Democracy In China Research Articles

Research on the Relationship Between Chinese Private Entrepreneurs and Democratization

While the rise of democracy has been attributed to various factors, including the emergence of a capitalist class. This article adopts a theoretical analysis method to delve into the role of private entrepreneurs in China as a potential catalyst for democratization. Drawing on Barrington Moore's theory of "no bourgeoisie, no democracy" and Samuel Huntington's analysis of democratization movements, the paper explores the dynamics between private entrepreneurs and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and analyzes the identity and interests of private entrepreneurs.The study reveals that private entrepreneurs in China maintain close informal connections and share political interests with state officials, indicating an interdependent relationship rather than an antagonistic one. Additionally, the lack of a unified political front and diverging economic interests among private entrepreneurs undermines the potential for class formation and collective action towards democratization. The paper also highlights the integration and cooperation between the CCP and private business owners, dispelling assumptions of discontent and hostility between the two groups. Chinese private entrepreneurs are generally satisfied with the CCP's economic policies, with their primary concern being market competition rather than state policies. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of the complex dynamics between private entrepreneurs and the CCP in the context of democratization in China.

RURAL WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN CHINA： AN ANALYSIS OF THE METHODS OF RURAL GOVERNANCE MODERNIZATION

With the development of China’s industrialization and urbanization, many young and middle-aged men in rural China have moved to urban areas to work. The elderly, women and children are the main permanent residents in rural China, and women account for more than half of the agricultural labour force. However, Chinese rural women are obviously in a weak and marginal position in rural political participation, which is not equal to their contribution to rural development. In 2019, China announced plans to modernize rural governance. The core is to adapt to the change of time, reform the rural governance system that does not meet the requirements of practice and development, improve the new rural governance system that combines autonomy, rule of law, and rule of virtue under the leadership of party organizations, make the rural systems more scientific and perfect, and realize the institutional, standardized, and procedural governance of rural social affairs. Rural governance is the basis of national governance. Without the modernization of rural governance, there will be no modernization of national governance, and there will be no modernization of the country. At present, China is in the stage of building socialist modernization in an all-round way, and the modernization of rural governance has been put on the agenda. Therefore, this paper assumes that the modernization of rural governance in China provides a good opportunity to improve the political participation of Chinese rural women. It aims to explore effective approaches to enhancing the level of political participation among rural women and promoting the process of rural democratization in China within the context of rural governance modernization. It achieves this by examining the primary issues surrounding the current political participation of rural women in China and analyzing the main factors contributing to these issues.

Subjectivity Construction of Chinese Rural Women’s political Participation: Perspective of Rural Governance Modernization

In China’s urban-rural dual development pattern and the process of industrialization and urbanization, a large number of young and middle-aged men in rural areas have moved to cities and towns to work. Both permanent population and agricultural labor force in rural areas have presented the characteristics of feminization, and rural women have become the main force of rural development. However, rural women are still in a subordinate position in rural political participation, and it is difficult for them to play their subjective role. In 2019, China issued an official document to promote the modernization of rural governance which reflects China’s feature of coordinated rural governance by multiple subjects. Therefore, this paper assumes that the rural multi-subject governance system proposed by China provides a good opportunity to construct the subjectivity of Chinese rural women’s political participation. By the methods of gender analysis, comparative analysis and literature analysis, this paper explores methods to construct the subjectivity of rural women’s political participation under the background of the modernization of rural governance from the construction of rural women’s subjectivity by themselves and the participation of all parties of the state and society in order to improve the level of Chinese rural women’s political participation, narrow the gap between rural gender political participation, promote the process of gender equality in political participation, promote the political democratization of China’s rural areas, and achieve their own comprehensive development.

