Bücher der Reihe Routledge Contemporary China Series

Successfully bringing together a wide range of research and evidence, this book discusses issues related to the growing unemployment problem in China. It examines problems of particular cities, appraises the government response, and assesses the prospects going forward.

This is the first book which undertakes a systematic analysis of rent seeking activities in China. Using case studies from across economics sectors the contributors discuss the occurrence of the phenomenon, what range of activities are related to rent seeking practices and, more importantly, how rent seeking shapes political and economic development.

China's rise as a major trading power has prompted debate about the nature of that country's involvement in the liberal international economic order. This book sheds light on this question. It explores the trade policymaking process in China by looking at: China's WTO accession negotiation; China's bilateral trade disputes; and other aspects.

Bringing together two areas of study that tend to be marginalised within their home disciplines Queer Sinophone Cultures innovatively advances both Sinophone studies and queer studies. It not only examines film and literature from Mainland China but expands its scope to encompass the underrepresented `Sinophone¿ world at large (in this case Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and beyond). Further, where queer studies in the U.S., Europe, and Australia often ignore non-Western cultural phenomena, this book focuses squarely on Sinophone queerness, providing fresh critical analyses of a range of topics from works by the famous director Tsai Ming-Liang to the history of same-sex soft-core pornography made by the renowned Shaw Brothers Studios.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the economy hotel sector in China. It covers macro-level social-cultural, economic, environmental, geographic and development issues, alongside micro-level consideration of the budget hotel companies¿ innovative management and marketing procedures, business expansion strategies, general hotel management and operation issues, as well as an analysis of some leading entrepreneurs in the sector, and in-depth case studies examining the most successful economy hotel companies in China.

China is currently afflicted by enormous environmental problems. This book, drawing on ancient and modern Chinese environmental thinking, considers what it is that makes an environment a desirable place for living. The book emphasises ideas of beauty, and discusses how these ideas can be applied in natural, agricultural and urban environments in order to produce desirable environments. The book argues that environment is both a product of nature and of human beings, and as such is potentially alterable by culture. The book explores the three aspects of environmental beauty whereby such alteration might be beneficially made: integrated and holistic; ecological and man-made; and authentic and everyday. This book addresses environmental issues by distinctively suggesting that an aesthetic approach inspired from ancient Chinese tradition could help us overcome the many problems that human beings have created at local and global levels. Although its main focus is the traditional and current contexts of the People''s Republic of China, the book transcends national borders. A typical example is the ancient Chinese thought system and cultural practice of Feng Shui (風水) that sought to negotiate how the natural environment and human constructions can cohabit without destructing each other. The author evokes that sought-after harmony through the powerful image of gardens of life whose environmental beauty can be found in traditional Chinese gardens and palaces as well as historically and culturally preserved cities.

This book sheds light on the social imagination of nature and environment in contemporary China. It demonstrates how the urgent debate on how to create an ecologically sustainable future for the worldΓÇÖs most populous country is shaped by its complex engagement with religious traditions, competing visions of modernity and globalization, and by engagement with minority nationalities who live in areas of outstanding natural beauty on ChinaΓÇÖs physical and social margins. The book develops a comprehensive understanding of contemporary China that goes beyond the tradition/ modernity dichotomy, and illuminates the diversity of narratives and worldviews that inform contemporary Chinese understandings of and engagements with nature and environment.

This book analyses how decentralized policy making and conflicting rules and incentives have encouraged local level policy experimentation across Chinäs cities and villages. Most often out of necessity or expediency in the face of governance challenges associated with rapid economic reform and slow political reform, this pattern has remained relatively constant since 1978. The contributors to this book examine how local-level institutions solve governance challenges, such as rural development, enterprise reform, providing social services, and grappling with a lack of transparency.

This book presents an illuminating and comprehensive summary record of contrasting and competing expert forecasts and judgements about the major issues confronting China within four principal domains - political, economic, environmental and international. Considering the principal forecasting methods available to experts, Roger Irvine comments critically on the degree of success achieved in using those methods and emphasises the confusion created by the polarisation of opinion and by the failure of many experts to accept the high degree of uncertainty that characterises most of the key issues.

Identifying the most significant new issues and problems that have arisen from Chinäs rapid development, this book examines the evolution of Chinäs contemporary foreign policy and international relations. It highlights the global importance of Chinäs management of its own politics and economics, and underlines the most pressing issues facing China today. The book aims to spark debate by drawing attention to these critical issues; placing them on the scholarly agenda as well as that of the practitioner.

The tensions between ethnic Muslim Uighurs and the growing number of Han Chinese in Xinjiang have recently increased, occasionally breaking out into violence. At the same time as being a potential troublespot for China, the province is of increasing strategic importance as Chinäs gateway to Central Asia whose natural resources are of increasing importance to China. This book presents much original research on a range of different aspects of Xinjiang. It covers social, political and economic subjects, concentrating especially on how current trends in Xinjiang are likely to develop in the future.

Under the direction of the Communist Party of China (CPC), key legal challenges have been identified which will shape the modernization of China''s legal and administrative institutions. An increasingly complex set of legal actors now seek to influence this development, including securities regulators, bankers, accountants, lawyers, local-level mediators and some of China''s newly rich. Whilst the rising middle class wants to voice its interests and concerns, the CPC strives to maintain its leading role. This book provides a critical appraisal of China''s deepening socialist rule of law and looks ahead to the implications of the domestic reforms for the international legal domain. With contributions from leading Chinese law specialists, it draws on specific illustrations from judicial reform, constitutional law, procedural law, anti-corruption, property law and urban development, socio-economic dispute resolution and Chinese macro-economics. The book questions how China''s domestic law reforms will impact international legal systems, and how international law can be used in managing key regional and bilateral relationships and in dispute resolution, such as in the South China Sea and international trade. Assessing the state and direction of domestic law reform and including debates around the legal implications of some of China''s most pressing foreign policy challenges today, this volume will be of huge interest to students, scholars and practitioners with an interest in Asia law, Chinese law, international law, comparative law and law reform.

China's agriculture and rural society have undergone rapid changes in recent years. This book provides a 'bottom-up view' of China's agriculture, showing how the many millions of Chinese peasants make a living.

This book offers the first exploration into the development of social enterprises in the Greater China region, consisting of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Mainland China. By drawing on the research and experience of over a dozen scholars and practitioners from across the area, it offers a picture of how a strong State can play an important role as a catalyst in developing the social entrepreneurship sector, particularly by legitimizing it. It delves into the role and impact of institutions and policy on the development of social enterprises, and explains how micro and macro factors might interact in influencing social entrepreneurship.

Unprecedented social change in China has intensified the contradictions faced by ordinary people. In everyday life, people find themselves caught between official and popular discourses, encounter radically different representations of China''s past and its future, and draw on widely diverse moral frameworks. This volume explores irony and cynicism as part of the social life of local communities in China, and specifically in relation to the contemporary Chinese state. It collects ethnographies of irony and cynicism in social action, written by a group of anthropologists who specialise in China. They use the lenses of irony and cynicism - broadly defined to include resignation, resistance, humour, ambiguity and dialogue - to look anew at the social, political and moral contradictions faced by Chinese people. The various contributions are concerned with both the interpretation of intentions in everyday social action and discourse, and the broader theoretical consequences of such interpretations for an understanding of the Chinese state. As a study of irony and cynicism in modern China and their implications on the social and political aspects of everyday life, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of social and cultural anthropology, Chinese culture and society, and Chinese politics.