This comprehensive, interpretive economic history presents the dramatic recent changes in China's approach to economic organization and development in an historical context.

This book takes a fresh look at Chinese political economy at a key inflection point. Facing a more competitive international environment, Chinese reform has shifted from its earlier focus on economic liberalization and political decentralization to a more tightly organized, centralized form of state socialism. The Party-state's vigorous fiscal reaction to the Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009) left the country with a much improved infrastructure and greater sense of national self-assurance. The more monocratic central leadership has redoubled efforts to fight poverty and pollution, push technological innovation, and at the same time rigorously enforce ideological consensus, political loyalty and anticorruption.This has been occurring in an international context of slowing trade and nationalist pushback against 'globalization', prominently including bilateral Chinese-American polarization. While China has been among the staunchest advocates and beneficiaries of globalization, incipient trade war 'decoupling' has spurred movement toward economic and technological self-reliance. Turning inward however vies with a rival impulse toward more vigorous engagement in the world. This is most consequentially represented by the Belt and Road Initiative, driving massive infrastructure construction through Central Asia and the South and Southeast Asian maritime periphery. Despite slowing growth and a large debt overhang, swift recovery from the Covid-19 epidemic leaves China in a relatively strong economic position.

This authoritative study explores China's rapidly evolving polity, economy, and society through the prism of its communication system. Yuezhi Zhao offers a multifaceted, interdisciplinary analysis of communication in China and its central role in the struggle for control during the country's rise to global power. The industry in all its forms--ranging from the news media to entertainment outlets to the Internet--has been a critical battleground among different social forces in this period of wrenching change. The author explores alterations in the structure and content of Chinese communication in light of the rapid evolution of state-society relations to reveal the profoundly contradictory, conflicted, and uncertain nature of China's ongoing transformation.

1997 was truly an eventful year for China, with many momentous happenings. In February of that year Deng Xiaoping passed away, thus marking the end of an era. Shortly after, the post-Deng Chinese leadership under Jiang Zemin had to mobilise great efforts to ensure the smooth resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong on June 30. This was then followed by intensive preparation for the holding of the 15th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in September, which set national priorities for China's medium- and long-term development as well as decided on the core team of younger leaders responsible for leading China into the 21st century.China is in the midst of great political, economic and social changes, which will intensify each other on account of their speed and scale. History has never before witnessed such a huge country as China industrialising and transforming itself so rapidly and so extensively.Accordingly, China's success or failure in its domestic development carries serious regional and international implications. There is still a great deal of uncertainty as to how soon in the next century China will become the world's most powerful economy. But what is happening in China today has already impinged on many aspects of life for people in the Asia-Pacific region, either in terms of growing trade and investment opportunities from China or in terms of regional security.This volume is largely based on public lectures and seminar papers by academic visitors and scholars at the East Asian Institute. Each has been written as a self-contained piece by a China expert, but presented primarily with non-specialist readers in mind.

This book explores the institutional factors in social policymaking and implementation in China. From the performance evaluation system for local cadres to the intergovernmental fiscal system, local policy experimentation, logrolling among government departments, and the “top-level” design, there are a number of factors that make policy in China less than straightforward. The book argues that it is bureaucratic incentive structure lead to a fragmented and stratified welfare system in China. Using a variety of Chinese- and English-language sources, including central and local government documents, budgetary data, household surveys, media databases, etc., this book covers the development of China’s pensions, health insurance, unemployment insurance, and social assistance programs since the 1990s, with a focus on initiatives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing a deeper understanding of policymaking and implementation in China, this book interests scholars of public administration, political economy, Asian politics, and social development.

This book examines the processes, evolution and consequences of China’s rapid integration into the global economy. Through analyses of Beijing’s international economic engagement in areas such as trade, investment, finance, sustainable development and global economic governance, it highlights the forces shaping China’s increasingly prominent role in the global economic arena. Chapters explore China’s behavior in global economic governance, the interests and motivations underlying China’s international economic initiatives and the influence of politics, including both domestic politics and foreign relations, on the country’s global economic footprint.

Demonstrates the imbalanced integration as the main character of China’s urban-rural economic relationship since reform and opening up. Reveals the critical logic underlying the evolution of China’s urban-rural economic relationship since 1949. Puts forward an alternative therectical framework based on political economy.