The Control of the Media in the People's Republic of China

This dissertation offers new perspectives on China's transition to socialism by investigating a fundamental question--how did the state build capacity to know the nation through numbers? With the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, jubilant Chinese revolutionaries were confronted by the dual challenge of a nearly nonexistent statistical infrastructure and the pressing need to escape the universalist claims of capitalist statistics. At stake for revolutionary statisticians and economists was a fundamental difficulty: how to accurately ascertain social scientific fact. Resolving this difficulty involved not just epistemological and theoretical debates on the unity or disunity of statistical science but also practical considerations surrounding state-capacity building. The resultant shift toward a socialist definition of statistics, achieved by explicitly following the Soviet Union's example, was instrumental in shaping new bureaus, designing statistical work, and training personnel. New classificatory schemes and methods of data collection also raised issues of authority and policy, ultimately not just remolding state-society relations but also informing new conceptions of everyday life and work. By the mid-1950s, however, growing disaffection with the efficacy of Soviet methods led the Chinese, in a surprising turn of events, to seek out Indian statisticians in an unprecedented instance of Chinese participation in South-South scientific exchange. At the heart of these exchanges was the desire to learn more about large-scale random sampling, an emergent statistical technology, which, while technically complex, held great practical salience for large countries like China and India. "Making it Count" engages with and contributes to scholarship on the history of modern China and on the global and Cold War histories of science and social science. While the historiography on statistics and quantification has focused primarily on the early-modern and nineteenth century world, the dissertation brings this history into the twentieth century, when states, multi-national institutions, and private actors, regardless of their ideological hue, mobilized statistics on behalf of positivist social science and statecraft. By examining the collection and deployment of data, a process critical to the ambitions of the revolutionary PRC state but one that has largely been overlooked in the historical literature, the dissertation also provides an alternative account for a decade often portrayed as lurching from one mass campaign to another. Finally, the examination of the Sino-Indian statistical links reveals that pioneering innovation took place in many contexts after 1945 and challenges Cold War paradigms that are predisposed to assume the United States or the Soviet Union as the primary nodes from which scientific and other forms of modern knowledge emanated.

Like Regime, Like Newspaper: Comparative Analysis on Newspaper Industries across Taiwan Strait (1949-1958) Abstract Ever since 1949, across Taiwan strait, the Republic of China on Taiwan ruled by Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuo Min Tang, KMT) and the People’s Republic of China on Chinese Mainland ruled by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were antagonist to each other for a long time. Far-reaching changes were mandated both in Taiwan and Mainland China by the two regimes while communications between people on both sides of Taiwan strait were banned, and later vanished. Thus, to all professions across Taiwan strait, two groups of numerous experiments were performed at the same time. The experiences and consequences of these experiments influenced the working conditions, lives and cultures on both territories and evidenced distinction between the two national systems. As the most important media at the time, newspaper industry was highly regarded by both KMT and CCP. Although in the beginning of the political separation, newspaper industries across Taiwan strait were quite similar, the many newspaper policies raised by the two governments molded different environments for the industry. Experiments of newspaper industry under different regimes were taken place from then on. Within ten years, the newspaper industries evolved seperately across the strait, and around 1958, divergent newspaper systems appeared. Newspaper industry in Mainland China became a typical example of the industry under totalitarian regime, while newspaper industry in Taiwan showed itself a model of the industry under authoritarian regime. Base on the above historical background, what was the mechanism that caused and shaped different newspaper industries across Taiwan strait? How did newspaper industry respond to totalitarian or authoritarian ruling? What factors that differentiated authoritarianism from totalitarianism can be reached through the examples in newspaper industry? These questions reckon the necessity of comparative study on the same industry in two isolated and widely different regions during the same time period. This dissertation tries to be contributive to the answers. Newspaper industry is considered and studied here with its entire functionality. Not only are news reporting, editing and editorial writing examined, but newspaper’s producing, sales and management are also studied. Comparative historical analysis is applied as the main methodology with the assistance of knowledges from journalism, political science, sociology, business administration and accounting. Acknowledging newapapers as the “tongue and throat to the party” and tool for propaganda, CCP spared no effort to control newspaper industry. However, it’s means and artifices were nimble and flexible. From 1949, CCP elaborated a government-owned hierarchy newspaper system. Party leaders directed newspapers owned and operated by central to local governments, while tolerated temporary existence of some privately-owned newspapers. Following the establishment of the regime, CCP seized newspaper industry’s resources such as manpower, materials, financial supply, news announcing, circulation channels and market throughout Mainland China. The number of remaining privately-owned newspapers and circulation and advertising agent houses declined sharply and eventually died out in a few years. When CCP had monopolized the newspaper industry, consequently, it had monopolized the social capitals contained in the industry. Newspapers in the totalitarian country became part of the regime itself. On the other side of the strait, the retreating and exhausted KMT faced difficulties inside and outside Taiwan. For surviving, the adoption of a two-handed policy, with both suppressions and compromises was inevitable, which made the ROC of Taiwan an authoritarian country. Government’s publication moratorium and journalistic taboos set walls around newspaper industry, but also kept potential competitors away. Among the coexisting, fixed-numbered newspapers, those owned by government or KMT were in leading positions in 1949. However, due to the realism of authoritarianism, some “reservations,” such as social and crime news, popular supply and circulation markets, and advertisements had been made by the government for other newspapers to maneuver their future with free competition in these areas. Privately-owned newspapers utilized the opportunities created by these “reservations” to compete capitalistically. In ten years, resources contained in Taiwanese societies were gradually excavated and transferred to privately-owned newspapers when social capitals were being accumulated by them; meanwhile government- and KMT-owned newspapers began to ebb. Preparation for privately-owned newspapers to meet the further economic development and foundation for them to exceed government- and KMT-owned newspapers were established in this period of time. Ten years were short in history, yet long enough to create two completely different newspaper industries in two areas that were politically separated and isolated to each other. It was the decade right after the split in 1949 that the two regimes across Taiwan strait, CCP’s totalitarian and KMT’s authoritarian, formed newspaper industries based on each one’s political ideology. So ten years are long enough to have a specific newspaper industry appear under a regime’s specific ruling. Sensitive to its environment as any other news media is, newspaper industry is a product of the regime that brings about the media industry’s environment. Like regime, like newspaper.

