In recent years China has experienced intense economic development. Previously a rapidly urbanising industrial economy, the country has become a post-industrial economy with a service sector that accounts for almost half the nation’s GDP. This transformation has created many socio-political changes, but key among them is social mobilisation. This book provides a full and systematic analysis of social mobilisation in China, and how its use as part of state capacity has evolved.

In the past four or so decades, a significant amount of research efforts has been made to examine the rapid and constant social changes in China. However, most of the literature has focused on either macro- or micro-level issues, and what has not been adequately analysed is how the majority of ordinary people has reacted to and influenced the changes. This inadequacy has affected our understanding of Chinese society, its dynamics and the changing trends. Drawing upon a new perspective of competitive social repositioning, and the evidence recorded in numerous recent publications and interview data, this book seeks to re-examine the ever-changing, but under-researched, societal dynamics driving social transformations in China from 1964, when the communist heir narrative was rebranded and utilised, to 2000, when Jiang Zemin formulated the Three-Represents theory to modify the ideological political thinking of China’s ruling elites. This analysis focuses on how a high proportion of aspirational citizens have kept repositioning themselves in China’s changing distributions of social resources and social structure, how their attitudes and behaviours have been shaped over time, what characteristics of their choices are at different stages, and how their preferences have resulted in the zig-zag patterns of China’s recent social change.

This book analyses how an increasing number of new Chinese migrants have integrated into Australian society and added a new dimension to Australian domestic politics as a result of Australia’s merit-based immigration system and its shift towards Asia. These policies have helped Australia sustain its growth without a recession for decades, but have also slowly changed established patterns in the distribution of job opportunities, wealth, and political influence in the country. These transformations have recently triggered a strong Sinophobic campaign in Australia, the most disturbing aspect of which is the denial of the successful integration of Chinese migrants into Australian society. Based on evidence gathered through a longitudinal study of Chinese migrants in Australia, this book examines the misconceptions troubling Australia’s current China debate from six important but overlooked perspectives, ranging from migration policy changes, economic factors, grassroots responses, the role of major political parties, community activism, to knowledge issues.

Given China’s rapid economic growth and massive urbanization, no one in the world can ignore what is happening in urban China. This book is a critical review of existing urban China research, which is found wanting due to the decontextualized use of theories and concepts developed in the West. Urban China Reframed: A Critical Appreciation consists of epistemological, theoretical and methodological contributions to remedy these limitations by focusing on a number of relevant topics. First, models are widely employed in any study, and China nowadays has invoked models like city system, zones and global city in socio-economic development. How to interpret them in terms of knowledge production in a strong party-state? Second, given the global prevalence of neoliberalism, it is an important debate whether neoliberalism is applicable to China. Third, what is urban ideology in China? How to contextualize it? Are debates about the differentiation between the city and urbanization relevant to China? Fourth, massive rural-urban migration in China has taken place within its mega rural-urban dual system, an institution that has persisted since the 1950s. How does it manifest nowadays? Fifth, has the town-country divide in China, like in the West, disappeared? If not, how can one interpret China’s town-country relations, within the politics and administration of the Chinese state? Sixth, how to decipher the territorial development in the Pearl River Delta, the "world’s factory," under the auspices of the state? The collection of essays in this volume contributes to the theoretical understanding of urban China. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Eurasian Geography and Economics.

The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communications within the contexts of globalization and regionalization. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media is a prestigious reference work providing an overview of the study of Chinese media. Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley bring together an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions by an international team of renowned scholars on subjects such as television, journalism and the internet and social media. Locating Chinese media within a regional setting by focusing on ‘Greater China’, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities; the chapters highlight the convergence of media and platforms in the region; and emphasise the multi-directional and trans-national character of media/information flows in East Asia. Contributing to the growing de-westernization of media and communications studies; this handbook is an essential and comprehensive reference work for students of all levels and scholars in the fields of Chinese Studies and Media Studies.

Het uitgangspunt van dit boek is dat Chinese individuen van hun eigen inzet uit moeten kunnen gaan, ongeacht de beperkingen die hen door de staat worden opgelegd. Om hun belangen beter te kunnen verdedigen sluiten sommige individuen zich aan bij sociale bewegingen, die tot sociale protesten kunnen leiden.

Since 2003, Hong Kong has witnessed a series of large-scale protests which have constituted the core of a reinvigorated pro-democracy movement. What drove tens of thousands of citizens to the street on a yearly basis to protest? What were the social and organizational bases of the protest movement? How did media and public discourses affect the protests' formation and mobilization? How did the protesters understand their own actions and the political environment? This book tackles such questions by using a wide range of methods, including population and protest onsite surveys, media content.

When Britain and China negotiated the future of Hong Kong in the early 1980s, their primary concern was about maintaining the status quo. The rise of China in the last thirty years, however, has reshaped the Beijing-Hong Kong dynamic as new tensions and divisions have emerged. Thus, post-1997 Hong Kong is a case about a global city’s democratic transition within an authoritarian state. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Hong Kong introduces readers to these key social, economic, and political developments. Bringing together the work of leading researchers in the field, it focuses on the process of transition from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region under China’s sovereign rule. Organized thematically, the sections covered include: ‘One Country, Two Systems’ in practice Governance in post-colonial Hong Kong Social mobilization The changing social fabric of Hong Kong society Socio-economic development and regional integration The future of Hong Kong. This book provides a thorough introduction to Hong Kong today. As such, it will be invaluable to students and scholars of Hong Kong’s politics, culture and society. It will also be of interest to those studying Chinese political development and the impact of China’s rise more generally.

This collection of selected works by Professor Albert H.Y. Chen shows the contours of the author’s scholarship as it developed over 35 years of his academic career, from 1984 to the present. The essays are divided into three sections which cover the three major domains of Professor Chen’s research. Part I covers the legal developments and controversies of “One Country, Two Systems” since the Hong Kong interpretation on “the right of abode” in 1999 to the anti-extradition movement of 2019. Part II shifts to focus on tradition and modernity in Chinese Law, including China’s Confucian and Legalist traditions and how the socialist legal system in China evolved and modernized in the era of “reform and opening”. Part III examines the transplantation of Western thinking and constitutionalism to East Asia in modern times and discusses the achievements and failures of these efforts. In conjunction with an introductory chapter that sets out the basic orientation and paradigm of these legal and constitutional studies and an epilogue that reflects on the main themes, this collection exemplifies the author’s important contributions to the field and provides insight into how the legal orders in Hong Kong and mainland China have changed over the course of Professor Chen’s academic career.

Since 2003, Hong Kong has witnessed a series of large-scale protests which have constituted the core of a reinvigorated pro-democracy movement. What drove tens of thousands of citizens to the street on a yearly basis to protest? What were the social and organizational bases of the protest movement? How did media and public discourses affect the protests’ formation and mobilization? How did the protesters understand their own actions and the political environment? This book tackles such questions by using a wide range of methods, including population and protest onsite surveys, media content analysis, and in-depth interviews with activists, politicians, and protest participants. It provides an account of the "self-mobilization processes" behind the historic July 1, 2003 protest, and how the protest kick-started new political dynamics and discursive contestations in the public arena which not only turned a single protest into a series of collective actions constituting a movement, but also continually shaped the movement’s characteristics and influence. The book is highly pertinent to readers interested in political development in Hong Kong, and as a case study on "the power of critical events," the book also has broad implications on the study of both media politics and social movements in general.