Political Mobility of County Leaders in China: The Case of Jiangsu

Though Studies of China’s political elites have made substantial gains since the 1990s, most of the existing literature on local Chinese leadership has concentrated on provincial leaders, and few have attempted to analyze local leaders at lower levels. There are even fewer studies on China’s county leaders, a group of cadres that manage about 3,000 county-level units in China. This paper attempts to serve as a prolegomenon to the study of China’s county leaders as a group. It begins with a survey of cadres in a top-down approach and see how far up a county leader can go in the Chinese political system. It then focuses on a case study of county leaders in one coastal province, Jiangsu, in both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. It draws some tentative conclusions from this case study and highlights some issues for further investigation

Do leaders matter? : Chinese politics, leadership transition and the 17th Party Congress

The opaque nature of decision making in China has generated considerable interest in the internecine machinations of elite politics. Particularly, but not only, when it comes to issues of leadership transition, considerations of factional formation and conflict come to the fore. This is partly to explain the transition process itself, but also out of concern for how new leaders might change the direction of Chinese policy. This paper suggests that whilst leaders and leadership changes do matter, they matter less than they once did. This is partly a result of the de-ideologicization and increasing diverse nature of elite interests and group formation. But it is also partly a result of the changed nature of China’s political economy; in short, there is less desire and less ability for new leaders to impose a clear paradigm shift

Political Selection in China: The Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance

Who becomes a top politician in China? We focus on provincial leaders - a pool of candidates for top political office - and examine how their chances of promotion depend on their performance in office and connections with top politicians. Our empirical analysis, based on the curriculum vitae of Chinese politicians, shows that connections and performance are complements in the Chinese political selection process. This complementarity is stronger the younger provincial leaders are relative to their connected top leaders. To provide one plausible interpretation of these empirical findings, we propose a simple theory in which the complementarity arises because connections foster loyalty of junior officials to senior ones, thereby allowing incumbent top politicians to select competent provincial leaders without risking being ousted. Auxiliary evidence suggests that the documented promotion pattern does not distort the allocation of talent. Our findings shed some light on why a political system known for patronage can still select competent leaders

CHINA'S REFORM IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:

This book provides a fascinating perspective of the experiences of China's reform in the past three decades by focusing on China's interaction with and learning from the external world in her unprecedented efforts to reform and open up. After three introductory chapters on broad scope of reform in the political, economic, and social realms, this book deals with lessons from the Eastern Bloc, China's reform in East Asian context, and China and the developed world. The book concludes with two chapters looking to the future of China's political and economic development. In the existing literature of China's reform experience, this book is unique in perspective, topic selection, and in-depth analyses. With contributions from a group of prominent scholars in the field of China studies such as John Wong, Zheng Yongnian, Thomas P Bernstein, Dorothy J Solinger, and Bo Zhiyue, it will be of immense value to anyone who is interested in China.China, Reform, Global, Experience, Lessons, Perspective

The Value of Environmental Base Flow in Water-Scarce Basins: A Case Study of Wei River Basin, Northwest China

In the perennial river, environmental base flow, associated with environmental flow, is the base flow that should be maintained within the river channel throughout the year, especially in the dry season, to sustain basic ecosystem functions and prevent the shrinkage or discontinuity of a river. The functions of environmental base flow include eco-environmental functions, natural functions, and social functions. In this study, we provided a method based on these functions; this method estimated the function values per unit area, introduced the scarcity coefficient, multiplied by the corresponding water area, and summed over to quantify the value of environmental base flow from 1973 to 2015 in the Wei River Basin, the largest tributary of the Yellow River in Northwest China. We observed that there was a positive correlation between the total value of environmental base flow and its water yield, whereas this outcome was completely different in the benefit per unit discharge of environmental base flow, which was closely associated with the shortage of environmental base flow. This method can thus present the considerable value of environmental base flow in monetary terms in a simple and effective way and lay the foundation for further reasonable protection levels of environmental base flow