The Problem of governance in China

The paper discusses the public sphere in China by looking at the commercial area, which is a key area in the emergence of civil society. To do that, the paper highlights the situation of public sphere and civil society from the late Qing to the present. Regarding the contemporaneity, the paper analyzes the development over the past few years of chambers of commerce in Wenzhou, where associational activity, like the development of the private economy, has gone well beyond other places in China. Finally the paper reflects on the notion of institutionalization by focusing on what type and how much institutionalization is taking place in contemporary China.El artículo nos aproxima a la esfera pública en China a través del ámbito del comercio, que es un espacio clave en la emergencia de la sociedad civil. El autor analiza el surgimiento de la esfera pública y la sociedad civil en China desde finales de la dinastía Qing hasta la actualidad. Por lo que se refiere a la contemporaneidad, el artículo examina el desarrollo de las cámaras de comercio en Wenzhou, un lugar donde la actividad asociativa y el desarrollo de la economía privada han tenido un papel predominante en China. Finalmente el artículo analiza hasta qué punto y qué tipo de institucionalización se está desarrollando en China

El problema de la gobernanza en China

The paper discusses the public sphere in China by looking at the commercial area, which is a key area in the emergence of civil society. To do that, the paper highlights the situation of public sphere and civil society from the late Qing to the present. Regarding the contemporaneity, the paper analyzes the development over the past few years of chambers of commerce in Wenzhou, where associational activity, like the development of the private economy, has gone well beyond other places in China. Finally the paper reflects on the notion of institutionalization by focusing on what type and how much institutionalization is taking place in contemporary ChinaEl artículo nos aproxima a la esfera pública en China a través del ámbito del comercio, que es un espacio clave en la emergencia de la sociedad civil. El autor analiza el surgimiento de la esfera pública y la sociedad civil en China desde finales de la dinastía Qing hasta la actualidad. Por lo que se refiere a la contemporaneidad, el artículo examina el desarrollo de las cámaras de comercio en Wenzhou, un lugar donde la actividad asociativa y el desarrollo de la economía privada han tenido un papel predominante en China. Finalmente el artículo analiza hasta qué punto y qué tipo de institucionalización se está desarrollando en China

The problem of governance in China

El artículo nos aproxima a la esfera pública en China a través del ámbito del comercio, que es un espacio clave en la emergencia de la sociedad civil. El autor analiza el surgimiento de la esfera pública y la sociedad civil en China desde finales de la dinastía Qing hasta la actualidad. Por lo que se refiere a la contemporaneidad, el artículo examina el desarrollo de las cámaras de comercio en Wenzhou, un lugar donde la actividad asociativa y el desarrollo de la economía privada han tenido un papel predominante en China. Finalmente el artículo analiza hasta qué punto y qué tipo de institucionalización se está desarrollando en China.The paper discusses the public sphere in China by looking at the commercial area, which is a key area in the emergence of civil society. To do that, the paper highlights the situation of public sphere and civil society from the late Qing to the present. Regarding the contemporaneity, the paper analyzes the development over the past few years of chambers of commerce in Wenzhou, where associational activity, like the development of the private economy, has gone well beyond other places in China. Finally the paper reflects on the notion of institutionalization by focusing on what type and how much institutionalization is taking place in contemporary China

El problema de la gobernanza en China

El artículo nos aproxima a la esfera pública en China a través del ámbito del comercio, que es un espacio clave en la emergencia de la sociedad civil. El autor analiza el surgimiento de la esfera pública y la sociedad civil en China desde finales de la dinastía Qing hasta la actualidad. Por lo que se refiere a la contemporaneidad, el artículo examina el desarrollo de las cámaras de comercio en Wenzhou, un lugar donde la actividad asociativa y el desarrollo de la economía privada han tenido un papel predominante en China. Finalmente el artículo analiza hasta qué punto y qué tipo de institucionalización se está desarrollando en China.The paper discusses the public sphere in China by looking at the commercial area, which is a key area in the emergence of civil society. To do that, the paper highlights the situation of public sphere and civil society from the late Qing to the present. Regarding the contemporaneity, the paper analyzes the development over the past few years of chambers of commerce in Wenzhou, where associational activity, like the development of the private economy, has gone well beyond other places in China. Finally the paper reflects on the notion of institutionalization by focusing on what type and how much institutionalization is taking place in contemporary Chin

