Causes In China Research Articles

Patterns of fish species richness in China's lakes

ABSTRACTAim To document the patterns of fish species richness and their possible causes in China's lakes at regional and national scales.Location Lakes across China.Methods We compiled data of fish species richness, limnological characteristics and climatic variables for 109 lakes across five regions of China: East region, Northeast region, Southwest region, North‐Northwest region, and the Tibetan Plateau. Correlation analyses, regression models and a general linear model were used to explore the patterns of fish species richness.Results At the national scale, lake altitude, energy availability (potential evapotranspiration, PET) and lake area explained 79.6% of the total variation of the lake fish species richness. The determinants of the fish richness pattern varied among physiographic regions. Lake area was the strongest predictor of fish species richness in the East and Southwest lakes, accounting for 22.2% and 82.9% of the variation, respectively. Annual PET explained 68.7% of the variation of fish richness in the Northeast lakes. Maximum depth, mineralization degree, and lake area explained 45.5% of the fish variation in the lakes of the North‐Northwest region. On the Tibetan Plateau, lake altitude was the first predictor variable, interpreting 32.2% of the variation.Main conclusions Lake altitude was the most important factor explaining the variation of fish species richness across China's lakes, and accounted for 74.5% of the variation. This may stem in part from the fact that the lakes investigated in our study span the largest altitudinal range anywhere in the world. The effects of the lake altitude on fish species richness can be separated into direct and indirect aspects due to its collinearity with PET. We also found that the fish diversity and its determinants were scale‐dependent. Fish species richness was probably energy‐determined in the cold region, while it was best predicted by the lake area in the relatively geologically old region. The independent variables we used only explained a small fraction of the variations in the lake fish species richness in East China and the Tibetan Plateau, which may be due to the effects of human activity and historical events, respectively.

The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961

The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961

Conceptualising Uyghur separatism in Chinese nationalism

The origins of Chinese nationalism are traceable to the post‐Cold War era which saw the gradual erosion of Communist ideology and the Chinese government's me of nationalism to shore up party legitimacy. Yet, the Chinese nationalism which has emerged is representative of Han nationalism and ignores ethnic minority nationalism in the larger cause of China's unity and integrity. Therefore, the strains in Chinese nationalism are visible today, in the separatist movements in Tibet and Xinjiang. This paper is about Uyghur separatism as it developed in the context of the Chinese idea of nationalism. The paper discusses how the Uyghur identity emerged and became crystallised around the concept of ethnicity. It concludes that in the context of Han nationalism, minority identities are hard to sustain and are increasingly submerged.

From “Long Yang” and “Dui Shi” to Tongzhi: Homosexuality in China

SUMMARY Homosexuality was widespread, recognized and fairly tolerated, although not entirely accepted, in ancient China. After being invaded and defeated by the Western powers in the mid- to late nineteenth century, “progressive” Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century believed that Chinese traditions were “backward” and the actual cause of China's defeat; they looked to Westernization as a cure for the nation. This occurred at a time when homosexuality was regarded as a psychiatric condition in the West. Consequently, a pathological view of homosexuality and other antihomosexual attitudes were adopted by the Chinese along with Western technology and other “progressive thoughts.” It was only after 1949 that homosexual behavior was seriously punished in China and served as grounds for persecution during Chinese political upheavals between the 1950s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the Chinese government's “open door” policy made it possible for the Chinese gay and lesbian community to develop; i...

Reviews

Books reviewed:Ross McLeod and Ross Garnaut (eds), East Asia in crisis: from being a miracle to needing one?Anthony Reid (ed.), Sojourners and settlers: histories of Southeast Asia and the ChineseWilliam Callahan, Imagining democracy: reading ‘the events of May’ in ThailandLynne T. White, Unstately Power, Volume I: Local causes of China's economic reforms; Volume II: Local causes of China's intellectual, legal and government reforms Michael Young, Malinowski's Kiriwana; fieldwork photography 1915‐1918Colin Filer with Nikhil Sekhran, Loggers, donors and resource owners. Policy that works for forests and peopleMichael Dutton (ed.), Streetlife ChinaKimberly Ann Elliott (ed.), Corruption and the global economy

A Note on the Causal Factors of China's Famine in 1959–1961

A Note on the Causal Factors of China's Famine in 1959–1961

Reviews

Books reviewed:Joel S. Kahn (ed), Southeast Asian identities: culture and the politics of representation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and ThailandPeter Dauvergne, Shadows in the forest: Japan and the politics of timber in Southeast AsiaGeoffrey Murray, China: the next superpower: dilemmas in change and continuityLynne T. White, Unstately Power, Volume I: Local causes of China's economic reforms; Volume II: Local causes of China's intellectual, legal and government reforms Amarjit Kaur, Economic change in East Malaysia: Sabah and Sarawak since 1850Josieana Cauqueline, Paul Lim and Birgit Mayer‐König, Asian values: encounter with diversity

Unstately power: v.1: Local causes of China's economic reforms

Unstately power: v.1: Local causes of China's economic reforms

On the causes of China's agricultural crisis and the great leap famine

Recently researchers have conducted extensive investigations on China's Great Leap crisis. In this article, we critically review this literature and argue that, since the grain production collapse was not the only factor that led to the famine, the causes of these two catastrophes require separate examination. At the theoretical level multidimensional factors were responsible for the crisis. However, existing empirical findings mainly support the exit right hypothesis to explain the dramatic productivity fluctuations in Chinese agriculture, and support grain availability and the urban-biased food distribution system as important causes of the famine. We suggest that additional empirical research is needed to assess the relative importance of the proposed causes.

Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961

Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961

Conversing with Straw Men While Ignoring Dictators: A Reply to Roger Ames

In a rebuttal of Ames's critique of his conception of universal human rights, Donnelly asserts that Ames has misrepresented his arguments, creating a straw man from Ames's own preconceived notion of the Western liberal tradition while ignoring the substantive debates. In response to Ames's cultural approach to human rights, Donnelly argues that culture cannot be viewed as static. Structural, political, and economic factors have significant effects upon culture and the rights of each citizen. Donnelly concludes that the more significant cause of China's failure to recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not Confucian culture but rather China's own corrupt and dictatorial regime; thus the international community must continue to condemn China's violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

This paper is a response to the article by Wu and Flynn that appeared in Volume 3 of this journal in 1995. Wu and Flynn identified the major causes of environmental problems in China and then assessed the growth in environmental consciousness, planning and regulation in contemporary China. Although I believe that their assessment of most of the causes of China's current environmental problems were by and large correct, I feel that they have underestimated the importance of some of these problems. In doing so, they end up with a more positive assessment of China's (and therefore the world's) environmental future than myself. In particular, I will argue that they have underestimated the short-term legitimacy priorities of the party elites and the longer term consequences of the dispersal of central power in the post-Mao era.

Away from socialism: The Asian way

Abstract This article offers a refined institutional approach to ascertain the main cause of China's economic surge. It first surveys the literature on economic performance of (ex‐)socialist countries. Then it offers an institution mix to account for Chinese economic success: hard budget constraint, state‐regulated market, export expansion and bureaucratic autonomy. It argues that hard budget constraint of the private or quasi‐private sector is necessary to concentrate incentives on production, and away from vertical bargaining, while the state regulation of markets is conducive to a strategic allocation of resources. In this institutional framework, export expansion becomes necessary not only for the market outlets it provides, but also for the competition it brings about that would otherwise be lacking in a state‐regulated market. Finally, bureaucratic autonomy is necessary to design and implement industrial policy that serves state capitalism and promotes export expansion. This four‐item institution mix explains to a great extent China's economic success in the past decade. With some modifications, it also accounts for most of Asia's other economic miracles. By doing so, the article rejects the Krugman theme which predicts that East Asia's miracle economies will inevitably slow down as they enter the phase of intensive growth without being able to raise factor productivity continuously. In contrast, this article asserts that the optimal institution mix, if property maintained, may be able to successfully shift East Asia from extensive to intensive growth.

The East Asian Model and the New Authoritarianism

This essay was originally written in response to an invitation from the Shanghai World Economic Herald for the purpose of taking part in the debate on the new authoritarianism that was going on in China at the time. Who could have known that in only a few days from that time, the April student movement would begin in Beijing, and the World Economic Herald would become the first sacrificial lamb to go under the knife of the hard-liners in the Chinese Communist Party, as they took action against the journalistic circles. As a result, this essay was never published. Then, on June 4, 1989, while Beijing reeled under the bullets and the bloodstains, the city set ablaze by tanks and machine guns, the Jingjixue zhoubao (Economics weekly) published in its final issue a synopsis of the essay. To this day, we have no news of the whereabouts or survival of Mr. Wang Juntao, chief editor of Economics Weekly, who for so many years strove for the cause of China's democracy. [See page 6, note 2.—Eds.]

Chinese reforms, inflation and the allocation of investment in a socialist economy

This article explores the causes of China's recent inflationary experience, identifies the linkages between inflationary pressures and decentralization of investment decisions, discusses the problems of organizing “enterprise” investments in the absence of private risk capital and concludes with some thoughts on possible approaches to China's dilemma of creating a “socialist capital market.”

Policies of chaos: the organizational causes of China's cultural revolution

Policies of chaos: the organizational causes of China's cultural revolution

Peasant Grain Marketing and State Procurement: China's Grain Contracting System

Economists have argued that the compulsory procurement policy has been an important cause of China's past agricultural problems. Political scientists have seen administrative evasion, under-reporting, and other forms of “corruption” in villages during the Mao era as the result of state pressures for larger grain sales. The Chinese themselves now openly criticize the system of unified purchase (tonggou) for being coercive and inefficient; for forcing quota sales by administrative fiat, rather than utilizing market demand and incentives. In April 1985 the government abolished the system of unified purchase, the keystone of China's grain control policy since the early 1950s; in its place is a system of contract procurement (hetong dinggou).

POLITICAL CHANGES AND THEIR CAUSES IN CHINA, 1949–1972

POLITICAL CHANGES AND THEIR CAUSES IN CHINA, 1949–1972

China's Population Problem-A Chinese View

M OST Western scholars are extremely pessimistic about China's ability to solve its population problem. The American historian John Fairbank, for example, cautions that all efforts toward reform may prove tragically futile if babies continue to arrive faster than resources are developed.' According to Claude Hutchison, who headed the joint China-United States Agricultural Mission to China in I945, most, if not all, of China's present-day problems arise basically from the fact that too many people have to depend on too little land for their subsistence. Gerald Winfield, a public health expert formerly on the faculty of Cheloo University, also paints a grim picture: the root cause of ... abject poverty [in China] is overpopulation.... Paucity of land in China, combined with a vast population almost entirely dependent on agriculture, has caused an overwhelming pressure of population on the land.3 Contrary to the belief commonly held in the West, overpopulation is not the cause of China's impoverishment, but merely a reflection of that deterioration in Chinese society which began under the rule of the alien Manchus. The real key to China's population problem lies in the persistent decline in productivity of the land: as productivity decreased, the peasants tended to offset the loss, not by means of capitalconsuming devices such as an intensified use of fertilizers, but by a proportionate increase in the application of labor. Agricultural productivity declined in terms of both land and labor. Output per unit of land fell off because the clearing of upland areas for cultivation resulted in disastrous deforestation and erosion; output per unit of labor dwindled because of the intensification of cultivation in terms of labor