New media and cultural heritage politics: the intertwining of official authorised heritage discourse, folk decentralisation, and internet positivity in Chinese women’s scripts

ABSTRACT Although heritage in the digital age and heritage digitisation have received increasing scholarly attention, critical reflection on new media heritage politics as individuals, communities and institutions transmit heritage remains an unexplored area. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the representation of Chinese Nüshu (literally women’s scripts) on new media platforms, paying particular attention to the centralised nature of Chinese AHD and its decentralisation through digital, democratic grassroots practices on heritage new media. Using a mixed-method approach combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, this study conducted a digital ethnography on several Nüshu social media communities from 2017 to 2022 and more than fifty in-depth interviews with twenty-three Nüshu stakeholders including official and unofficial transmitters, local officials, heritage experts, and local residence. The study finds dynamic negotiations in terms of cultural (re)production, power transformation, actors’ empowerment, and identity construction between the local authorised heritage discourse (AHD) and folk heritage discourse on new media. Furthermore, as a form of decentralisation of local AHD, the study demonstrates the presence of digital heritage democratisation in China through new media. However, this creates the potential for new discursive hegemony in folk heritage society. Recently, short-form content’s popularity has rapidly risen; the study reveals the complex politics of ‘positivity’ in relation to the representation of heritage on short-form video platforms in China.

New and Renewed Approaches to Understanding Chinese Politics

A consensus has emerged among America’s policy circles and China specialists that the US policy of engagement to promote the democratization of China has not been successful. Debates abound as to why and what went wrong, as can be seen in the pages of leading foreign policy journals and a plethora of books on a rising China’s challenge to American primacy. Typical is the assessment that western democracies have underestimated “the resilience, resourcefulness, and ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party” (Aaron Friedberg, Getting China Wrong, 2022).

Non-Governmental Organizations in Contemporary China: political and legal aspect

The article is devoted to the study of general issues of the non-governmental public organizations in China. The current legislation regulating their legal status is being considered, including law-making acts adopted since the beginning of the "policy of reform and openness". In the Soviet type countries, to which the People's Republic of China belongs, the work of non-governmental organizations cannot conflict with the course of the ruling party. In the PRC, public organizations act as an integral part of a United Front led by the CPC and consisting of various political forces striving for a common goal — the "great revival of the Chinese nation." The activities of opposition public organizations in China are prohibited, and their registration is impossible. The Chinese authorities believe that the interests of the collective are above the interests of the individual, therefore, individuals that do not obey the "mass line" do not have the right to exist. Western experts believe that the absence of oppositional, state-independent public organizations in China does not allow them to be classified as non-governmental. However, Chinese specifics are overlooked, which leads to an incorrect transfer of Western concepts and institutions to Chinese soil and, consequently, allegations of an insufficient degree of democratization of China. The study provides up-to-date statistics on the number of non-governmental public organizations in China in recent years.

Развитие и вызовы феминистской теории Джудит Батлер в Китае

From a historical point of view, the development of modern feminism in China coincides with the modernization and democratization of China, accompanied by the liberation of women. The development of feminism in China can be divided into four stages. In this process, Western feminist theory had an important influence on the development of Chinese feminism. Among them, Butler’s theory has been widely translated and presented in China. However, due to the different cultural genes of China and the West, Butler’s theory also faces problems in China. In this article, we will analyze in detail the specific reasons for this challenge and the direction of development of Chinese feminism.

Christian Social Activism and Rule of Law in Chinese Societies, edited by Fenggang Yang and Chris White.

<i>Christian Social Activism and Rule of Law in Chinese Societies</i>, edited by Fenggang Yang and Chris White.

Understanding democratic perceptions and political participation among the younger generation in China's changing society: No news is good news for the Chinese government

Objective The main objective of this article is to explore whether the current younger generation in China has different views of democracy and political behavior from those of previous generations. Methods Using the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS IV), this study conducts systematic comparisons across the generations with respect to their attitudes toward democracy and political behaviors. Results and Conclusion This study indicates that Chinese youth tend to hold substance-based democratic conceptions, show a relatively lower level of commitment to liberal democracy, and demonstrate a higher level of satisfaction with the current situation of democratization in China than do their older counterparts. The generation of youngest adults is also less likely to turn out to participate in electoral activities and other forms of political action. These results demonstrate a generational decline in support for democracy and active political participation amid the authoritarian tendencies of China, reflecting the profound effect of early-life political socialization on political values and behaviors.