When Mao Zedong shouted loudly, “The central people’s government of the People's Republic of China is established today” at the Tiananmen tower on October 1 of 1949, that very moment not only symbolized the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party as the victor in the Chinese civil war, but also signaled the beginning of the geographical and political separation across the Strait. “The Republic of China” and “the People’s Republic of China” have taken their respective controls across the Taiwan Strait for more than 60 years and the cross-strait relations experienced “military standoff and hostile confrontation.” When Taiwan lifted the ban on visiting relatives in Mainland China in the 1980s, the stance of “mutual confrontation and zero contact” was transformed into the phase of “open and exchange; cold government and enthusiastic citizens” with military conflicts largely reduced. However, the two consecutive Taiwanese presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian proposed the highly contentious “special state-to-state relationship” and “one country on each side” respectively. This led to the complete lack of trust from both sides and the People’s Republic of China unilaterally shutting down the official communication channel. When Ma Ying-jeou took the presidency in 2008, the governments of both sides began to resume their roles as promoters of the normalization of the cross-strait relations under the principle of the “1992 Consensus.” Nevertheless, the “two political entities” have been established for more than 60 years which have developed their own politics, economics and cultures.Although the current cross-strait relations are having great future prospect, they are only limited to “economic” exchanges. The “political” aspect is still confined to the “One China” and “Taiwan independence” policies firmly held by the governments across the strait. In addition, the potential “party alteration” in Taiwan every four years creates more uncertainty to the cross-strait stability. Although the cross-strait relations have witnessed a U-turn, the subjective and objective factors surrounding the person in power inevitably affect the cross-strait relations. Taiwan witnessed its first party alteration in 2000 when the KMT ended its rule for more than 50 years. Chen Shui-bian’s successful bid to the presidency was then confronted with issues such as how to break the cross-strait deadlock and the direction of Taiwan’s economic development in view of China’s emerging economic power. As a result, it is worth examining in details how the China policy was formulated and the effects thereof under Chen Shui-bian’s government amid pressures from both the United States and China internationally and the resistance from the opposition party domestically. Finally, the research conclusion is drawn from the evaluation on how the Democratic Progress Party responses to China as China constantly pushes on the economic front without sacrificing Taiwan’s sovereignty at the Post- Chen Shui-bian era as the summary of this thesis.

