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\"Using detailed and empirically grounded analysis, examines the changing relationship between the Chinese state and the society it governs, how governance choices made affect the country and the rest of the world, and how local Chinese authorities have responded to the challenges they face in coping with China's rapid transformation\"--Provided by publisher.

In a Xi Jinping era of rising central power and policy activism, what role is left for Chinese provinces? This article argues that, notwithstanding centralizing tendencies, China’s recent economic development trajectory cannot be understood without taking into account the distinctive policy roles and priorities of provincial governments. Successive waves of governance restructuring have in many ways strengthened rather than weakened provincial authorities, reinforcing their role as central-local gatekeepers within China’s political economy. In particular, we draw attention to the ways that provinces create and shape “development space” (fazhan kongjian 发展空间) for different industries and localities and alter the contours of China’s international economic engagement. We explore how provinces use their position as brokers of development space to concentrate investment in privileged areas of the economy while neglecting other aspects of development, deviating from central priorities in the process. Using case studies about industrial policy, rural development, and foreign economic relations, we show how—even in an era of centralism—provinces’ developmental drive remains untamed.

All societies face a key question: how to empower governments to perform essential governmental functions while constraining the arbitrary exercise of power. This balance, always in flux, is particularly fluid in today's China. This insightful book examines the changing relationship between that state and its society, as demonstrated by numerous experiments in governance at subnational levels, and explores the implications for China's future political trajectory. Ann Florini, Hairong Lai, and Yeling Tan set their analysis at the level of townships and counties, investigating the striking diversity of China's exploration into different governance tools and comparing these experiments with developments and debates elsewhere in the world. China Experiments draws on multiple cases of innovation to show how local authorities are breaking down traditional models of governance in responding to the challenges posed by the rapid transformations taking place across China's economy and society. The book thus differs from others on China that focus on dynamics taking place at the elite level in Beijing, and is unique in its broad but detailed, empirically grounded analysis. The introduction examines China's changing governance architecture and raises key overarching questions. It addresses the motivations behind the wide variety of experiments underway by which authorities are trying to adapt local governance structures to meet new demands. Chapters 2-5 then explore each type of innovation in detail, from administrative streamlining and elections to partnerships in civil society and transparency measures. Each chapter explains the importance of the experiment in terms of implications for governance and draws upon specific case studies. The final chapter considers what these growing numbers of experiments add up to, whether China is headed towards a stronger more resilient authoritarianism or evolving towards its own version of democracy, and suggests a series of criteria by which China's political trajectory can be assessed. Contents 1. China at a Crossroads 2. Streamlining the State 3. The Evolution of Voting Mechanisms 4. Civil Society 5. From Local Experiments to National Rules: China Lets the Sunshine In 6. Where is China Going?

America’s recent turn towards protectionism has raised concerns over the future viability of the liberal international trading system. This study examines how and why public attitudes towards international trade change when one’s country is targeted by protectionist measures from abroad. To address this question, we fielded three original survey experiments in the country most affected by US protectionism: China. First, we find consistent evidence that US protectionism reduces support for trade among Chinese citizens. We replicate this finding in parallel experiments on technology cooperation, and provide further external validation with a survey experiment in Argentina. Second, we show that responses to US protectionism reflect both a “direct reciprocity” logic, whereby citizens want to retaliate against the US specifically, as well as a “generalized reciprocity” logic that reduces support for trade on a broader, systemic, basis.

This dissertation examines the strategies that various actors within the Chinese state adopted in response to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules demanding far-reaching modifications to China's domestic policies and institutions. While several scholars have noted the unevenness of reforms resulting from WTO entry, I ask: why did more liberalizing reforms take place in some parts of the state and not others. I provide a framework explaining why policy responses to the WTO were neither top-down nor monolithic, despite single-party rule. To understand this divergence, I identify three competing philosophies of economic governance from which such responses are drawn: market-replacing (directive strategies), market-shaping (developmental strategies) and market-enhancing (regulatory strategies). I demonstrate that policy divergence originates from a combination of international and domestic forces, which emphasize the likelihood of sanction for deviating from WTO norms and the prospects for bureaucratic advancement for diverse actors within the Chinese state. Across administrative levels, I show that while WTO rules provoked a regulatory response from the central state, the same rules inspired economic strategies based on directive and developmental measures at the subnational level. I further show that within the central state, WTO rules altered the balance of power between different economic agencies, increasing the leverage of agencies advocating regulatory strategies while provoking quite a different response from developmental agencies. The ability of these agencies to advance their preferred policies is further mediated by the ability of the party leadership to punish the central bureaucracy. Finally, I address how WTO entry has intensified the conflict between central and subnational states over the governance of key industries. While WTO entry has heightened the central state's determination to build globally-competitive national champions, paradoxically, it has also enhanced the ability of subnational states bypass the center, by increasing their direct access to global markets and foreign capital. In sum, this study offers a new explanation for why WTO rules, usually thought to constrain member states or credibly commit them to international norms, in fact provoked divergent responses within the state, in ways neither expected nor desired by the architects of those rules.

America's recent turn toward protectionism has raised concerns about the future viability of the liberal international trading system. This study examines how and why public attitudes toward international trade change when one's country is targeted by protectionist measures from abroad. To address this question, the authors fielded three original survey experiments in the country most affected by US protectionism: China. First, they find consistent evidence that US protectionism reduces Chinese citizens' support for trade. This finding is replicated in parallel experiments on technology cooperation, and further validated outside of the China context with a survey experiment in Argentina. Second, they show that responses to US protectionism reflect both a \"direct reciprocity\" logic—citizens want to retaliate against the United States specifically—and a \"generalized reciprocity\" logic that reduces support for trade on a broader, systemic basis.

While on a trip to China in 2010,Philadelphia Inquirerforeign affairs columnist Trudy Rubin filed the following story: Late last year, HIV-AIDS activist Thomas Cai was suddenly summoned to appear the next day at a mysterious meeting in Beijing. Cai is the founder and director of the well-known nongovernmental organization AIDS Care China—one of the first civil society groups to provide support for AIDS sufferers and their families. But he had no idea whom he would be meeting in the Chinese capital. To his total surprise, he and eleven other scientists were ushered in to meet with President

A direct and competitive election for the mayor of a township called Buyun in Sichuan province was reported in the Chinese newspaperNanfang Zhoumo(Southern Weekend) on January 15, 1999.¹ The report caused a sensation across the nation as well as among the international community of China-watchers, because competitive elections for any local authority higher than the village level had not happened since the revolution of 1949. Thousands of websites, not just popular commercial websites such as sina.com and sohu.com, but also government-owned websites such as people.com.cn and xinhuanet.com, reprinted the news. The Buyun story has been posted by thousands