The Darkest Red Corner: Chinese Communist Intelligence and Its Place in the Party 1926-1945

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence organs played a crucial role in their revolution and the 1949 victory. However, their activities have been obscured to benefit secrecy, or distorted to advance propaganda goals. An examination of original sources on both sides of that conflict show how intelligence operations contributed to decision making, and how mistakes by CCP operatives caused major setbacks. This examination also sheds light on the nature of the Party's most secret and sensitive decisions

Heretical Doctrines, Reactionary Secret Societies, Evil Cults: Labelling Heterodoxy in 20th Century China

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Resigned Urbanization: Migration, Dwelling, and Freedom in Contemporary China

In the media, rural migrants are often seen as a homogeneous social group, displaced from hometowns, economically marginalized, and deprived of urban citizenship. Anything but freedom characterizes their subjectivities. In recent years, however, migrant workers have played a leading role in urbanizing small towns and cities. My two-year ethnographic research closely documents the phenomenon of “double dwelling,” in which rural migrants settle into the rental housing of Beijing’s urban villages, on the one hand, but own empty houses in rural villages and counties, on the other. I employ the idea of dwelling to conceptualize the interrelationship between identity and place as well as existence and space. Rather than being static, floating, or unfinished, double dwelling is dynamic, restricted by the household registration (hukou) division but also continually remaking the rural-urban divide. It is rooted in various sites, neither here nor there but always here and there. Migrant workers create and search for the nature of dwelling. To doubly dwell is to build and rebuild identities and existence. The dissertation engages with the study of class politics by reconsidering the role of housing in class formation. On the one hand, home-making practices bring new opportunities to migrant workers. While in Beijing, the housing conditions of migrant workers suggest a common ground on which a new social class of migrant tenants may form. Also, “self-help urbanization” from below is marked by significant migrant homeownership. Thus, holding an urban hukou is not the only criterion for becoming urban. On the other hand, the dynamics of bottom-up urbanization and state-led urban policies reconstruct double dwelling. The government-directed urbanization programs imply a specific imaginary of urban lives that conflicts with migrants’ claim to the city. Urban policies may hold the process of proletarianization back. Lastly, I examine how the divergent even seemingly contradictory developments of class politics and urbanization are embodied in the freedom and resignation of migrant workers. A dialectical relationship between freedom and resignation, I argue, mirrors the tension between strong economic growth and tightening political control in China. I explore this relationship in migrants’ extended identities in the space of suspension, in their endeavor to build a community on bandit land, in the furnished but empty houses, in the reconciliation between migrant desire and the institutional barriers, and, lastly, in migrant aspirations for living at the center of the country yet in conflict with the state’s population control. Becoming urban is a process in which migrant workers come to terms with the bitter reality of society through strength and freedom

A Comparative Study of Non-Compete Agreements for Trade Secret Protection in the United States and China

Non-compete agreements are commonly used in both the United States and China, and are regarded as an important means for employers to prevent employees or rival companies from using valuable trade secrets for competitive purposes. Despite their popularity, however, the enforceability of non-competes in both countries can be difficult to determine. In the U.S., the level to which non-competes are fully enforced varies by jurisdiction. While some state courts apply a “rule of reason,” others, such as California, prohibit non-competes altogether. In contrast, Chinese courts tend to support non-competes. This Article provides a comparative perspective of non-competes in the U.S. and China, highlighting different factors that the two countries consider when deciding enforceability. Specifically, courts in the U.S. focus on the existence of legitimate business interests, while courts in China focus on economic compensation. In order to curb the over-enforcement of non-compete agreements in China and keep the balance between trade secret protection and employee mobility, this Article recommends that China define the protectable business interest by statute and narrowly construe the validity of non-compete agreement

An Empirical Study of Reforming Commercial Arbitration in China

This paper examines recent reforms to the regulatory and institutional framework of commercial arbitration in China, based on an empirical study conducted between 2018 and 2019 of semi-structured interviews with over 80 actors, including Chinese lawmakers and policymakers, judges, arbitration institutions, legal practitioners, academic researchers, and companies and users of arbitration. The author has also consulted a variety of primary materials including publicized laws, regulations and policies, official reports, data and statistics, and internal guidelines and policy documents of the various actors that were interviewed for this study