After the Second World War, a bipolar world, known as the Cold War Era, has been clearly formed between the Western Bloc and Communist Bloc while the United States and the Soviet Union at the peak on each side. In Eastern Europe, the United States was restrained and felt helpless about Soviet expansion in this area with the perception of Yalta system. On the other hand, in Asia, with the breakdown of talks, an all-out war resumed. A Chinese civil war fought between Kuomintang (also as KMT or Chinese National Party) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At the end of 1948, KMT has occupied the inferior position. In the early period of 1949, CCP forces crossed the Yangtze River and successfully captured Nanking, the capital of KMT’s Republic of China (PRC) government. On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with its capital at Beiping, which was renamed Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek and millions of Nationalist Chinese retreated from mainland China to the island of Taiwan. Confronted with the CCP takeover of mainland China, the United States came to reformulate its China Policy which later marked a turning point in Sino-American relationship during the period of 1949 to the middle 1950. In June 1948, the leader of Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, was officially denounced and his party, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), was ejected as a member of the Cominform by the Soviet Union. Since the West branded Tito a Soviet puppet for his loyalty and constancy of faith to Stalinism, the Tito-Stalin Split presented a whole new realm of possibilities to the United States for its dilemma in china—“Chinese Titoism.” With the influence of Stilwell Incident over Sino-American relationship and the facts of Tito-Stalin Split, Truman made an about-face change to U.S. China Policy in 1949. By the early 1949, the Truman Administration has already been making plans to diverge from Chiang and his KMT such as the publication of China White Paper; at the same time, Truman Administration keeping making chances to have conversations with the CCP. By meeting and negotiating with the CCP officials, Truman Administration attempted to disunite Communist China and the Soviet Union, expected Mao to be the “Asian Tito,” and then Communist China can joint forces with the United States to fight against the Soviet Union, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Until the outbreak of Korean War in June 1950, the United States finally realized that what it faced is hostile china along with the Sino-Soviet partnership. By applying Graham T. Allison’s three decision-making models, namely, the Rational Actor Model (RAM), the Organizational Behavior Model (OBM), and the Governmental Politics Model (GPM) as the theoretical structure and basis, the thesis would step by step explore the decision-making process of Truman Administration in engaging China to counter the threat from the Soviet Union during the period of 1949 to the middle 1950 through the perspectives of the rational assessment and choice on national interest, struggles between/among organizations based on different target and organizational culture, and pulling, hauling and bargaining games among relative bureaucrats. In addition, the thesis also applied the principles from Alexander L. George’s book, Presidential Decision-making in Foreign Policy, to aim at examining how President Truman’s, who has the final say, character, personality, value and world views made effect in the decision-making process of the target case study. In the process of theory confirming, the thesis discovered that by the period of transformation of Chinese regimes in 1949, the Tito-Stalin Split of 1948 presented the United States a new inspiration for the Communist World, that is, the Eastern Bloc is not a rigid “Iron Curtain.” Truman Administration considered that Titoism may set its roots upon China, the Yugoslav-Soviet Conflict could be a replay situation that occurred in mainland China, and both would put the strategic thought—Engaging China to counter the Soviet Threat—into practice. Nevertheless, from the historical perspectives, this kind of strategic thought seemed over-optimistic, which did not conform to fully rational considerations. However, with regard to the background of the early Cold War Era and the suspicion between the Truman Administration and KMT, the alternative that the United States took reflected the principles of “bounded rationality model.” As a result, by examining the decision-making process of Truman Administration in engaging China to counter the threat from the Soviet Union during the period of 1949 to the middle 1950, what the thesis explored not only the facts about the Sino-American relationship in this period, but also the continuity and change of Truman’s China Policy along with its cause and effect.