Comrades-in-Arms and Partners in Crime: The German Democratic Republic (GDR) and China in the 1950s and 1960s

This article analyzes the quality of selected aspects and issues regarding relations between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and China in the 1950s and early 1960s. How was Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Campaign perceived and interpreted in East Berlin, and why and until when was GDR leader Walter Ulbricht enthusiastic about Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward are among the questions this article will seek to answer. As it turned out, East German leaders’ assessments and newspaper reporting on Mao’s domestic and foreign policy and government propaganda did not in any way correspond with China’s on the ground realities. The East German authorities took Chinese propaganda and entirely false statistics and data on steel and agricultural production at face value and ordered its mouthpiece newspapers to do the same. The same was true for Chinese reporting and propaganda on Ulbricht’s decision to divide Berlin with a wall in 1961: misleading and nonsensical reporting in support of a fair-weather friendship, which in the wake of the Sino-Soviet Split in the early 1960s would turn into enmity (as ordered by Moscow).

30 Years After Tiananmen: The Meaning of June 4th

The 1989 democracy movement and its suppression marked a watershed in China's contemporary history. The movement has influenced China's subsequent development in at least three major ways. First, it was an enlightenment movement that spread the concept of democracy far and wide. Second, it played a vital role in grooming talent for the development of China's civil society and the next wave of prodemocracy activism. Third, it laid a foundation for democratization in China's political culture and popular mindsets. At the same time, the movement's violent suppression left a legacy of fear and has led to the elevation of economic over social goals; a general attitude of defeatism; and a profound deterioration in social morality and ethics

The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate ed. by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman et al.

Reviewed by: The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate ed. by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman et al. Norbert Francis (bio) Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Yu Zhang, Jie Li, and Tienchi Martin-Liao, editors. The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. xvii, 508 pp. Hardcover $32.50, ISBN 978-I-64OI2-224-6. A decade has passed since Liu Xiaobo was granted the Nobel Peace Prize. The most important achievement of the collection of reflections and testimonies of more than 70 colleagues and close observers of the most renown critic of Chinese Communist Party rule was to be inclusive. The project was necessary because on some points our memory has begun to fade. The blocking of international access to data on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Xi Jinping regime1 is relevant to the central challenge of Liu, and makes this book timely. Charter 08, his culminating project, for which he was convicted for subversion, called for rule of law and transparency. Readers will better understand his accomplishments by reflecting thoughtfully on early failings and false starts that a number of the contributors have, again, in this volume, brought to our attention. Credit goes to the editors for bringing this useful discussion forward because the contradictions and the internal struggle to resolve them (successfully, with time and hard experience) are not just about the story of one opposition leader. The difficult evolution in Liu's thinking and activism stands as a lesson, today, for the movement that in 2010 received, in many different ways, the prize on his behalf. [End Page 88] The pre-Tiananmen errors haunted him long after they were rectified.2 More importantly (and because it is unfair, in some respects, to dwell upon them), the lack of clarity, today, on the underlying origin of these errors has continued to hobble the movement for democracy. Pointedly, the first through fourth sections of the book (pp. 3-230) divide the trajectory of the young literary dark horse of the 1980s at a turning point: before and after June 1989. At the time, we might have expected, following the repression, that Liu's previous provocative orientation would only deepen. But the account of his comrades in these pages shows that the exact opposite occurred, one explanation being that he could not accept the opportunity to go into exile. Immersed during the 1980s in Nietzsche and Foucault, on one side, and the regime's texts of class struggle and enemy mentality on the other, we should not be surprised when we read the translations from Chinese—an "arrogance" that was "extraordinarily shocking" in the words of his colleague, former editor of Democratic China, Su Xiaokang (p. 171). Readers of China Review International are probably familiar with the strident remarks that characterized the 1988 Hong Kong interviews. Contributors Yu, Yang, and Shao recall the occasions and put them into context (pp. 63, 89, and 139). It was perhaps the unexpected scale of the violence of June 4 and 5, 1989, that shocked Liu into seeing, without any further hesitation, the necessity of throwing his support to the most responsible of the student leaders on the square. The day-by-day and hour-by-hour eyewitness accounts from the different sources are well worth a close reading for understanding this turning point in his thinking. The details are revealing. Returning as soon as he could from New York, he joined the leadership of the movement, beginning to recognize as early as May the need to mediate between party hardliners and the student representatives. On the night of June 4, he formed part of the delegation that negotiated with the martial law troops to allow for the organization of an orderly retreat of the students from the square, including the physical disarming of some, to live another day. Today, the lessons of Tiananmen and its aftermath still apply. Aside from the Chinese democracy movement proper, peripheral currents marked by intransigence and sectarianism present serious distractions within (1) the struggle for human rights and authentic autonomy in Tibet and Xinjiang; (2) the overwhelming, and politically heterogeneous, consensus in...