From underground to mainstream : Female characters in the feature films of Li Yu

Tarkastelen tutkielmassani Li Yun kuuden eri elokuvan naishahmoja psykoanalyysin ja diskurssianalyysin avulla. Li Yu on kiinalainen naisohjaaja, joka on aloittanut dokumenttielokuvien parissa 1990-luvulla. 2000-luvun alusta lähtien häneltä on valmistunut kuusi fiktioelokuvaa Fish & Elephant (2001), Dam Street (2005), Lost in Beijing (2007), Buddha Mountain (2010), Double Xposure (2012) ja Ever Since We Love (2015). Viimeisimmät kaksi ovat kaupallisia elokuvia, aiemmat olivat itsenäisiä tuotantoja. Yhteistä näille elokuville on traaginen naiskohtalo. Samalla elokuvat jatkumona kuvaavat kiinalaisen yhteiskunnan nopeaa kehitystä. Tutkimuksessa käytetty metodi on kolmiosainen: 1) alustava analyysi, 2) elokuvien yksittäisten ottojen luokittelu kategorioittain, 3) perusteellinen analyysi käyttäen psykoanalyysia, tele-elokuvallista diskurssianalyysia (telecinematic discourse analysis) ja ns. mindstyle menetelmää, jossa otetaan huomioon kuvaus, puhe ja eleet. Yksittäisten ottojen laskeminen paljasti, että hypoteesin mukaisesti miesten osuus elokuvissa nousee kohti valtavirtaa siirryttäessä. Yllättävää oli, että myös naisten osuus kasvoi aina viidenteen elokuvaan asti, minkä jälkeen naisten osuus vasta laski huomattavasti. Kuudennen elokuvan päähenkilö on miespuolinen, mikä osaltaan selittää naisten osuuden laskua. Li Yun naishahmot ovat itsenäisiä ja melkeinpä jääräpäisiä. Heillä on vaikea äitisuhde ja huono isäsuhde – isä on usein poissa tai väkivaltainen. Li Yun naishahmot elävät usein yhteiskunnan marginaalissa ja kamppailevat olemassa olostaan kiinalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Elokuvissa on havaittavissa muitakin muutoksia siirryttäessä kohti valtavirtaa ja kiinalaisen yhteiskunnan vaurastuessa. Elokuvat saavat enemmän rahoitusta ja siitä seuraa se, että elokuvien hahmot ja tapahtumapaikat keskiluokkaistuvat ja standardikiina (putonghua) tulee paikallisten murteiden tilalle

Chinese redemptive societies and salvationist religion: historical phenomenon or sociological category?

This paper outlines a conceptual framework for research on Chinese redemptive societies and salvationist religion. I begin with a review of past scholarship on Republican era salvationist movements and their contemporary communities, comparing their treatment in three bodies of scholarly literature dealing with the history and scriptures of 'popular sects' in the late imperial era, the history of 'secret societies' of the Republican period, and the ethnography of 'popular religion' in the contemporary Chinese world. I then assess Prasenjit Duara's formulation of 'redemptive societies' as a label for a constellation of religious groups active in the republican period, and, after comparing the characteristics of the main groups in question (such as the Tongshanshe, Daoyuan, Yiguandao and others), argue that an analytical distinction needs to be made between 'salvationist movements' as a sociological category, which have appeared throughout Chinese history and until today, and redemptive societies as one historical instance of a wave of salvationist movements, which appeared in the Republican period and bear the imprint of the socio-cultural conditions and concerns of that period. Finally, I discuss issues for future research and the significance of redemptive societies in the social, political and intellectual history of modern China, and in the modern history of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. 本文嘗試勾勒有關中國救世團體及救度宗教之研究的概念框架。開始之先，本文回顧民國年間的救度運動及其引申的現代社群；並比較三組學術研究的處理角度：【一】帝國晚期「宗派主義傳統」('sectarian tradition')的歷史與寶卷研究，【二】民國時期「祕密會社」('secret societies')的歷史研究，以及【三】當下華人社會的「民間信仰」('popular religion')的民族志研究。本文析述杜贊奇提出的「救世團體」概念，作爲描述活躍於民國時期的一群特殊宗教團體的標籤。在比較主要例子（例如同善社、道院、一貫道之類）的特性後，本文主張把文首提到的兩個概念作出明確的學術區分：「救度宗教」指一社會學類型，並一直在中國歷史中出現，延續至今；而「救世團體」指出現於民國時期的一次救度宗教浪潮，且載有當時特定的社會文化因素。最後，本文將探討救世團研究在近代中國社會、政治及思想史，以及近代儒、道、佛等宗教歷史研究的意義和重要性。postprin

Post/Feminist Impulses: Neoliberal Ideology and Class Politics in Annie Wang’s \u3cem\u3eThe People’s Republic of Desire\u3c/em\u3e (2006)

This paper critically examines post/feminist imperatives in relation to neoliberal ethos and class dynamics in The People’s Republic of Desire (2006) by transnational Chinese women writer, Annie Wang (b. 1972). While the novel positions itself as a transnational satire of the Western-styled consumptive furor in post-socialist China, its textual focus on a class-based commodity culture demands a critical consideration of its neoliberal investments. In probing Wang’s text, this paper adopts a feminist reading that attends to how neoliberal ideology and class politics operate together to corroborate a postfeminist stance. The awareness of feminist ethics notwithstanding, the text’s overall postfeminist disposition and the attendant class purview work to depoliticize its expressed intent. The tension between feminism and postfeminism eventually translates into that between the local and the global. That the discursive polarization of China and the West is implicitly inscribed in the denouement also registers the limits of the novel’s transnational engagement