The consolidation of a state rests not only on military and administrative power, but most importantly cultural power. Only cultural power can consolidate systems of thought and standards of value. From the outset, the Chinese Communist Party recognized culture as a power of influence. Contrary to the negative opinion towards peasant farmers (which Marxists customarily held), the Chinese Communist Party did not stigmatize peasant farmers as passivists and pacifists, but instead mobilized them using cultural power and thereby creating Peasant Movements. This strategy forcefully induced regime change. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party further prioritized control over cultural power as a matter of national and strategic importance. As the Cultural Revolution came to an end, and the Chinese Government sought to reconnect its people with its cultural heritage, four masterpieces of Chinese Classical literature were produced in the form of television series, and were largel successful. Notably, audiences of these televised Chinese masterpieces also happen to be current practitioners who are leading the transition of the Chinese government away from Marxist-Leninist ideologies and principles, and towards classical Chinese values such as ”ho” (peace) and ”yi” (justice).As China's successful economic reform reached its thirtieth year, the Chinese government produced another television series titled ”Rise of Great Nations”. This series narrate nine countries that had ”risen” in the past five hundred years. While China is not included in the list of the ”risen”, the series itself provoked much discourse-both domestic and foreign-regarding Cina's new role in a new era. There are five sections in this paper. Introduction and conclusion aside, the three core chapters are respectively analyses on: 1) the critiques of foreign scholars toward the television series; 2) historical comparisons of Chinese and world history; and 3) the causes and prequisites that lead to the rise of a nation. This paper aims to study the historical perspective of the People's Republic in comparison to the histories of the nine countries which the People's Republic seeks to highlight itself. This paper finds that culture is a critical source of power to peace and worldwide integration in a multipolar world system.

Reviewed by: Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1964 by Zheng Wang Aminda Smith Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1964 by Zheng Wang. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. Pp. xv + 380. $85.00 cloth, $34.95 paper, $34.95 e-book. I recently attended a lecture by a well-known China watcher who is often cited for her expertise on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies related to women and gender equality. When an audience member asked whether there were contestations, over antifeminist policies, between the Party leadership and officials in the Women's Federation (Funü lianhehui 妇女联合会, or Fulian), the speaker responded by claiming that the Fulian cannot be considered a feminist organization as it is simply an arm of the Party. While this claim is not entirely false, it is misleading. Moreover, such a position is all too common in the reportage and scholarship on the People's Republic of China (PRC): the CCP is often portrayed as a thoroughly patriarchal, Borg-like monolith, just as masculinist and oppressive to women as any other modern state power, despite its early claims to the contrary. Thus, Zheng Wang's forceful and convincing argument to the contrary makes her new book a crucial intervention in the fields of PRC history and the history of Chinese feminism. As her title suggests, among [End Page 408] Party members and PRC state leaders, Wang finds committed feminist women, who truly endeavored to bring about a socialist feminist revolution. Finding Women in the State, organized into two parts and eight chapters, considers the work of Chinese Communist feminists through a series of cases. Because Wang's argument requires the close reading and unpacking of extremely rich and detailed source materials, her chapters are quite dense. And her discussion is so wide-ranging that one sometimes senses at least two different books in this one volume. But in the end, all of the pieces coalesce around Wang's answer to an important historiographical question: how do we evaluate the CCP's famous claim to have liberated women, epitomized in Mao Zedong's all-too-oft-quoted pronouncement that "women hold up half the sky"? The research conducted over the past several decades suggests one answer: Chinese women were, and remain, partially liberated—thanks to the whims of a male-dominated and patriarchal Communist Party that nevertheless maintained its rhetoric supporting gender equality and thus sporadically promoted women's rights when doing so did not undermine other Party goals. Wang shows, however, that what appears to be a series of half-hearted and superficial concessions made by a masculinist state are actually evidence of hard-won victories achieved by women working in the Women's Federation and other Party-state units; these feminists were truly committed to the Maoist claim that women's liberation was central to China's socialist revolution. Wang does not deny that the sites in which state feminists worked, such as the Women's Federation, were inseparable parts of the Communist Party. Indeed, it was enthusiasm for socialism's liberatory promise that led these women to join the revolution. Those feminists who held positions within the PRC state certainly demonstrated their loyalty to the Party. Crucially, however, Wang shows that cadres and leaders who did women's work (funü gongzuo 妇女工作) also saw themselves as quasi-independent actors, dedicated to opposing patriarchy in Chinese society and in the Communist state. And their pursuit of a bona fide feminist agenda caused repeated clashes between state feminists and other Party members, including those in the central leadership. This book traces the histories of those state feminists committed to women's work. It demonstrates that while their battles were all uphill and against strong opposition from many Party men, [End Page 409] state feminists fought hard and sometimes successfully fomented real change for Chinese women. Wang reveals that the effects of state feminism can be seen everywhere during the socialist period, even in high-level Party policy and propaganda. She also argues, however, that historians must search for feminism in PRC history because it...

