 3-4 April for the end of Maoist politics. -
Political Succession and Leadership Issues in China: Implications for U.S
Order Code RL30990 Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Political Succession and Leadership Issues in China: Implications for U.S. Policy Updated September 30, 2002 name redacted Specialist in Asian Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Political Succession and Leadership Issues in China: Implications for U.S. Policy Summary In 2002 and 2003, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will be making key leadership changes within the government and the Communist Party. A number of current senior leaders, including Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji, and National Peoples’ Congress Chairman Li Peng, are scheduled to be stepping down from their posts, and it is not yet clear who will be assuming these positions from among the younger generation of leaders – the so-called “fourth generation,” comprised of those born in the 1940s and early 1950s. It is expected that new leaders will be ascending to positions at the head of at least two and possibly all three of the PRC’s three vertical political structures: the Chinese Communist Party; the state government bureaucracy; and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). During a period likely to last into 2003, the succession process remains very much in flux. Some who follow Beijing politics have raised questions about how vigorously China’s current senior leaders will adhere to their self-imposed term limitations. Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, for instance, is expected to try to keep his position as head of China’s military on the grounds that the global anti-terrorism campaign and internal challenges to Chinese rule create a special need now for consistent leadership. -
The CCP Central Committee's Leading Small Groups Alice Miller
Miller, China Leadership Monitor, No. 26 The CCP Central Committee’s Leading Small Groups Alice Miller For several decades, the Chinese leadership has used informal bodies called “leading small groups” to advise the Party Politburo on policy and to coordinate implementation of policy decisions made by the Politburo and supervised by the Secretariat. Because these groups deal with sensitive leadership processes, PRC media refer to them very rarely, and almost never publicize lists of their members on a current basis. Even the limited accessible view of these groups and their evolution, however, offers insight into the structure of power and working relationships of the top Party leadership under Hu Jintao. A listing of the Central Committee “leading groups” (lingdao xiaozu 领导小组), or just “small groups” (xiaozu 小组), that are directly subordinate to the Party Secretariat and report to the Politburo and its Standing Committee and their members is appended to this article. First created in 1958, these groups are never incorporated into publicly available charts or explanations of Party institutions on a current basis. PRC media occasionally refer to them in the course of reporting on leadership policy processes, and they sometimes mention a leader’s membership in one of them. The only instance in the entire post-Mao era in which PRC media listed the current members of any of these groups was on 2003, when the PRC-controlled Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po publicized a membership list of the Central Committee Taiwan Work Leading Small Group. (Wen Wei Po, 26 December 2003) This has meant that even basic insight into these groups’ current roles and their membership requires painstaking compilation of the occasional references to them in PRC media. -
The Chinese Communist Party and Its Emerging Next-Generation Leaders
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Research Report March 23, 2012 The China Rising Leaders Project, Part 1: The Chinese Communist Party and Its Emerging Next-Generation Leaders by John Dotson USCC Research Coordinator With Supporting Research and Contributions By: Shelly Zhao, USCC Research Fellow Andrew Taffer, USCC Research Fellow 1 The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission China Rising Leaders Project Research Report Series: Part 1: The Chinese Communist Party and Its Emerging Next-Generation Leaders (March 2012) Part 2: China’s Emerging Leaders in the People’s Liberation Army (forthcoming June 2012) Part 3: China’s Emerging Leaders in State-Controlled Industry (forthcoming August 2012) Disclaimer: This report is the product of professional research performed by staff of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and was prepared at the request of the Commission to support its deliberations. Posting of the report to the Commission's website is intended to promote greater public understanding of the issues addressed by the Commission in its ongoing assessment of U.S.-China economic relations and their implications for U.S. security, as mandated by Public Law 106-398 and Public Law 108-7. However, the public release of this document does not necessarily imply an endorsement by the Commission, any individual Commissioner, or the Commission’s other professional staff, of the views or conclusions expressed in this staff research report. Cover Photo: CCP Politburo Standing Committee Member Xi Jinping acknowledges applause in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People following his election as Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China during the 5th plenary session of the National People's Congress (March 15, 2008). -
