William T. Liu - Böcker

This book is an English language edition of the official China Statistical Abstract compiled by the State Statistical Bureau of the People's Republic of China (SSB). It offers essential basic information on China's economic and social development since 1978 and contains key statistics for principal sectors of the national economy be selected years since 1949 and by each single year after 1978. There are nine sections: General Survey; Population and Labor Force; Agriculture; Industry; Transportation, Postal and Telecommunication Services; Investment and Fixed Assets; Finance, Trade and Price; Peoples Livelihood; Education, Science, Culture, Public Health and Sports. The English languge edition is extensively annotated to assist users who are unfamiliar with China's economic and social systems. Also included are a valuable glossary of major indicators and a statistical communique from the SSB on China's 1987 economic and social development. Libraries, government agencies, or any business with interest in China will find China Statistical Abstract 1988 an invaluable reference.English language edition of the official China Statistical Abstract compiled by the State Statistical Bureau of the People's Republic of China (SSB). The English Language Editorial Board was responsible for the translation and annotation of this volume. The English Language Editorial Board is composed of representatives of the China Statistical Information and Consultancy Service Center, and affiliate of the SSB, and the China Statistics Archives, a research center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This is the fifth volume in a series of statistical annuals. The volumes so far published are China Statistical Abstract 1988, China Social Statistics 1988, China Trade and Prices Statistics 1988, and China Rural Statistics 1988.

In this volume East Asia is used as a unit of political and economic analysis to reveal an approach to modernization that is distinct from the Western model. The volume especially focuses on the interaction between nations of East Asia; the advantages and limits of export-led growth; relations between such processes as state formation, industrial growth, urbanization, and the movement from status- to class-based social hierarchies; and the links between state, market, and civic culture.Each chapter takes at least one country as its topic. There also is a comparative and regional perspective provided within many of the contributions. All the chapters present fresh insights and analyses with intellectual and historical depth. Modernization in East Asia contains useful theoretical frameworks and empirical data for scholars, practitioners, and students.

If modernisation means mass longevity, it raises hopes that everyone may enjoy a full span of years. It also brings the fear that many will not be able to take care of themselves and will rely upon society to provide special care. Modernisation in this sense also means the rise of the welfare state: let the government take care of the frail and the old.Mass aging has proven to be a financial crisis for welfare states in the advanced economies of the West; it also raises questions about the future of family-based care in the East while professionals and academicians in the advanced economies of the West continue to debate about whose responsibility it is to take care of the elders (the state or the individual?), governments in East Asia hold firmly to the position that it is the family that has the primary responsibility to take care of old members, and that the government's role is to assist families in discharging elder care responsibilities.This publication examines some of the often-raised questions identified in the research literature in the past 25 years — for example, the nature and scope of caregiving, the issue of care burden, and the claim that family-based care is really women care that is sex-biased. The author marshals evidence to show from studies conducted in China that care burden is a complex form of social relations that is shaped by the culture. Furthermore, the gender and type of relations may largely determine in what type of kin relations are the subjective feelings of burden the greatest and where objective indications of burden may remain constant. In conclusion, the author suggests that the best common resolution for both the East and the West is to establish a workable partnership between the state and the family in facing the forthcoming crisis of elder care in a fully aged society.

The Party and state leadership in Beijing was rudely awakened to the fact that the state bureaucracies in charge of public security had no idea of Falun Gong's leadership and its functions on April 25, 1999, when reportedly ten thousand followers in front of Zhongnanhai staged a peaceful and quiet sit-in. Since then the world media has reported events and probable causes for the government to outlaw what was determined to be a religious cult that could disturb peace and stability in China.In this paper, analyses are made of the background and political implications of the sect that had one time dominated the front page of all major newspapers in the world. The authors address themselves to questions such as: What is the nature of Falun Gong? Is it a religious sect, a cult, or a quasi-religious social movement with a hidden political agenda? Is it traditional qigong of a sort that packages well-established belief systems of Buddhism and Taoism? Is it a money-making scheme that satisfies the yearning for spiritual fulfillment for the elderly, the unemployed and the retired? Or is it all of those? Will the Falun Gong phenomenon repeat itself in the future? Was the government crackdown an over-reaction or was it expected? These issues are discussed by the authors in separate sections of this paper.