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ID:
171975
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| Summary/Abstract |
As a retrospective exploration of China’s central–local relations over the past four decades of the reform era, this paper argues that since the mid-1990s, relations have evolved with a growing likelihood to break away from the vicious cycle of decentralization and recentralization since 1949. China’s post-reform era started in synchronization with a sweeping move toward decentralization, a trend which generated a myriad of systemic crises that threatened the legitimacy and survival of the regime. Thus, the mid-1990s saw a systematic rollback of decentralization. This rollback is to be understood as a comprehensive scheme of rebalancing rather than a mere replication of pre-reform recentralization. On the other hand, the rebalancing has still occurred in consistence with a cyclical pattern that had characterized the broadly conceived regularity of decentralization and recentralization. While the rebalancing has not been immune from various pathologies, the central state has selected to make contingent and marginal adaptations to cope with the problems instead of shattering the current framework of rebalancing and returning completely to decentralization. Instead of relying solely on original research, this paper will bolster its main argument by conducting a synthetic reasoning from a rich array of extant analyses to sketch out the contours of China’s central–local relations in fiscal, investment, and personnel management policy areas during the past four decades.
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| 2 |
ID:
171977
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| Summary/Abstract |
Xi Jinping’s rise to power has heralded a new foreign policy that is more assertive and uncompromising toward China’s neighbors, the United States, and the rest of the world. This change presents challenges for the United States and Taiwan in particular which must be addressed with a sense of urgency due to Xi Jinping’s ambitious objectives and his firm grip on the levers of power which increase the likelihood that the Communist Party and government of China will seek to achieve them without delay.
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| 3 |
ID:
171976
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| Summary/Abstract |
There is no question that China is ahead of many developed countries in the digitalization of both its society and surveillance systems. It is also clear that the new technologies made possible by this digitalization — the widespread use of smart ID cards, the Great Firewall, the accumulation of Big Data, the social credit system (SCS) and facial recognition — have enhanced the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to rule China, maintain control over society and stay in power indefinitely. While these are not the only systems in place to manage and control Chinese citizens and this is not their sole purpose, these developments have been rightly seen as part of an ambitious Orwellian project to micromanage and microcontrol every aspect of Chinese society. To better comprehend the significance of this new phenomenon, this paper employs Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” metaphor, the perfect mean of surveillance and discipline as well as an “apparatus of power.” Yet, these new technologies have their own limits. In real life there is no perfect Panopticon as no society, even the most controlled one, is a sealed prison. Censorship on the Web is erratic and the full implementation of the SCS is likely to be postponed beyond 2020 for both technical and political reasons, as more Chinese citizens have raised concerns about unchecked data collection and privacy breaches. As a result, China is probably heading toward a somewhat fragmented digitalized society and surveillance system that is more repressive in some localities and more flexible in others, as is the case with the Chinese bureaucracy in general.
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