Projecting the Next Politburo Standing Committee
Projecting the Next Politburo Standing Committee Alice Miller1 Analysis of appointments to the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party shows that over the past two decades three simple rules have been followed. These rules offer a means to project appointments to the Standing Committee at the upcoming 19th Party Congress in 2017. Whether in fact the Xi leadership follows the precedents set down in past appointments or instead sets them aside offers a key benchmark against which to assess Xi Jinping’s strength as party leader. The Politburo Standing Committee has been the party’s key decision-making body since the beginning of the reform era in the late 1970s. Appointments to the body are routinely made at the party’s national congress, held every five years, and the subsequent first plenum of the new Central Committee appointed by the party congress. The party has never publicly explained how it makes decisions as to whom it appoints to the Politburo Standing Committee. Observers outside the party in China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere have filled this information vacuum with speculation based on presumptions of factional competition, bargaining among factional chieftains, and intense jockeying among potential candidates in the run-up to a party congress. Three Rules Close analysis of Standing Committee appointments over the past four party congresses, however, sheds different light on leadership procedures in this highly sensitive area. Specifically, examination of Standing Committee leader retirements and appointments at the 1997 15th, 2002 16th, 2007 17th, and 2012 18th Party Congresses shows that three basic rules have been followed: • First, retirement of both Standing Committee and regular members of the Politburo has followed a defined age limit. -
The "End of Politics" in Beijing Author(S): Bruce Gilley Source: the China Journal, No
Contemporary China Center, Australian National University The "End of Politics" in Beijing Author(s): Bruce Gilley Source: The China Journal, No. 51 (Jan., 2004), pp. 115-135 Published by: Contemporary China Center, Australian National University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3182149 Accessed: 19/10/2010 00:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ccc. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Contemporary China Center, Australian National University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The China Journal. http://www.jstor.org THE "END OF POLITICS" IN BEIJING* Bruce Gilley The cancellation of the annualleadership retreat at Beidaihe was among the most celebrated acts of Hu Jintao in his first year as General Secretaryof the Chinese Communist Party. -
The Communist Party of China: I • Party Powers and Group Poutics I from the Third Plenum to the Twelfth Party Congress
\ 1 ' NUMBER 2- 1984 (81) NUMBER 2 - 1984 (81) THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA: I • PARTY POWERS AND GROUP POUTICS I FROM THE THIRD PLENUM TO THE TWELFTH PARTY CONGRESS Hung-mao Tien School of LAw ~ of MAaylANCI • ' Occasional Papers/Reprint Series in Contemporary Asian Studies General Editor: Hungdah Chiu Executive Editor: Mitchell A. Silk Managing Editor: Shirley Lay Editorial Advisory Board Professor Robert A. Scalapino, University of California at Berkeley Professor Martin Wilbur, Columbia University Professor Gaston J. Sigur, George Washington University Professor Shao-chuan Leng, University of Virginia Professor Lawrence W. Beer, Lafayette College Professor James Hsiung, New York University Dr. Lih-wu Han, Political Science Association of the Republic of China Professor J. S. Prybyla, The Pennsylvania State University Professor Toshio Sawada, Sophia University, Japan Professor Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, Center for International Politics, University of Munich, Federal Republic of Germany Professor Choon-ho Park, College of Law and East Asian Law of the Sea Institute, Korea University, Republic of Korea Published with the cooperation of the Maryland International Law Society All contributions (in English only) and communications should be sent to Professor Hungdah Chiu, University of Maryland School of Law, 500 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201 USA. All publications in this series reflect only the views of the authors. While the editor accepts responsibility for the selection of materials to be published, the individual author is responsible for statements of facts and expressions of opinion contained therein. Subscription is US $10.00 for 6 issues (regardless of the price of individual issues) in the United States and Canada and $12.00 for overseas.