How did labor NGOs come into existence in contemporary China? How do labor activists act – or not act – when the limits of state tolerance are unclear? With a focus on labor NGOs in South China and Western funding agencies, this book sets out to address these questions by investigating the dynamics of state control in post-socialist China since the 1970s, in which rapid economic and social transformations have cultivated an environment of uncertainty. Taking uncertainty as an analytical space, productive of emergent practices and discourses, this book draws on original fieldwork and interviews to study the lived experiences of different actors throughout the labor NGO community, the foreign donors trying to bring about change, and the networks of social relationships being strategically reconfigured. Doing Labor Activism in South China offers an ethnography of the Chinese state that reveals an intimate and complicit modality of self-governing, demonstrating how neoliberal ideas are at once represented by international development and deflected in grassroots development. It will be useful to students and scholars of Social Anthropology and Urban Ethnography, as well as Political Science and Chinese Studies more generally.

Featuring contributions from top scholars and emerging stars in the field, the Handbook of Protest and Resistance in China captures the complexity of protest and dissent in contemporary China, while simultaneously exploring a number of unifying themes. Examining how, when, and why individuals and groups have engaged in contentious acts, and how the targets of their complaints have responded, the volume sheds light on the stability of China’s existing political system, and its likely future trajectory.

This project provides an in-depth study of the role of worker-activist leaders in industrial strikes in China, a country where labor rights face significant challenges from state and industry suppression and by current lack of formal organization.

This book explores rising labor unrest in China as it integrates into the global political economy. The book highlights the tensions present between China’s efforts to internationalize and accept claims to respect freedom of association rights, and its continuing insistence on a restrictive, and often punitive, approach to worker organizations. The author examines how the global labor movement can support the improvement of working conditions in Chinese factories. The book presents a novel multi-level approach capturing how trade unions and labor rights NGOs have mobilized along different pathways while attempting to influence labor standards in Chinese supply chains since 1989: within the ILO, within the European Union, leveraging global brands or directly supporting domestic labor rights NGOs. Based on extensive fieldwork in Europe, the US and China, the book shows that activists, by operating at multiple scales, were on some occasions able to support improvements over time. It also indicates how a politically and economically strong state such as China can affect transnational labor activism, by directly and indirectly undermining the opportunities that organized civil societies have to participate in the evolving global labor governance architecture.

Hegemony with Chinese Characteristics compares the historical relationship of China with its neighbours to the developing trajectory of the Belt and Road Initiative, and asks what this tells us about the kind of hegemon China is likely to become. China is going to play a more active and decisive role in the international community and there is much uncertainty about how China will handle its responsibilities and interests. The ambiguous and assertive Belt and Road Initiative is a matter of special concern in this aspect. The Tributary System, which provides concrete evidence of how Chinese dynasties handled relations with foreigners, is a useful reference point in trying to understand its twenty-first century developments. This is particularly true, because after the turbulence of the "Century of Humiliation" and the Maoist Era, China seems to be explicitly re-embracing its history and its pre-revolutionary identity. Confucius, one of the biggest targets of the Cultural Revolution, is being rehabilitated alongside Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and other ideologies and philosophies suppressed in the Mao era. Doğan analyzes the extent to which China’s current approach to foreign relations resembles its earlier models. Grounded in "hegemony" as an analytic lens, this book provides an innovative study of the power generated by the global rise in China. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese foreign policy and international relations and serve as a benchmark for further studies.

How did art reform fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period? "Modern art for a modern China" was the rallying cry of Chinese intellectuals, many of whom were artists, critics, writers, poets and educators. Wang describes how these groups discussed and implanted changes in China’s conception and practice of art. She demonstrates how art reforms fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period. In doing so, she analyses two key areas in the intellectual history of Republican China: China’s art reform in the early decades of the twentieth century; and the connection and intersection between colonialism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, including their direct impact on the development of art and art practice in China. Modern Art for a Modern China is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of China’s twentieth-century intellectual history and art history.

The growth of municipal waste is a common challenge found in the urbanised cities of Greater China, but the question of how to manage municipal waste is controversial. Wong examines the politics of managing municipal waste in three cities of Greater China: Guangzhou, Taipei, and Hong Kong. She looks at the controversies that arise from the issue and the consequent politicisation of the various solutions that are adopted. Focusing particularly on the dynamics of policy actors in the three cities, she compares the different political situations in each with the others. This provides a valuable lens through which to explore the larger issue of the political transformation of Environmental Management in the Greater China region. A compelling insight into environmental policymaking in Greater China, for scholars studying the dynamics of Chinese politics.

This book investigates uneven regional development in China – with particular focus on the cases of Guangdong and Zheijiang provinces – which have been at the forefront of debate since Chinese economic reform. Rapid economic growth since the ‘opening-up’ of China has been accompanied by significant disparities in the regional distribution of income: this book represents one of the most recent studies to present a picture of this inequality. Built upon a multi-scale and multi-mechanism framework, it provides systematic examination of both the patterns and mechanisms of regional development and inequality in provincial China, emphasizing the effects of economic transition. Approaching from a geographical perspective, its authors consider the interplay between the local, the state, and the global forces in shaping the landscape of regional inequality in China. Extensive empirical findings will prove useful to those researching other developing countries within the frontier of globalization and economic transition. Regional Inequality in Transitional China will appeal to scholars and students of geography, economics and Chinese studies more broadly.