This extensive survey documents Tibetan society over five decades, including population structure in rural and urban areas, marriage and migration patterns, the maintenance of language and ...traditional culture, economic transitions relating to income and consumption habits, educational development, and the growth of civil society and social organizations. In addition to household surveys completed over twenty years, the book provides a systematic analysis of all available social and census data released by the Chinese government, and a thorough review of Western and Chinese literature on the topic. It is the first book on Tibetan society published in English by a mainland China scholar, and covers several sensitive issues in Tibetan studies, including population changes, Han migration into Tibetan areas, intermarriage patterns, and ethnic relations.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the imperial powers—principally Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Japan—signed treaties with China to secure trading, ...residence and other rights in cities on the coast, along important rivers, and in remote places further inland. The largest of them—the great treaty ports of Shanghai and Tientsin—became modern cities of international importance, centres of cultural exchange and safe havens for Chinese who sought to subvert the Qing government. They are also lasting symbols of the uninvited and often violent incursions by foreign powers during China’s century of weakness. The extraterritorial privileges that underpinned the treaty ports were abolished in 1943—a time when much of the treaty port world was under Japanese occupation. China’s Foreign Places provides a historical account of the hundred or more major foreign settlements that appeared in China during the period 1840 to 1943. Most of the entries are about treaty ports, large and small, but the book also includes colonies, leased territories, resorts and illicit centres of trade. Information has been drawn from a wide range of sources and entries are arranged alphabetically with extensive illustrations and maps. China’s Foreign Places is both a unique work of reference, essential for scholars of this period and travellers to modern China. It is also a fascinating account of the people, institutions and businesses that inhabited China’s treaty port world.
Spider eaters Yang, Rae
2013., 20130130, 2013, 2013-03-01
eBook
Spider Eaters is at once a moving personal story, a fascinating family history, and a unique chronicle of political upheaval told by a Chinese woman who came of age during the turbulent years of the ...Cultural Revolution. With stunning honesty and a lively, sly humor, Rae Yang records her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland, to her girlhood at an elite middle school in Beijing, to her adolescent experience as a Red Guard and later as a laborer on a pig farm in the remote northern wilderness. She tells of her eventual disillusionment with the Maoist revolution, how remorse and despair nearly drove her to suicide, and how she struggled to make sense of conflicting events that often blurred the line between victim and victimizer, aristocrat and peasant, communist and counter-revolutionary. Moving gracefully between past and present, dream and reality, the author artfully conveys the vast complexity of life in China as well as the richness, confusion, and magic of her own inner life and struggle. Much of the power of the narrative derives from Yang's multi-generational, cross-class perspective. She invokes the myths, legends, folklore, and local customs that surrounded her and brings to life the many people who were instrumental in her life: her nanny, a poor woman who raised her from a baby and whose character is conveyed through the bedtime tales she spins; her father; and her beloved grandmother, who died as a result of the political persecution she suffered. Spanning the years from 1950 to 1980, Rae Yang's story is evocative, complex, and told with striking candor. It is one of the most immediate and engaging narratives of life in post-1949 China.
Traditionally, the South China Sea (SCS) issue was not on the negotiation table between the United States and China. However, the tensions between the United States and China over the SCS have ...gradually simmered up to a strategic level. Why and how did the SCS become a flashpoint between the United States and China? Will the United States and China really go to war over the SCS? Why did China adopt an “assertive” policy towards the South China Sea in the 2000s? What will regional actors do in the face of this “new normal” of competition between China and the United States? Will multilateral institutions in the Asia Pacific alleviate the potential conflicts over the SCS disputes? How will US–Chinese competition in the SCS shape the dynamics of Asian security?
This edited book addresses these questions systematically and theoretically, with contributions from leading scholars in the field of US–China relations and Asian security from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. It elevates the analysis of the SCS disputes from maritime and legal issues to the strategic level between the United States and China.
In On Saving Face, Michael Keevak traces the Western reception of the Chinese concept of “face” during the past two hundred years, arguing that it has always been linked to nineteenth-century ...colonialism. “Lose face” and “save face” have become so normalized in modern European languages that most users do not even realize that they are of Chinese origin. “Face” is an extremely complex and varied notion in all East Asian cultures. It involves proper behavior and the avoidance of conflict, encompassing every aspect of one’s place in society as well as one’s relationships with other people. One can “give face,” “get face,” “fight for face,” “tear up face,” and a host of other expressions. But when it began to become known to the Western trading community in China beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was distorted and reduced to two phrases only, “lose face” and “save face,” both of which were used to suggest distinctly Western ideas of humiliation, embarrassment, honor, and reputation. The Chinese were judged as a race obsessed with the fear of “losing (their) face,” and they constantly resorted to vain attempts to “save” it in the face of Western correction. “Lose face” may be an authentic Chinese expression but “save face” is different. “Save face” was actually a Western invention.
Northwestern China is located at the core area of The Belt and The Road at present and it once has been an essential transportation hub of the ancient Silk Road. However, the north‐western part ...belongs to arid and semi‐arid region where water resource and vegetation cover are scarce, leading to soil erosion, desertification, and environmental degradation. So it is meaningful to study fractional vegetation cover in North‐western China. Vegetation MODIS data of northwestern China from 2000 to 2010 were collected, and then, the pixel dichotomy model and simple linear regression model were applied in this research. The results were as follows. First, the fractional vegetation cover was decreasing from the margin to the middle and western part and the higher value shown in the north‐east part of Inner Mongolia, the south part of Shaanxi, the north‐west part of Ningxia, the south‐east part of Gansu, and the north‐west part of Xinjiang. Second, the overall trend of fractional vegetation cover was rising during 2000 to 2010, which is clearly shown in northern Shaanxi, south‐eastern Qinghai and Gansu, and also south‐western Inner Mongolia. Third, fractional vegetation cover varied differently with season changes. To be more specific, the index in spring and winter was considerably low; in contrast, the index in summer and autumn was improved dramatically.