Reviewed by: Mao's Generals: Chen Yi and the New Fourth Army Peter O. Hefron (bio) Lanxin Xiang . Mao's Generals: Chen Yi and the New Fourth Army. Lanham, New York, and Oxford: University Press of America, 1998. xi, 223 pp. Hardcover $37.50, ISBN 0-7618-1129-x. Lanxin Xiang, Professor of International History at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies, has written a well-researched work that is part biography of Chen Yi and part military history of the Chinese Communist Revolution. It traces Chen Yi's career from radical student to founder and commander of the New Fourth Army (NFA). It is also a military history of the NFA, dealing especially with its pivotal role in destroying the main power base of the Guomindang (GMD) in central and eastern China during the 1947-1949 period. One of the book's strengths is Xiang's use of his interviews with surviving members of the NFA as well as his utilization of newly published primary sources, mainly from the People's Republic of China (PRC). The history of the Eighth Route Army, created by the veterans of the Long March, is well known. Xiang provides us with an in-depth look at what happened to those scattered Chinese Communist Party (CCP) guerrilla units in Southeast China that the CCP Central Committee left behind at the start of the Long March. From these units and their commanders arose the New Fourth Army. He traces the evolution and unification of these units during their three years of isolation from Mao Zedong's Yan'an headquarters. Communications were reestablished in late 1937, parallel to the creation of the second CCP-GMD United Front. From the surviving thirteen thousand "Red Bandits," Mao in Yan'an, Chen Yi and his guerrilla cohorts in southern China, and the Guomindang fashioned the New Fourth Army from October to December 1937. Xiang gives a detailed analysis of the chief battles of the NFA as well as of the controversies between Mao and the NFA leadership over correct military and political strategy. The NFA soon became a microcosm for the factional rivalry between Mao's real and imagined enemies within the CCP, ranging from the pro Stalinist Comintern group to potential rightists among CCP military officers. The NFA ostensibly harbored both varieties. The NFA also served as the arena for strategic debates between Mao and the NFA's leadership, soon personified by Chen Yi and a number of his generals such as Su Yu, Ye Fei, and Huang Kechang. At issue were three matters: Should the CCP continue to rely on Mao's guerrilla warfare strategy or escalate permanently to conventional mobile warfare using regular CCP troop units? By 1947, mobile warfare was favored and successfully practiced by the NFA. To do otherwise, Chen felt, would extend the civil war by allowing the GMD to dominate the battlefield. [End Page 248] Should the NFA follow Mao's periodic desire to rebuild the CCP guerrilla bases south of the Yangzi River or follow Chen's strategy of taking the revolution to the GMD's strategic heartland north of the Yangzi River? Xiang discusses this seesaw debate in detail. Finally, should the CCP's chief goal for the second CCP-GMD United Front be to fight the Japanese invaders or to use it as cover for the CCP to expand its territory, troops, and population at the expense of the GMD? Unlike the other two issues, this latter debate was easily won by Mao. Soon most of the NFA leadership accepted Mao's view that the anti-Japanese war was secondary. CCP expansion, even at the risk of restarting the civil war, was necessary if Mao was to defeat the GMD government after the Western Allies defeated Japan. Xiang includes an analysis of Mao's pre-1949 purges of his CCP opponents, most notably the anti-Bolshevik purge of the early 1930s and the 1942 rectification of both Rightists and Cominternists. Mao's egocentric determination to become "China's Stalin" through periodic purges, regardless of their impact on the revolution, is a forerunner of post-1949 Maoist excesses. Inevitably these issues focus the author's attention on the credibility...

The Republic of China (ROC), which was created in 1912, succeeded the territory and complete national sovereignty of governments of successive dynasties of China. Therefore, it is simply called "China" in the international community. Ten years after the founding of the ROC, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed under the direction of the Comintern (Third International) and then expanded its forces by taking advantage of the opportunity of Japan's invasion of China. In 1949, the CCP, under the support and assistance of the former Soviet Union, took control of the mainland area of the ROC by force and declared the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1 of the same year. The CCP set up a different state on the mainland area and the government of the ROC was relocated to the Taiwan area, and since then, two mutually exclusive regimes have coexisted in China, and thus the so-called issue of China emerged in the international community.

