China: From Revolution to Reform - Böcker

Western commentators have often criticized the state of press freedom in China, arguing that individual speech still suffers from arbitrary restrictions and that its mass media remains under an authoritarian mode. Yet the history of press freedom in the Chinese context has received little examination. Unlike conventional historical accounts which narrate the institutional development of censorship and people's resistance to arbitrary repression, Freedom of the Press in China: A Conceptual History, 1831-1949 is the first comprehensive study presenting the intellectual trajectory of press freedom. It sheds light on the transcultural transference and localization of the concept in modern Chinese history, spanning from its initial introduction in 1831 to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By examining intellectuals' thoughts, common people's attitudes, and official opinions, along with the social-cultural factors that were involved in negotiating Chinese interpretations and practices in history, this book uncovers the dynamic and changing meanings of press freedom in modern China.

Memories of Tiananmen: Politics and Processes of Collective Remembering in Hong Kong, 1989-2019 analyzes how collective memory regarding the 1989 Beijing student movement and the Tiananmen crackdown was produced, contested, sustained, and transformed in Hong Kong between 1989 and 2019. Drawing on data gathered through multiple sources such as news reports, digital media content, on-site vigil surveys, population surveys, and in-depth interviews with activists, rally participants, and other stakeholders, it identifies six key processes in the dynamics of social remembering: memory formation, memory mobilization, memory institutionalization, intergenerational transfer, memory repair, and memory balkanization. The book demonstrates how a socially dominant collective memory, even one the state finds politically irritable, can be generated and maintained through constant negotiation and efforts by a wide range of actors. While Memories of Tiananmen mainly focuses on the interplay between political changes and the Tiananmen commemoration in the historical period within which the society enjoyed a significant degree of civil liberties, it also discusses how the trajectory of the collective memory may take a drastic turn as Hong Kong’s autonomy is abridged. The book promises to be a key reference for anyone interested in collective memory studies, social movement research, political communication, and China and Hong Kong studies.

What is the meaning of love in modern Chinese politics? Why has ai . (love) been a crucial political discourse for secular nationalism for generations of political leaders as a powerful instrument to the present day? This book offers the first systematic examination of the ways in which the notion of love has been introduced, adapted, and engineered as a political discourse for the building and rebuilding of a secular modern nation, all the while appropriating Confucianism, Christianity, popular religion, ghost stories, political religion, and their religious affects. The insights of this exploration expand not only the discussion of the role of emotions in the project of Chinese modernity, but also the study of affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today.

This volume takes readers on a journey into a central aspect of life in China, so-called “self-development.” Whether prompted by the cultural values of educational success, capitalist competition for wealth, or the Chinese Communist Party’s prescriptions for “good” citizenship, few people in China are immune to the impetus to “improve” themselves and thus bring about a better future. Contributors to this volume, interdisciplinary sinologists, draw on materials from practices in education, labor, and self-help as they spotlight “keywords” by which individuals make sense of their self-development journeys – including new forms of resistance to social norms. Rather than simply classify self-development by different activities or groups, the chapters map together ethical features that cut across Chinese society. Contributors explore the nuanced and ambivalent attitudes towards self-development of individuals navigating various requirements and pursuing more complete forms of existence. In so doing, they offer a snapshot of China that intersects with timely global concerns.