The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China presents a major new approach in research on the formation of the Qing empire (1636–1912) in early modern China. Focusing on the symbolic practices ...that structured domination and legitimized authority, the book challenges traditional understandings of state-formation, and argues that in addition to war making and institution building, the disciplining of diverse political actors, and the construction of political order through symbolic acts were essential undertakings in the making of the Qing state. Beginning in 1631 with the establishment of the key disciplinary organization, the Board of Rites, and culminating with the publication of the first administrative code in 1690, Keliher shows that the Qing political environment was premised on sets of intertwined relationships constantly performed through acts such as the New Year's Day ceremony, greeting rites, and sumptuary regulations, or what was referred to as li in Chinese. Drawing on Chinese- and Manchu-language archival sources, this book is the first to demonstrate how Qing state-makers drew on existing practices and made up new ones to reimagine political culture and construct a system of domination that lay the basis for empire.
After overthrowing the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), proclaimed that he had obtained the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming), enabling establishment of a ...spiritual orientation and social agenda for China. Zhu, emperor during the Ming’s Hongwu reign period, launched a series of social programs to rebuild the empire and define Chinese cultural identity. To promote its reform programs, the Ming imperial court issued a series of legal documents, culminating in The Great Ming Code (Da Ming lu), which supported China’s legal system until the Ming was overthrown and also served as the basis of the legal code of the following dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911). This companion volume to Jiang Yonglin’s translation ofThe Great Ming Code (2005) analyzes the thought underlying the imperial legal code. Was the concept of the Mandate of Heaven merely a tool manipulated by the ruling elite to justify state power, or was it essential to their belief system and to the intellectual foundation of legal culture? What role did law play in the imperial effort to carry out the social reform programs? Jiang addresses these questions by examining the transformative role of the Code in educating the people about the Mandate of Heaven. The Code served as a cosmic instrument and moral textbook to ensure “all under Heaven” were aligned with the cosmic order. By promoting, regulating, and prohibiting categories of ritual behavior, the intent of the Code was to provide spiritual guidance to Chinese subjects, as well as to acquire political legitimacy. The Code also obligated officials to obey the supreme authority of the emperor, to observe filial behavior toward parents, to care for the welfare of the masses, and to maintain harmonious relationships with deities. This set of regulations made officials the representatives of the Son of Heaven in mediating between the spiritual and mundane worlds and in governing the human realm. This study challenges the conventional assumption that law in premodern China was used merely as an arm of the state to maintain social control and as a secular tool to exercise naked power. Based on a holistic approach, Jiang argues that the Ming ruling elite envisioned the cosmos as an integrated unit; they saw law, religion, and political power as intertwined, remarkably different from the “modern” compartmentalized worldview. In serving as a cosmic instrument to manifest the Mandate of Heaven, The Great Ming Code represented a powerful religious effort to educate the masses and transform society. The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.
This book examines the energy resource relations between China and ASEAN countries. It addresses the following issues: as the world energy demand shifts East because of the rise of China, ASEAN ...community and other emerging Asian economies, and as the Greater Indian Ocean and the South China Sea become the world's energy interstates, will geopolitical tensions over energy resources spark conflicts in the region, especially in the South China Sea? Against the background of China's rise and its growing influence in Southeast Asia, will China's quest for energy resource cooperation be viewed as a threat or opportunity by its neighbouring countries? Since the United States, Japan and India are important players in Southeast Asia, does the shifting geopolitics of energy give these big powers a new strategic tool in an intensifying rivalry with China? Or does the changing geopolitics of energy resources create more areas of shared interests and opportunities for cooperation between these big powers to balance, rather than increase, tensions in Southeast Asia? This book will be of interest to anyone who is keen to learn how the world, especially the United States, can accommodate and adapt to the new global energy dynamics and how China and ASEAN operate as new players in global and regional energy markets.
Urban China World Bank, the People's Republic of China Development Research Center of the State Council
2014.
eBook, Book
Open access
Over the past three decades, China's urbanization has supported high growth and rapid transformation of the economy. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, and by 2030 that ...will rise to an estimated 60 percent. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of areas. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers with equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing, while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level. The report also provides recommendations on the timing and sequencing of reforms. It stresses the need to first implement reforms related to land, fiscal, and public service systems. Doing so will facilitate China's transition to higher-quality economic growth. In the first section of this report, chapters one through four analyze China's achievements in urbanization and the challenges it faces in achieving efficient, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization. In the second section, a comprehensive reform agenda is proposed. Chapter five lays out the vision for urban China in 2030 and the reform package that will be needed to achieve it. It also describes the urban landscape in 2030 under the reform scenario. Chapters six through ten provide a detailed set of recommendations in the key areas of reform. Finally, chapter eleven proposes the sequencing and timing of reforms. This report is complemented by seven supporting reports, urbanization and economic growth, spatial design and urban planning, inclusive urbanization, land, food security, green urbanization, and financing urbanization that further deepen the analysis and expand on the policy recommendations.
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