Chinese Nationalist Government Research Articles

Nationalism at Bay: The Chinese Nationalist Policy towards Hong Kong, 1946–1949

The Chinese Nationalist government's Hong Kong policy appeared to be successful from 1946 to 1949. While its official principle was to shelve the matter until civil conflicts ceased, the government adopted tough rhetoric and actions in dealing with any troubles deriving from the colony, which underlined the uncertain political future of Hong Kong that the British could not ignore. However, this tactic was a result of the Nationalists' failure to strike a balance between the public's and local authorities' clamour for the colony's immediate retrocession and the central government's postponement policy. As a result, not only did the matter of Hong Kong remain unresolved but the public discontent against the government escalated and the Sino‐British relationship reached its nadir. Yet the “unintended claim” that the failure in balancing caused posed a serious threat to British rule in Hong Kong and encouraged the latter to rethink the colony's future and how to administrate the colony peacefully in the post‐war era.

The Establishing of the Korean Volunteer Corps and the Chinese Nationalist Government’s Mobilizing the Korean Independence Movement into Anti-Japanese War

The Establishing of the Korean Volunteer Corps and the Chinese Nationalist Government’s Mobilizing the Korean Independence Movement into Anti-Japanese War

Public Ceremony: The Construction of Nationalism Through Mobile Film Screening Under Jiang Kai-shek’s CNP Government

The Chinese Nationalist government initiated the first national network of mobile film screenings, which subsequently had a great influence on political propaganda in Chinese cinema. Based on corpus data from Chinese archives, diaries, newspapers, periodicals, and literature archived from 1931 to 1945, this study investigates the goals, effects, and shortcomings of mobile film exhibition under Jiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP) government in China, focusing on the Second Sino-Japanese War. I contend that the Nationalist government regarded films as propaganda to promote cultural identity, the social state, and collectivist ideology. To some extent, such films contributed to the development of democracy and national morality before the war, persuasion during the war, and consolation after the war. However, the mobile film industry in the Jiang era also suffered from some practical problems, such as the lack of planning, inefficient management, obscure content, and chaotic viewing settings. Hence, mobile projection remained a form of public ceremony whose impact deviated from its original intent.

Optimal incentive schemes to achieve a given market share target for new energy vehicles under China's dual credit policy

The Chinese national government and local governments have introduced multiple incentive measures to increase the market share of new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as dual credit policy, financial subsidies, and building new charging infrastructures. However, the government's budget to support the development of NEVs is limited. In this paper, we consider a duopolistic market consisting of a gasoline vehicle (GV) firm and an electric vehicle (EV) firm and develop a multi-level game-theoretic model based on the fact that the Chinese government seeks to achieve a given market share target with the minimum expenditure. A comparison of the equilibrium results in three incentive schemes differentiated by the financial subsidy is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of various incentive schemes. Furthermore, we consider a real situation in China that the government attempts to achieve a target for the total number of charging infrastructures through a reasonable policy design. The results in this study reveal that, with the EV market share target in mind, raising the requirements of dual credit policy has no effect on the EV firm's profit under EV purchase subsidy, is beneficial to the EV firm's profit under construction cost sharing subsidy, and is detrimental to the EV firm's profit under per-unit construction subsidy. It is worthwhile for the government to subsidize for infrastructure construction effort rather than consumers' purchase cost. Given a target for the total number of charging infrastructures, construction cost sharing subsidy can provide more motivation for the EV firm to build charging infrastructures than per-unit construction subsidy.

카이로회담 전후 연합국 군사동맹의 비판적 검토

This paper tried to critically examine the military alliance between the U.S., Britain, and China through China’s role in the Cairo talks and changes in the Allied strategy against Japan before and after the talks. Immediately after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the national government proposed a military alliance to the West, and a military alliance was signed between the United States, Britain, and China. However, each country had a different view of the Allied military alliance. As a result, the difference in strategy between the US, UK, and Chinese military leaders resulted in Burma being occupied by the Japanese military in a short period of time. Since 1943, as the war has developed in favor of the Allies on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific, the Allies held Cairo talks for the post-war Asian initiative and the Japan-Japan strategy. Chiang Kai-shek’s participation in the Cairo conference led China to become one of the four major powers. But it was a semi-final in justification, not a real one.
 In Tehran, the Allies decided to end the war in Asia after ending the war in Europe first. Of course, the strategy agreed upon by the Allies at the Tehran talks may have been a way to quickly end World War II as a whole. However, this strategy could have a huge negative impact on Eastern Europe and Asia, even if the damage to the Chinese national government was left alone. First of all, in Europe, the Soviet Union advanced to Germany and influenced post-war Eastern Europe, and then in Northeast Asia, the Soviet Union exerted influence over Manchuria rather than other powers, which had a decisive impact on the outcome of the post-war civil war.