The Chinese Communist Youth League is the largest youth political organization in the world, with over 80 million members. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was a firm supporter of the League, and believed that it could play a bigger role in winning the hearts and minds of Chinese youth by actively engaging with their interests and demands. Accordingly, he provided the League with a new youth work mandate to increase its capacity for responsiveness under the slogan 'keep the Party assured and the youth satisfied'. This original investigation of the hitherto-unexamined organization uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to explore how the League implemented Hu's mandate at both local and national levels, exposing the contradictory nature of some of its campaigns. By doing so, it also sheds light on the reasons for Xi Jinping's turn against the League during his first term in office., The Chinese Communist Youth League: Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization develops the original concept of 'juniority' to capture the complex ways that generational power is institutionalized, alienating young people from official political processes, with significant implications for China's political development. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of Chinese politics, as well as to scholars of comparative youth politics and sociology.|Acknowledgments,List of tables, Chapter 1: Introduction,Scope and importance of the study,The challenge: reversing the legacy of an uneasy relationship,Enter Hu Jintao: Keep the Party Assured and the Youth Satisfied,Beyond dependency: Youth as a junior political subject,Researching the League,Organization of the book, Chapter 1 references, Chapter 2: Juniority and the generational subordination of party youth organizations, Circumventing dependency: cadre agency and responsiveness,Youth leagues and generational politics,Generational subordination and juniority, Chapter 2 references, Chapter 3: The League on Campus,Joining the League,Grassroots League Committees and Cadres,League Activities on Campus,The View from Below: The League's Evaluation by Students, Conclusion, Chapter 3 references, Chapter 4: The League in the workplace,Locating Youth and the League in the Chinese workplace,Deregulated labor and League membership, Building the League through building the Party,The League's activities: between the party committee and the management,Serving and representing young employees, Conclusion, Chapter 4 references, Chapter 5: Training Youth Cadres,Organizational aspirations and personnel realities,The Central League School: training generalist cadres,The League School at the grassroots,Improving training at the local level,Personnel exchange and recognition programs, Conclusion, Chapter 5 references, Chapter 6 - In Search of Responsiveness,Youth Work Norms,Serving youth in practice,Relations with social organizations, Conclusion, Chapter 6 references, Conclusion: From Hu to Xi,The League as a dependent and junior organization,The League under Xi: factional considerations or a new mission?,Juniority beyond the League, Conclusion references, Bibliography,Appendix, Index.|1.As the first monograph on the Communist Youth League, it fills an important gap in the literature on Chinese youth politics, mass organizations and political institutions 2.Makes a direct contribution to the authoritarian resilience debate and promotes the comparative study of party youth organizations 3. Rigorous research that combines the perspectives of cadres and ordinary young people and investigates the local manifestations of broader institutional and political dynamics affecting youth|Konstantinos Tsimonis's new book is an important contribution to an understudied subject. [...] The volume also includes a very helpful discussion of the declining fortunes of the Youth League under Xi Jinping, who not only viewed the league as a bastion of factionalism, the so-called 'league faction' that provided a base of support for the Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao administration. [...] Fortunately, we have this excellent book by Tsimonis to enlighten us on why Hu's reforms were doomed from the start.- Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California, China Information 36 (1) (2022), Konstantinos D. Tsimonis' book is an important and timely study that offers a crucial contribution to our understanding of Party-youth relations in contemporary China. [...] the book also addresses youth political organizations' experience in the former socialist countries and in doing so develops an analytical framework that captures and also goes beyond the peculiarities of the Chinese case.,- Sofia Graziani, The China Journal, Vol. 88, July 2022, This book adds valuable insights into the inner workings of the CYL in various institutions. It adds nuanced analysis on, for instance, the differences between students at elite universities and vocational colleges' perceptions of and engagement with the CYL (Chapter 3). Tsimonis' in-depth analysis of the concept of youth and the subordination of youth interests makes this book a valuable contribution to the study of China's mass organisations and youth as a political subject under authoritarianism. Altogether, Tsimonis' book is a solid contribution to the study of contemporary China and youth political participation and will undoubtedly be of interest to scholars and students in China studies, youth studies and political science more broadly.- Rebekka Åsnes Sagild, European Journal of East Asian Studies 20 (2021), This book is overall of great relevance to anyone interested in Chinese youth, and state-society relations in contemporary China more broadly. And while the core of the book centers on the Hu Jintao era, the author develops in the introduction and conclusion exciting observations about the changes that took place under Xi Jinping.- Jérôme Doyon, Journal of Chinese Political Science (2021), Overall, this book makes a major contribution to research on youth organisations and the status of youth in contemporary Chinese society. [...] The qualitative data and insights into this organisation will be useful for researchers who are interested in youth politics in China and political apathy among young people in authoritarian states in general.,- Zheyu Shang, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 74, Iss. 6, This book is an excellent source for understanding the operation of the CYL under Hu Jintao's leadership. Most of the other works on this subject are in Chinese, and their authors tend not to use field interviews, but rather to base their research on secondary or official sources.,- Wen-Hsuan Tsai, Pacific Affairs, Feb 2023

Drawing on hundreds of newly released judicial archives and court cases, this book analyzes the communist judicial system in China from its founding period to the death of Mao Zedong. It argues that the communist judicial system was built when the CCP was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the GMD, meaning that the overriding aim of the judicial system was, from the outset, to safeguard the Party against both internal and external adversaries. This fundamental insecurity and perennial fear of loss of power obsessed the Party throughout the era of Mao and beyond, prompting it to launch numerous political campaigns, which forced communist judicial cadres to choose between upholding basic legal norms and maintaining Party order. In doing all of this, The Communist Judicial System in China, 1927-1976: Building on Fear fills a major lacuna in our understanding of communist-era China.

