Anatomy of Political Power in China: Regime Operation, Political Transformation, and Foreign Relations - Softcover

Guoguang, W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 981210366X ISBN 13: 9789812103666

Publisher: Times Academic Press,Singapore, 2005

Synopsis

Before leaving China in 1989, Wu (China and Asia-Pacific relations, U. of Victoria, Canada) had been involved in Chinese politics as an editorialist for the People's Daily, as a member of the policy advisory group to the national leadership on political reform in the lead up to the 13th National Congress, and as a speech and document writer for various Chinese government leaders. Here he applies that experience to his effort to combine political concepts with actual Chinese political practice. Approaching his topics from the perspective of institutional analysis, he examines the interaction of political legitimacy, ideology, and power distribution in the elite politics of the 15th and 16th National Congresses; processes of bureaucratic and mass communications from the central leadership to other parts of the state and society; state-enterprise relations, central-local relations, popular participation, and other issues of political reform; and Chinese foreign policy, particularly towards the United States. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

Synopsis

Political power is a great enigma in contemporary China, as it operates often behind the closed doors of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the recent decades of reform, it has changed greatly in many ways while retaining its authoritarian nature. How do Chinese leaders rule this huge country? How does the regime communicate with its bureaucracies and ordinary citizens? What happened to politics in recent decades as economic marketisation and social liberalisation formed the major currents of the nation's developments? And, what are the implications of all these domestic affairs to China's foreign relations and vice versa? This volume is an intellectual exercise to explore these questions that have for a long time occupied a central position in academic explorations of Chinese politics.

The book covers topics such as state-enterprise relationship (a fundamental indicator of the political economy of Chinese reform), central-local relations (an issue that has perplexed the power arrangements in China for over a thousand years in general and since 1949 in particular), relations between popular participation and political reform, and the relationship between individual liberty and political democracy (a classic question in political theory that frames political debates in contemporary China). These collected essays give the reader an insightful peek behind the closed doors of Chinese politics and governance.

About the Author

Guoguang Wu is currently Professor of China and Asia-Pacific Relations at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria, Canada. He has received academic honours like the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, the Luce Fellowship at Columbia University, and the An Wang Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. He previously taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before moving to Victoria.

Edition details

• Publisher: Times Academic Press,Singapore
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 981210366X
• ISBN 13: 9789812103666
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 365