‘Address China’s Global Role in a More Strategic and Holistic Way’

The Changing State of Play between International NGOs and China

on January 30, 2020

Bertram Lang discusses the need for internationally-active civil society organizations—even those without an official presence in the Chinese mainland—to develop a “specific, organization-wide, global China strategy.” Lang emphasizes the importance of cross-sectoral coordination and cooperation in this process, recognizing the value of both “insider” and “outsider” organizations, and cautions against “engagement just for engagement’s sake.”

How Much Could a New Virus Damage Beijing’s Legitimacy?

By Taisu Zhang on January 29, 2020

A month into the coronavirus epidemic that has swept across China, the details of the Chinese government’s political and administrative response remain highly ambiguous. What has been unmistakable, however, is the volume and intensity of social anxiety, much of which has been channeled into open skepticism of governmental activity. Even a cursory glance at Weibo will reveal an enormous amount of criticism, both veiled and direct, at the official response. Compared to other political challenges that have drawn large amounts of international criticism over the past two years, the current situation constitutes a much more serious threat to the Party-state’s domestic legitimacy. The coronavirus epidemic has clearly struck much closer to the public’s bottom line, leading to widespread displays of anger and frustration that one rarely sees these days in the tightly censored world of Chinese Internet expression.

A Better China Strategy for International Civil Society

By Bertram Lang on January 29, 2020

Much of the European and American debate about China’s Foreign NGO Law has revolved around the trade-offs and opportunities associated with continuing activities in mainland China. However, the issues internationally operating NGOs face are far bigger than that. Chinese investors are influential in virtually every country and region of the Global South, the Chinese government has a pivotal role in climate diplomacy, and China’s influence is growing in the UN system and wherever else the rules of civil society participation in global governance are discussed and defined. Organizations’ strategies for working in and with China can no longer be just a country strategy, and cannot be confined to a China team based in Beijing or Hong Kong alone.

The Art of Political Control in China

By Daniel C. Mattingly on January 27, 2020

Cambridge University Press: When and why do people obey political authority when it runs against their own interests to do so? This book is about the channels beyond direct repression through which China’s authoritarian state controls protest and implements ambitious policies from sweeping urbanization schemes that have displaced millions to family planning initiatives like the one-child policy. Daniel C. Mattingly argues that China’s remarkable state capacity is not simply a product of coercive institutions such as the secret police or the military. Instead, the state uses local civil society groups as hidden but effective tools of informal control to suppress dissent and implement far-reaching policies.

Drawing on evidence from qualitative case studies, experiments, and national surveys, the book challenges the conventional wisdom that a robust civil society strengthens political responsiveness. Surprisingly, it is communities that lack strong civil society groups that find it easiest to act collectively and spontaneously resist the state.

Why Aren’t More Countries Confronting China over Xinjiang?

By Matt Schiavenza on January 14, 2020

China has justified its repressive actions in Xinjiang as a response to a series of terror attacks attributed to Uighurs. But the measures Chinese authorities have employed have attracted international condemnation. In July, the United Nations representatives of 22 mostly European countries released a letter to the UN Human Rights Council calling on China to “refrain from the arbitrary detention and restriction on freedom of movement on Uighurs and other Muslim and minority communities in Xinjiang.” Reaction to the letter was swift. Four days later, in a highly unusual move, 37 different countries signed a letter to the same council that rejected the message of the first.

As Taiwan’s Election Nears, A Sense of Foreboding Grips Voters from Different Camps

By Anna Beth Keim on January 9, 2020

On the evening of December 29, at a rally in front of Democratic Progressive Party headquarters in Taipei, hundreds of people are shouting in unison. They support Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) candidate in Taiwan’s January 11 presidential elections, but they are shouting another politician’s name, with an anxiety that was not there in the last election four years ago, when Tsai was first elected. Their voices rise above the sound of the rain, repeating over and over: “PROTECT THE PARLIAMENT! SAFEGUARD TAIWAN! . . . OUT WITH WU SZ-HUAI!”

China’s Urban Champions

By Kyle A. Jaros on January 7, 2020

Princeton University Press: The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: Although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and social tensions. Wary of these dangers, China’s national leaders have tried to forestall top-heavy urbanization. However, urban and regional development policies at the sub-national level have not always followed suit. China’s Urban Champions explores the development paths of different provinces and asks why policymakers in many cases favor big cities in a way that reinforces spatial inequalities rather than reducing them.

Kyle Jaros combines in-depth case studies of Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu provinces with quantitative analysis to shed light on the political drivers of uneven development. Drawing on numerous Chinese-language written sources, including government documents and media reports, as well as a wealth of field interviews with officials, policy experts, urban planners, academics, and businesspeople, Jaros shows how provincial development strategies are shaped by both the horizontal relations of competition among different provinces and the vertical relations among different tiers of government. Metropolitan-oriented development strategies advance when lagging economic performance leads provincial leaders to fixate on boosting regional competitiveness, and when provincial governments have the political strength to impose their policy priorities over the objections of other actors.

Rethinking the politics of spatial policy in an era of booming growth, China’s Urban Champions highlights the key role of provincial units in determining the nation’s metropolitan and regional development trajectory.