"Legitimacy, Performance, and China's Democratic Future—Navigating between Prudential Pragmatism and Moral Idealism"

"Legitimacy, Performance, and China's Democratic Future—Navigating between Prudential Pragmatism and Moral Idealism" Gang Lin (bio) Jiwei Ci, Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2019. x, 420 pp. Hardcover $45.00, isbn 978-0674-23818-3. During the third wave of democratization, liberal democracy gained popularity in the world. In the past decade, however, it lost momentum, leading to an arguable view of worldwide democracy decline.1 In the case of China, the quest for democracy started well before the third wave, when the first republic in Asia appeared in 1911, although the early rehearsals of representative democracy in that country were unsuccessful. What China has practiced since 1949 is socialist democracy informed by Karl Marx's communist thought but constrained by social and economic underdevelopment and an inexorable legacy of authoritarianism cohabitated uncomfortably with partial and periodical egalitarianism. The Chinese Formula (zhongguo fang'an, in the words of Xi Jinping) of democracy featured by Leninist democratic centralism and one-party leadership is at odds with universally accepted definition of democracy contributed unilaterally by Western democratic societies, where the mainstream views disregard China as a democracy, simply relegating to lip service that country's official upgrading of democracy, freedom, equality, justice, and the rule according to law as part of socialist Core Value (hexin jiazhi). The subject of Jiwei Ci's book—democracy in China—is explored with such arguable conventional wisdom. The coming crisis as the subtitle actually refers to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), rather than democratic fortune in China. Actually, the main theme of the book is why China needs a democratic change and how China can overcome the related challenges with appropriate responses. This volume demonstrates its strength in theoretic/philosophical discourse and logical reasoning, free from empirical hypothesis and verification relying on quantitative analysis. From a prudential perspective, Ci makes a strong argument in the Introduction that China is in an urgency to bring about a democratic regime complementary to its democratic society. While people may disagree on such asynchronism in China's political and social developments, Ci believes China [End Page 177] has developed a substantial degree of democracy in society based on "equality of condition," a concept used by Tocqueville in his pathbreaking book Democracy in America.2 From this viewpoint, political democratization in China is justified not so much by moral desirability as by prudential necessity for reason of institutional fittingness and governability on the part of regime. This does not suggest that the author has no normative inclination on this value-laden subject. As Ci contends at the very beginning, one extraordinary challenge to liberal democracy is its "oligarchic capture" manifested by growing "polarizing effects of globalization and digital technology" in the United States and, to a lesser degree, other advanced European countries (p. 2). However, liberal democracy, despite its drawbacks, is still better than other choices for China. This does not suggest China can easily approach such a desirable—however modest—and necessary goal. Four daunting challenges to China's democratization are presented thereafter: (1) the inexorable role of the ruling CCP, (2) the absence of a basic level of individual and societal moral maturity, (3) the weakening of the party's centripetal capacity of holding a vast country full with ethnic diversity but lacking democratic tradition, and (4) a lack of preexisted institutions to balance democracy against capitalism as well as neoliberalism. According to Ci, these daunting challenges require prudent responses. This book is divided into three parts. The first part (chapters 1 and 2) argues that a looming legitimation crisis calls for an urgent and prudent response. Legitimation crisis is a hot issue in the field of China studies after Mao, as by-products of reform and openness, economic inequality, social polarization, and official corruption have agitated a new legitimation crisis in China. In response to the wave of global democratization, the CCP has tried to "keep pace with the times" and perpetuate its lifespan by transforming itself from a revolutionary ruling party into a "developmental ruling party"—regaining its ruling legitimacy by building a relatively prosperous society and rejuvenating the Chinese nation. In other words, the ruling...