In the midst of last century, during the war between KMT (Kuomintang) and CCP (Chinese Communist Party), a large number of KMT Chinese soldiers and their families retreated all the way from Yunnan, China to Myanmar and Northern Thailand (Thaibei). With their “anti-Communism” belief, the Chinese in Thaibei maintained close relationship with the Republic of China (Taiwan) for past decades, by receiving plenty of benevolent resources from the Taiwanese government and the general public. In Northern Thailand, Chinese school exists in each village. Local Students can learn Mandarin with Taiwanese textbooks in the traditional Chinese format. Parents are desirous of sending their children to study in Taiwan. However, during the past years, the abundant resources provided from CCP have changed the condition in the traditional anti-Communism area. China struck on Thaibei Chinese villages with the ground of “taking care of Thaibei compatriots.” The report has found that the resources from China are similar to those from Taiwan, including school admission offerings, overseas passports, scholarships, simplified Chinese textbooks, permanently stationed teachers, exchanges and training activities of teachers. Chinese people in Thaibei have different attitudes and perceptions towards China in different areas, positions and backgrounds. Receiving the resources from China has caused a huge controversy in the traditional pro-Taiwan Thaibei Chinese community. The sensitive problem between “pro-China” and “pro-Taiwan” groups is still difficult to be solved. By tracking the studying path of Thaibei students studying in China, this TV in-depth report discusses their motives of choosing China over Taiwan. It also analyzes Thaibei Chinese's tangle with China by investigating the controversy caused by China resources provided to Thaibei.

Journal of Democracy 14.1 (2003) 18-26 [Access article in PDF] The Limits of Authoritarian Resilience Bruce Gilley The success of the recent leadership transition in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might be interpreted as evidence that China's authoritarian regime is historically unique. More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist orders of Eastern Europe, the CCP not only remains in power but has installed a younger, better-educated, even more confident set of successors at its head. And the CCP's Sixteenth Party Congress in November 2002 marked the first smooth leadership transition in a communist regime not to have involved the death or purging of the outgoing leader. Authoritarian regimes have been traditionally understood by political theorists as being terminally weak at their core, due to the absence of any of the checks on power that the rule of law, the separation of powers, or popular contestability would afford. The view is that the inherent weakness of these regimes will inevitably become more pronounced as the relative balance of resources shifts over time away from the state and toward autonomous social forces, often as a result of such forms of development as economic growth or international opening. At these stages of development, it is generally believed, authoritarian regimes find themselves suffering from what might be called "the logic of concentrated power"—that is, the tendency for power to concentrate in the hands of a few individuals or personalistic factions and to be fatally misused by them, with results that typically include misgovernment, a deterioration of legitimacy, corruption, and weak norms of conduct among governing elites. 1 But China—whose people represent roughly half of that part of the [End Page 18] world's population which is not allowed to choose its leaders though democratic elections—has so far defied the traditional model. Some have attempted to account for this in terms of a fundamental reconsolidation of the CCP's house following the nadir of the Party's legitimacy after the 1989 Tiananmen protests. The CCP, these observers argue, appears to have effectively solved the democracy deficit without democracy by putting in place mechanisms that have mitigated, or possibly eliminated, the traditional weaknesses of authoritarian regimes. Andrew Nathan nicely sums up the evidence for such mechanisms under the rubric of "regime institutionalization." I think that this characterization is mistaken, a point I will argue below in reference to three features of authoritarian regimes that have historically been among the most difficult to institutionalize: 1) the process of elite promotions; 2) the maintenance of elite functional responsibility; and 3) popular participation. Certainly by comparison to the bedlam of the Mao Zedong era, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is today a fairly institutionalized state. But relative to the actual needs of contemporary Chinese society, the PRC falls conspicuously short: Any given feature of a political system can be said to be "institutionalized" only when it is both consistent with a state's normative ideals and effectively implemented. By these standards, the evidence of PRC institutionalization remains faint. Nor does it seem likely that such institutionalization will eventually strengthen. Indeed, since 1949, there have been discernable cycles of consolidation and breakdown in China: The limits of regime institutionalization have been reached before and, in response, the "logic of concentrated power" has reasserted itself. Something similar is likely to happen again and, in due course, weaken the institutionalization apparent at the CCP's recent Sixteenth Party Congress. Present Institutionalization Samuel P. Huntington characterizes political institutionalization as the process by which a given feature of a political system acquires the traits of "adaptability, complexity, autonomy, and coherence." The feature in question may be a process, an institution, or a rule. When institutionalization is achieved throughout a political system, Huntington says, it produces government which is "effective, authoritative, [and] legitimate." 2 Although this definition suffices to explain a government's effectiveness or authoritativeness, Huntington has almost certainly misconceived the particular nature of the problem of legitimacy in an authoritarian context: He fails to grasp that for any of the above mentioned features of...