Toward a leading-agency coordinated collaboration model? lessons learned from interagency collaboration in Chinese environmental protection

ABSTRACT In this study, we are interested primarily in how a structural factor – social capital – relates to Chinese national government agencies’ partner selection in environmental protection. Our study finds that their partner selection is associated positively with activity closure and popularity closure while being negatively influenced by cyclicity closure. Moreover, their partner selection is characterized predominantly by a leading-agency coordinated collaboration model, which favors the engagement of a shared third agency and emphasizes the similarity of interests. This study expands the theoretical connotations of social capital and provides new insights into the mechanisms underlying actors’ partner selection in interagency collaboration.

The Yunnan–Burma railway, 1860s–1940s: Imagining, planning and rejecting a railway that was never built

In the late nineteenth century, British commercial interests in Asia and back home visualised a railway connecting British Burma with inland China, which they saw as a vast unexplored market. British engineers and adventurers were then employed by the commercial bodies to investigate the economy and geography of Yunnan and Upper Burma for the project. The railway was eventually rejected by the British as being unviable and unprofitable. The colonial knowledge created by these missions (in the form of travelogues, survey reports, interviews and studies) was later interpreted by Chinese nationalists as evidence of Britain's ambitions to colonise southwest China in 1905 (the Russo-Japanese War) and 1927 (the Northern Expedition) when the Chinese nation was in deep crisis. But the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War led the Chinese Nationalist government to reconsider the Yunnan–Burma railway as necessary infrastructure for obtaining foreign supplies to save the nation. The colonial knowledge produced by British explorers and merchants earlier was reinterpreted by the Nationalists to try to persuade the British authorities to construct the Burma section of the railway. By tracing the history of this failed project, this article argues that nationalist understandings of colonial infrastructure were far from fixed and consistent. It recounts the circulation of colonial knowledge on the Yunnan–Burma railway from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, showing how different nationalist agents in Asia interpreted and reinterpreted colonial infrastructure at various critical periods.

The Road to Electoral Authoritarianism: Tracing Three Phases of State-Society Contention in Post-Colonial Hong Kong, 2003–2020

Previous studies have examined Hong Kong’s hybrid regime by investigating the interactions among activists, the local government, and the Chinese national government. This article adopts the lens of contentious politics and a multi-level approach to understand regime evolution within the local-national-regional-global nexus. It presents an original dataset that records movement tactics and state responses in four major protests and delineates three phases of state-society contention between 2003 and 2020. It explains regime evolution by highlighting five intertwining factors: activists’ tactical learning; organisational ecology in civil society; state repression strategies; regional politics in Greater China; and international political economy. It finds that the first phase (2003–2012) was characterised by an increasing use of disruptive tactics, an emergent call for de-centred mobilisation, and a limited deployment of state security forces. The second phase (2013–2015) exhibited nascent applications of violent tactics, while the state employed more forceful police repression, re-engineered the electoral field, and sponsored counter-mobilisation. The most recent phase (2016–2020) showed activists’ intensified use of violent tactics and a strong intention to seek international support. The state responded to local threats and international pressure with violent crackdowns and stricter institutional arrangements, which has resulted in an electoral authoritarian regime that is less-than-competitive.

Factors facilitating the development of low-carbon cities: evidence from China’s pilot cities

As the largest developing country, China has recognized the importance of low carbon cities. To date, three batches of low-carbon pilot provinces and cities were presented by the Chinese government from 2010 to 2017. Therefore, the local governments in the pilot group should take effective measures to promote the development of low-carbon cities. However, because of the lack of experience in implementing special policies for low-carbon cities, many local governments have encountered difficulties in promoting the development of low-carbon cities. This study critically analysed various policies promulgated during 2010–2021 by the Chinese local governments. The most relevant programming policies of pilot cities were selected. A multidimensional framework is developed to better understand the policies in facilitating low-carbon city development in China. The results showed that there are 16 factors at both the macro level and the micro level that affect the development of Chinese low-carbon pilot cities. The successful promotion of China’s low-carbon cities requires combined efforts from all related stakeholders. In addition, the development of pilot cities is actively promoted by the Chinese national government and linked to other strategic initiatives, such as “peak carbon” by 2030 and “carbon neutral” by 2060. The findings help to better understand the landscape of policy measures of low-carbon city development in China and provide useful references for policy making in other countries.