Wielding the sword: President Xi’s new anti-corruption campaign

A state achieves legitimacy through multiple sources, one of which is the effectiveness of its governance. Generations of scholars since Hobbes have identified the maintenance of peace and order as core functions of a legitimate state. In the modern world, economic prosperity, social stability and effective control of corruption often provide adequate compensation for a deficit of democracy. Corruption closely correlates with legitimacy. While a perceived pervasive, endemic corruption undermines the legitimacy of a regime, a successful anti-corruption campaign can allow a regime to recover from a crisis of legitimacy (Gilley 2009; Seligson and Booth 2009). This is the rationale behind the periodical campaigns against corruption that have been conducted by the Chinese Communist Party (‘Party’ or ‘CCP’) (Manion 2004; Wedeman 2012). Political leaders in China have found it expedient to use anti-corruption campaigns to remove their political foes, to rein in the bureaucracy and to restore public confidence in their ability to rule. Through anti-corruption campaigns, emerging political leaders consolidate their political power, secure loyalty from political factions and regional political forces, and enhance their legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. In an authoritarian state that experiences a high level of corruption, an anti-corruption campaign is a delicate political battle that addresses two significant concerns. The first concern is to orchestrate the campaign so that it is regime-reinforcing instead of regime-undermining. To remain credible, the regime must demonstrate its willingness and capacity to punish corrupt officials at the highest levels.preprin

Managing digital contention in China

This paper explores new developments in cyber content management strategies in China by highlighting the rise of participatory, peer-to-peer censoring practices, and examining how the People's Daily have responded to the contentious events in the top 20 public opinion incidents of 2016, to illustrate how official media uses different types of management strategies to mediate and demobilise contention, on top of information containment strategies such as censorship. I also discuss briefly the creation of a Digital United Front which seeks to incorporate social influencers and cyber elites into mainstream political institutions such as the CPPCC. Not only do these strategies further undermine the formation of a political locus opposite the state, they continue to subsume previously oppositional narratives into grander narratives of stability and national progress. Online political participation in Chinese cyberspace must seek further paternalistic protection from Party authorities in order to legitimise their contention. Although this strengthens the Party-state's claim to legitimacy, ultimately this weakens the emergence of civil society in China as the only form of contention that can survive is those that are legitimised by the Party-state, and the political space oppositional to the state remain closed off

Post-capitalist property

When writing about property and property rights in his imagined post-capitalist society of the future, Marx seemed to envisage ‘individual property’ co-existing with ‘socialized property’ in the means of production. As the social and political consequences of faltering growth and increasing inequality, debt and insecurity gradually manifest themselves, and with automation and artificial intelligence lurking in the wings, the future of capitalism, at least in its current form, looks increasingly uncertain. With this, the question of what property and property rights might look like in the future, in a potentially post-capitalist society, is becoming ever more pertinent. Is the choice simply between private property and markets, and public (state-owned) property and planning? Or can individual and social property in the (same) means of production co-exist, as Marx suggested? This paper explores ways in which they might, through an examination of the Chinese household responsibility system (HRS) and the ‘fuzzy’ and seemingly confusing regime of land ownership that it instituted. It examines the HRS against the backdrop of Marx’s ideas about property and subsequent (post-Marx) theorizing about the legal nature of property in which property has come widely to be conceptualized not as a single, unitary ‘ownership’ right to a thing (or, indeed, as the thing itself) but as a ‘bundle of rights’. The bundle-of-rights idea of property, it suggests, enables us to see not only that ‘individual’ and ‘socialized’ property’ in the (same) means of production might indeed co-exist, but that the range of institutional possibility is far greater than that between capitalism and socialism/communism as traditionally conceived

Editor's Introduction

This issue of >i>The Chinese Economy>/i> translates three articles, two by Long Yongtu, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) and China's chief negotiator for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). Both articles by Long were given as speeches to the Central Party School, the first in the spring of 1998 and the second in the fall of the same year.