Since 1978, the Chinese Communist Party（CCP）decided to make the “reform and openness” economic policy in Mainland China. Today, more than 20 years high-degree economic growth drives the China’s comprehensive national power into a huge enlargement that we have never seen before. Because of the CCP still not gives up the “one-party oligarchy” political system yet, and its notorious human right records, most people in the world are worried about a rising non-democratic communist great power rising in the east Asia. Of course, the CCP itself understands a rising China will make the international community uneasy; therefore, they promote the “peaceful rising” thesis/strategy. The first part of this research is to analyze the theoretical implications of the “peaceful rising” thesis, I do this work from four theoretical perspectives: international system, (neo)-realism, hegemonic stability thesis, and the “China threat” thesis. Second, I research the background of the “peaceful rising” thesis by mean of China’s domestic politics, economic growth, military-security environment, and the subjective intentions of the CCP leaders. Third I describe the practical performance and its influence to international politics on the promotion of the CCP’s “peaceful rising” strategy, especially in the impact on Taiwan national security. According to my research, I find the “peaceful rising” strategy certainly have some effect, including: it decreases the negative image of the China as a threat; it helps to construct an amicable international environment; it extends more time to develop economy; and it good for the Chinese people reconstruct national confidence and self-esteem. The strategy certainly to have some influence over international community, therefore we have to watch out the development of this “peaceful rising” strategy.

Translating the Socialist State:Cultural Exchange, National Identity, and the Socialist World in the Early PRC Nicolai Volland (bio) The founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 marked not only the start of a profound transformation of the Chinese state institutions, the society, and the economy, but also the beginning of a monumental project to redefine the nature of the Chinese nation-state and its position in the world. The establishment of a new government was to give new meaning to the Chinese nation, in its own eyes, and in terms of its interaction with other nations. The politics of "leaning to one side (yi bian dao)," that had been agreed on in 1949,1 meant that the PRC was conceived as a state in the broader framework of the "socialist camp" from its very first hour.2 The integration of the PRC into an emerging socialist world that spanned half of the globe, from Berlin to Pyongyang, from Warsaw to Hanoi, and from Sofia to Novosibirsk—was a momentous event and gave legitimacy to the young regime that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was starting to build; it left an imprint on this regime for decades to come. On the topmost plane of politics, the PRC's entry into the socialist camp was translated into a series of bilateral treaties that the Chinese government signed with other socialist nations, and with the Soviet Union in particular. These processes have been relatively well-researched.3 However, the institutionalization of China's cooperation with the socialist nations of Eastern Europe and Asia could be but a first [End Page 51] step in the enormous project of redefining the Chinese nation-state. The next task for the CCP, arguably at least as important as winning diplomatic recognition from its new allies, was to reshape the nation's identity in the minds of its citizens. This new identity had to be both national and international; it was to define the nation-state and at the same time to transcend the national borders. To generate this kind of consciousness among the citizens of the nations in the socialist bloc was key to consolidating the new regimes—a task faced not only by the Chinese government, but by the other socialist nations as well. In this process, cultural factors played a key role, and a fundamental mechanism to create a feeling of cohesiveness and shared goals and values was the promotion of cultural exchanges.4 Soon after the founding of the PRC, the CCP thus began to set up a network of contacts and institutions entrusted with fostering exchanges in the cultural field designed to anchor the PRC firmly in the socialist camp. The government set out to build a cultural diplomacy that would assist and complement the PRC's efforts on the high-level diplomatic fronts and would penetrate deep into the populace to instill identity politics in the people's minds. In contrast to the formation of foreign policy in the early PRC, these efforts in cultural diplomacy have received surprisingly little scholarly attention.5 This article is an effort to explore some of the institutional dimensions and fields of activity of cultural exchange between the PRC and the [End Page 52] Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and to relate them to the complex patterns of identity politics in the early Cold War era.6 In the following pages, I will discuss several crucial avenues of cultural exchange that characterized the involvement of the PRC in the cultural diplomacy of the socialist camp. These include mutual visits of orchestras, writers, and drama troupes, the participation of Chinese delegations in international competitions and festivals, and the exchange of students in fields such as arts, drama, and music. Finally, an especially important field was the translation of literature across the socialist camp. In a coordinated effort, representative examples of the national literatures—in particular new works written in the socialist spirit—were translated simultaneously into multiple languages and circulated across the bloc. Readers in Poland thus read the same Russian novels at the same time as their peers in Romania, North Korea, and the PRC, and Chinese...