Warrior monk: guns, grenades, and the rise of the Ninth Panchen Lama on Sino–Mongol–Tibetan frontiers, 1924–1937

ABSTRACT This article revisits the Ninth Panchen Lama’s (Choekyi Nyima, 1883–1937) controversial exile in China and Inner Mongolia between 1924 and 1937. As the most renowned political dissenter of the then-nascent Tibetan state and the second most important religious leader for Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhists, the Ninth Panchen Lama played a significant role in the early-twentieth-century Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian political and spiritual worlds. Academic scrutiny of the Ninth Panchen Lama’s association with China has facilitated the scholarly understanding of the “subimperialist” policy that the Chinese Nationalist government devised to replicate the Qing Empire’s success in managing Mongol and Tibetan territories. Assisted by newly released sources and a shifting focus away from Chinese statesmen to the Tibetan monk, this article reassesses the power that the Ninth Panchen Lama wielded on the Sino–Mongol–Tibetan frontiers and his collaboration with the Chinese Nationalist government. This article argues that despite possessing many cosmetic features of the Qing-style relationship centering on the mutually agreed reinterpretation of an established status quo within a hierarchal framework, the alliance between the Ninth Panchen Lama and the Chinese Nationalist government was a venturesome entente based upon shared objectives that were audacious, contentious, and bore little resemblance to Qing precedent.

Integrating High-speed Railway Stations and Urban Areas in China

There is an increasing need for understanding the impacts of institutions on the integrated planning of transport and land use. High-speed railway (HSR) station areas, as nodes in transport networks and mixed-use areas, have become a focus in planning. The fast development of HSR station areas in China causes many problems, such as remote locations, oversized station areas, transfer difficulties, and unsustainable urban development. Facing these problems, this study aims to explore the influences of actors, decision-making processes, and institutions on the planning and development of HSR station areas in China. An analytical framework is built based on Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), Policy Network Theory, Institutional Analysis and Development Framework, and State Entrepreneurialism. Qualitative methods offer an effective way of investigating Chinese governance in the development of HSR station areas, including content analysis, case studies, and interviews. The findings show that HSR station areas are mainly used as a tool to promote urbanization. Both the Chinese national government and local governments have an important role to play in the planning of HSR station areas because they control different resources. Their interactions in the decision-making process, influenced by institutions, determine the location of HSR stations and the size of station areas, and lead to transfer difficulties and slow development of station areas. This dissertation reveals the causes of the development problems of Chinese HSR station areas, demonstrates the drawbacks of the current mechanism, and proposes strategies to promote the integration of transport and land use in China.

Conflicts in multi-level governance: an analysis of international climate policy implementation at the sub-national level

The complexity and multi-level nature of climate change requires governance systems able to manage and resolve conflicts across multiple scales. Drawing on the theories of collaborative governance and conflict resolution, this paper proposes a theoretical framework to understand three types of conflicts likely to occur in a multi-level governance (MLG) network: conflict in problem framing, conflict in benefit sharing, and conflict in capacity building. Using the implementation of the clean development mechanism in China as a case study, the paper finds the three types of conflicts emerged between supranational and subnational levels. The finding further indicates the role that the Chinese national government played in resolving conflicts through reinterpreting international norms, aligning presumably conflicting goals, eliminating the difference in benefits sharing, and narrowing capacity gaps across levels. The evidence suggests an improved MLG should be dedicated to integrating local level interests in centrally dominated policy processes. This study contributes new knowledge on MLG by investigating the hierarchical relations among participants and how authority and power differentials can shape their interactions across levels.

The Return of Chen Ching Lin: Chinese Deserters and Chinatowns in the British Raj, 1943–46

During World War II, thousands of Chinese soldiers were sent to India for training. Many of them deserted from the army and made a new life in India. Chen Ching Lin was one of these deserters. Following the course of his journey in India from 1943 to 1946, this article not only unearths the little-known experiences of the Chinese deserters in India, but also explores how the Chinese Nationalist Government’s aim to discipline the overseas Chinese communities conflicted with the agenda of British geopolitics. It further contends that modern Chinese and Indian history could be integrated into a single narrative framework from subaltern perspectives.

COVID-19 experience in mainland China: Nursing lessons for the United States of America.