平野 正著『中国民主同盟の研究』

平野 正著『中国民主同盟の研究』

Institutionalizing from the Middle: the Impacts of Provincial Legislation on Rural Grassroots Democracy in China

Nominal democratic institutions under non-democratic regimes vary across countries. This study intends to advance our understanding of such institutions by exploring the relevance of one aspect of the authoritarian regimes, government hierarchy. Focusing on village-level democratization in China, we investigate the intermediary role of the provincial level governments in shaping the variant outcomes of grassroots democracy across the country. Through an analysis of a national sample, we find that divergent provincial legislative interpretation of central policies is a key determinant of public access to power and democratic governance of village-level governments. Our finding suggests that authoritarian states can employ various institutions to gather information, accommodate local variations, and thus contain potential intra-government disagreement.

Prospects for Democratic Transition in China

The core tenet of modernization theory is that as nation-states develop both economically and socially, they will inevitably transition to democracy. Yet, despite 30-years of robust economic development and growth, including increases in civil society, democracy remains elusive in China. In this article, we conduct a critical and empirical analysis to understand the challenges and possibilities of democratization in China. Should China transition to democracy, it will most likely occur through a top-down process that transforms the state and its institutions of government or through a cooperative pact by joint forces of top-down and bottom-up processes. Under either a converted or cooperative transition, the modeling in this study strongly suggests that China is likely to be successful should it undertake the process of democratization.

Kate Liao Zhou, Shelly Rigger and Lynn White III, Eds., Democratization in China, Korea and Southeast Asia?

Kate Liao Zhou, Shelly Rigger and Lynn White III, Eds., Democratization in China, Korea and Southeast Asia?

Economic Change and Public Support for Democracy in China and Russia

There has been an extensive debate about the relationship between economic development and democratisation. One view is that economic development is a pre-requisite for democracy. Another view is that the emergence of democracy is largely random, and economic prosperity is important only for ensuring democracy’s survival in the event of a crisis. This essay contributes to this debate by using public opinion surveys collected over an extended period to examine patterns of economic change and public support for democracy in China and Russia. The results show that education and, to a lesser extent, social mobility and economic attitudes, play an important role in promoting pro-democracy attitudes in both countries. The results have implications for democratisation, with an increasingly large tertiary-educated middle class acting as a potential driver for democratisation in China, and for the return of a free, fair and competitive democracy in Russia.

Democracy in China: Tocquevillian Reflections

One of the strangest phenomena in today’s China is that a thinker as liberal as Tocqueville has become well-known due to the recommendation of a top leader of China’s authoritarian regime. No matter how one interprets this phenomenon, Tocqueville’s theoretical and historical reflections on democracy and revolution provide a framework to understand how democratic China has been and might be. The democratization of Chinese society as reflected in the diffusion of equality as a value and ongoing individualization is facilitating both centralization and empowerment of the state. The limited and dysfunctional grassroots democracy, the weakness of civil society, and the rise of illiberal political Confucianism present serious obstacles to political democratization in China. However, with the possible failure of statism, political democracy would be an alternative. The fragile but increasing demand for freedom in civil society might contribute to the advancement of a long, unsteady and difficult democratization in China.

Kate Liao Zhou, Shelly Rigger and Lynn White III, eds., Democratization in China, Korea and Southeast Asia?

Kate Liao Zhou, Shelly Rigger and Lynn White III, eds., Democratization in China, Korea and Southeast Asia?