This thesis mainly describes two different parties how to adjust and shift predecessor’s China policy in their administration from the first party rotation to the second one. Although this thesis mentions the policies made by the leaders during 1949-2000 in those circumstances, the changes in this 50 years are slighter than recent ten years. For example, Chen Shui-bian puts forward the one country on each side policy to attempt to alter status quo of cross-straight, while Ma Ying-jeou consider that based on 1992 consensus, mutual respect, maintaining the status quo and shelving disputes are the best choices for Taiwan to make a break through.. Since the government of the republic of China moved to Taiwan, Taiwan’s China policy has always used no as the core. Every leader has faced different cross-strait circumstance, which is not only from the changes of China, but also the whole world. The policy in Chiang Kai-shek’s administration was Han people and other races cannot live together. Chiang Ching-kuo used “the 3 'No's”-“no contact, no talk and no compromise”, which was changed to “no initiative, no concession and no avoidance” to response. As the respond to “Jiang’s eight points”, Lee Teng-hui’s “six points”, “special state-to-state relations” and “no haste, be patient” policy mean that Taiwan has actively made a framework to cross-strait relationship from passively respond. When Chen Shui-bian’s in office, he advanced “four ‘No’s and one without”, “new five‘No’” ，“Bold conversation”and “Open actively and efficiency managing” to stabilize U.S.-China-Taiwan trilateral relations and clean the air. However, owing to the diplomatic thrust and sedulously squeezing out of China，Chen Shui-bian accordingly addressed “one country on each side” and “four ‘No’s and one without” for strengthen Taiwan as an independent country, which made cross-strait relationship to hit bottom. Before Ma Ying-jeou began his term of office，he raised “five dos and don'ts” and keeping negotiating with Chinese communist party. When he’s in office, he put forward “no unification, no independence and no use of force” as the cardinal principle of cross-strait policy and regard self-recognizing one China respectively as the basis of cross-strait consultation. Ma Ying-jeou administration even emphasize “equality ,dignity and reciprocity” and “the urgent prior to the subordinary, the easy prior to the difficult, and economy prior to politics” to deepen consultation system. After two times of party rotations, the leaders of Taiwan who are based on the core philosophy of party the belonged to, their administration would adjust China policy by the influence of Chinese leader. For the China policy of Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou，the shift of principles and the adjustment of economic exchanges are so different and still similar, which is how to adjust China policy to maintain the peace with Chinese communist party and make own country benefit the most.

In the winter of 1947 a teenaged girl from a small Shanxi village was beheaded with a hay-cutter-turned guillotine – Liu Hulan was another victim of the bloody Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949 in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party vied for control over the country. Her membership of the CCP and active involvement in its armed struggle within the local People's Militia drew her into danger as the village came into Nationalist hands. Within weeks of her execution, the CCP mobilised the story of Liu Hulan to rally support for its campaign. Mao Zedong himself declared that hers was ‘A great life and a glorious death’ and personally penned the calligraphy of this epithet that now graces the various memorials and materials constructed and produced in her honour. A peasant girl of enormous courage and bravery, defiant in the face of death and resistant to her captors’ demands that she recant her communist beliefs and betray her comrades, Hulan has been hailed as a heroic communist martyr for well over half a century.

The generally accepted view of the first United Front in China was that the Communist International (Comintern) initially proposed this policy in 1920, at approximately the same time that Marxist study groups were being formed into a communist party in China.' According to this view, an active policy of alliance between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Guomindang (GMD) began in 1922, as a result of the intervention of Henk Sneevliet (Maring), an agent of the Moscow-based Comintern. These dates assume the existence of the CCP prior to the Comintern's adoption of the United Front, an interpretation that most recently published Western histories of the CCP accept.2 Not surprising, historians from the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the former USSR also subscribe to this view because to do otherwise would devalue the CCP's role.3 However, this traditional view that the CCP was integral to the United Front is contradicted by a wealth of evidence showing that the Bolsheviks proposed this policy almost three years before the CCP was formed. In fact, Soviet officials first promoted an alliance with Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) during summer 1918 before there were any communists in China at all. The Comintern followed suit during spring 1919, more than a year before Marxist study groups were formed. Finally, with the Comintern's backing, in January 1921 Chen