COVID‐19 emerged in Wuhan, China, and began its worldwide journey. As the severity of the virus became known, the Chinese National Government mobilized resources, and their centralized management was critical to the containment of the epidemic. Healthcare agencies and providers were overwhelmed with patients, many of whom were critically ill and died. Nurses adapted to the work using personal protective equipment, but its initial scarcity contributed to stressful working conditions. Nurses in the United States can take several lessons from the experiences of their Chinese nurse colleagues, including the benefit of centralized management of the epidemic, the need for specialized treatment facilities, and the importance of a national stockpile of critical equipment and supplies. A fully funded United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats is necessary. A nursing department within the office and a national mobilization plan to send nurses to support local efforts during a pandemic or other threat are likewise essential. Continuous training for nurses, especially caring for patients with infectious diseases in intensive care units, stress management, and how to comfort the dying, are also useful lessons.

Traitors in Limbo: Chinese Trials of White Russian Spies, 1937–1948

AbstractFollowing the October Revolution, tens of thousands of White Russians sought refuge in China and became inevitably involved in the escalating Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945). The Japanese deployed measures of coercion, material incentives, and ideological indoctrination to recruit White Russians for Japan’s military and political maneuvers in the China theater of WWII. With the conclusion of the war, the Chinese Nationalist government launched a legal campaign against all collaborators with Japan and labeled themhanjian, “traitors to the Han Chinese,” regardless of the race and nationality of the defendants. Based on archival materials in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian, this article examines the context and process of the incrimination of White Russians in China’s postwar trials of traitors. With no consular support and little diplomatic significance, the White Russians became the ideal foreigners for the Chinese government to exercise its newly recovered judicial sovereignty and to claim its legitimacy in administering justice related to war crimes. Dozens of White Russians were convicted of the crime ofhanjianand sentenced to prison terms of varied lengths.

The Challenging Potential of Local Media: Lessons from China

Instead of conventional conceptualisation of local as a unified national in the discussion of globalization in media study, this paper reveals a decentralised administrative and TV system in China, and further identifies a national-local level of analysis. The research has found that in order to fulfil its political imperatives, the Chinese national government has made a deal with the global media at the expanse of the local TV broadcasters economic interests. This national-local tension has pressed the local television organizations to request for more autonomy, protections and preferential policies and has also pushed the national government to improve the transparency and the quality of its broadcasting policies and policymaking process. On the other hand, the interest disjunction between the national and the local has also resulted in two conflicting stands towards foreign media. This local-national relation has been and will continue to be, one of the most profound dynamics that drive future changes in the television system in China. The findings of the dynamic national-local relationship provide another theoretical approach to understanding of the media in China. More generally, it invites the reconsidering of the existing national-global analytical framework in international communication research. In other words, more than asking how local is local in the global-local nexus, what we need to reconsider, as China‟s case indicates, is the more complex interactive relations among the global, national and different locals: a local-national-global analytical approach.

중국 국민정부의 철로위생정책과 방역관리 : 경호·호항용철로의 사례를 중심으로

중국 국민정부의 철로위생정책과 방역관리 : 경호·호항용철로의 사례를 중심으로

Regulating Private Tutoring in China: Uniform Policies, Diverse Responses

Purpose: This article examines responses from the tutoring sector to Chinese national and local government regulations on private supplementary tutoring. It adds to the literature on policy enactment, showing the importance of context and noting the diversity of tutoring providers compared with schools. Design/Approach/Methods: The article draws on semi-structured and informal interviews with 11 tutors, 15 managers of tutoring enterprises, 5 members and managers of professional organizations, 5 government officials, 5 school managers, 5 teachers, and 20 parents. Data from interviewees were triangulated with observations, news reports, blogs written by tutoring analysts, and ad hoc research by industrial observers. Findings: Policy enactment in the tutoring sector is even more complex than that for schooling. Standardized policies do not necessarily achieve the aspired goals. Originality/Value: The article adds to the literature not only in China but also internationally. It highlights the importance of distinguishing between aspirations and realities in this domain. It also proposes conceptual considerations for regulating tutoring, given its diverse and fluid nature.