This book explores the formation, development, and characteristics of modern China's finance, focusing especially on Guangdong province as a case study to illustrate both the macro-level trends and the micro-level reality. The chronological range of this book is mainly from the late Qing period to the early Republican Era ending in 1937, when the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. After the concept of modern finance was introduced to China for the first time in the late Qing period, the efforts to build modern finance continued in the Republican Era both nationally and locally. But this process was interrupted by the outbreak of the war against Japan in 1937 and, having been derailed, did not subsequently recover due to the subsequent civil war between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. This interrupted process of financial modernization was resumed with Reform and Opening-up, launched in 1978. Therefore, in order to illustrate the structural transformation and persistent characteristics of China’s fiscal system, this book also includes discussions of the early Qing period and current Chinese finance.

This book discusses the mishu (staff member, secretary) system and the operation of the Chinese Communist Party between 1921 and 2022, focusing on the system’s impact on high-level politics and decision-making during four key periods. Starting with the Revolutionary War (1921–1945), it moves to the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1950–1966), the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and finally the period of reform and opening up, bringing the history to the present day (1976–2022). This is the first systematic analysis of the mishu system, offering new insights on the history of the CCP and modern China.

This book discusses the mishu (staff member, secretary) system and the operation of the Chinese Communist Party between 1921 and 2022, focusing on the system’s impact on high-level politics and decision-making during four key periods.

This book examines China’s diplomacy under President Xi Jinping, through focused studies of its key neighboring countries. It provides in-depth analysis of Xi Jinping’s policies toward individual neighbors since late 2012, while also presenting a detailed historical account of China’s relations with each of them—from the imperial era to the eve of Xi’s leadership. It highlights how Xi’s approach to diplomacy reflects elements of both imperial expansionism and Mao Zedong’s “fighting spirit” and “red gene.” Written by established historians with decades of cross-cultural experience in China and the United States, it offers a balanced perspective on China’s neighborhood policy.Xi’s China and Its Neighbors is ideal for scholars, students, and researchers in international relations, Asian studies, and political history. It appeals to those researching China’s foreign policy, regional diplomacy, and historical influences on contemporary governance.

This original investigation of the hitherto-unexamined organization 'Chinese Communist Youth League' uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to explore how the League implemented Hu's mandate at both local and national levels, exposing the contradictory nature of some of its campaigns.

What is the meaning of love in modern Chinese politics? Why has ai . (love) been a crucial political discourse for secular nationalism for generations of political leaders as a powerful instrument to the present day? This book offers the first systematic examination of the ways in which the notion of love has been introduced, adapted, and engineered as a political discourse for the building and rebuilding of a secular modern nation, all the while appropriating Confucianism, Christianity, popular religion, ghost stories, political religion, and their religious affects. The insights of this exploration expand not only the discussion of the role of emotions in the project of Chinese modernity, but also the study of affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today.

This volume takes readers on a journey into a central aspect of life in China, “self-development. Whether prompted by the cultural values of educational success, capitalist competition for wealth, or the Chinese Communist Party’s prescriptions for “good” citizenship, few people in China are immune to the impetus to “improve” themselves.

Over the past thirty years, China's public parks have been turned into stages for amateur performances of socialist anthems by self-organized retirees who lived through the Mao era (1949-1976).Challenging previous interpretations in terms of political expression or nostalgia, Casual Assemblies explores the seeming paradox of displaying political messages in the heart of the capital city while framing these gatherings as fun or self-entertainment – merely wan’r, in the language of parkgoers. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Beijing, this book takes these claims to non-seriousness seriously. For at stake in these gatherings is the possibility of being non-literal and reclaiming the sensuous pleasures of performing old tunes from “politics” (zhengzhi). This book theorizes casualness as a mode of engagement predicated upon the irrelevance of the correspondence between action and referential meaning. Through the making-casual of a cultural form once supposed to produce revolutionary commitment, parkgoers enact new experiences of being-in-public, togetherness, and shifting relationships to the Maoist past.This book will be of value to readers with a keen interest in China, scholars and students in anthropology and Asian Studies, as well as travelers who have witnessed these phenomena firsthand.

By examining intellectuals' thoughts, common people's attitudes, and official opinions, along with the social-cultural factors that were involved in negotiating Chinese interpretations and practices in history, this book uncovers the dynamic and changing meanings of press freedom in modern China.

The only booklength account of collective remembering and analysis of how the 1989 Beijing student movement and the Tiananmen crackdown was produced, contested, sustained, and transformed in Hong Kong between 1989 and 2019.

Drawing on hundreds of newly released judicial archives and court cases, this book analyzes the communist judicial system in China from its founding period to the death of Mao Zedong.