Mao and the Sino–Soviet Partnership, 1945–1959 by Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia

Reviewed by: Mao and the Sino–Soviet Partnership, 1945–1959 by Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia Olavi Arens Shen, Zhihua, and Yafeng Xia. Mao and the Sino–Soviet Partnership, 1945–1959. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015. The authors provide a well-researched volume on a crucial decade-and-half period in Chinese history that centers on the relationship of Mao Zedong and the Peoples' Republic of China with the Soviet Union. Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia, who previously have written extensively on the subject matter, have used both Chinese and Russian archival material for the study and have critically assessed existing western literature on the topic. At Yalta, Stalin obtained concessions from Roosevelt at the expense of China as the price for the Soviets entering the war against Japan. Among the concessions were the Chinese Changchun Railway (Chinese Eastern Railway), Dalian (Dairen), and Lüshun (Port Arthur). As a result of joint US and Soviet pressure, the Chinese Nationalist government of Jiang Jieshi was forced to agree to the concessions when it signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (1945). Shortly after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mao visited Moscow, where he was able to renegotiate with Stalin a new Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance in which Stalin renounced Russia's traditional points of interest in Manchuria. In return, Stalin gained Chinese recognition for the independence of Outer Mongolia. In an interpretation that I have not encountered previously, the authors suggest that Stalin's interest in Korea and his authorization of Kim Il-sung's plan to attack South Korea played a role in Stalin's decision to concede control of Manchuria to China. During the Korean War, Chinese intervention was supported by massive Soviet aid in the forms of military equipment and Soviet air force units to provide air cover [End Page 222] for Chinese forces. The war cemented the Sino-Soviet alliance. However, the figures the authors cite (that the Soviet air force shot down 1,097 enemy planes and that Soviet anti-aircraft downed 212, while Soviet losses amounted to 335 airplanes and 120 pilots) are questionable (p. 87). The heyday of Sino-Soviet cooperation occurred during the early years of Nikita Khrushchev, who was willing in 1954–1958 to aid Chinese economic development in a major way. Soviet aid in credits amounted to $1.3 billion (other sources say $2.65 billion). A major part of the aid was military—through advisers and equipment, the Soviets enabled China to build a navy and an air force. The aid eventually included the initiation of a peaceful nuclear energy program in 1954 that blossomed when Khrushchev agreed to provide aid for a Chinese nuclear weapons program (1957). In 1958, Khrushchev had second thoughts and pulled back the aid. The authors do not see the 1956 Secret Speech by Nikita Khrushchev and Mao's reaction to it as the beginning of the rift between the two nations (Mao said of the speech that Stalin was 30 percent wrong and 70 percent right). Indeed, the Chinese played a role in helping the Soviets pacify Eastern Europe in 1956. Mao was becoming an increasingly important political actor in the world communist movement. The relationship between the two began to deteriorate after the Moscow Conference of 1957. Personality played a role. Mao clearly felt superior in intellect to Khrushchev. Khrushchev was the head of a recognized great power that conducted world diplomacy with the United States and espoused a policy of peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition with the capitalist countries. Mao's Peoples' Republic of China was still unrecognized by many states, including the United States. Because of China's history of struggle and civil war, Mao saw revolutionary struggle against world capitalism as natural. At this point, Mao foolishly embarked on the Great Leap Forward and the Peoples' Commune Movement, which were advertised as distinctly Chinese shortcuts to communism. The failure of these approaches only embittered Mao toward the Soviets. Foreign policy issues with regard to Taiwan and India exacerbated tensions even further. Mao horrified the Soviets and the East Europeans by nonchalantly dismissing the destructiveness of nuclear war...

State-Building after Disaster: Jiang Tingfu and the Reconstruction of Post-World War II China, 1943–1949

AbstractPost-World War II reconstruction in Europe and Asia is a topic of growing interest, but relatively little attention has been paid to the relief and rehabilitation effort in China in the immediate post-1945 period. This article reassesses the postwar program implemented by the Chinese Nationalist (Guomindang) government and the UNRRA (the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), not just in terms of humanitarian relief, but also as part of a process that led to new thinking about the nature of the postwar state in Asia. It focuses on the ideas and actions of Jiang Tingfu (T. F. Tsiang), head of the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration that worked with UNRRA. Chinese ideas for reconstruction in China were simultaneously statist, international, and transnational, and were shaped by high modern ideas drawn from Soviet and American examples. They were also influenced by China's poverty and wartime vulnerability, which made locally directed solutions more relevant in areas such as public hygiene. Success was unlikely because of the incipient Chinese Civil War and the huge demands of reconstruction on a state that was near-destitute, with a destroyed infrastructure. Nonetheless, its characteristics still bear examination as a first, tentative chapter in a longer story of post-imperialist and Cold War state-building that would shape countries in Asia and beyond.