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Globalization has thrown up challenges and opportunities which all countries have to grapple with. In his 2004 book, Yongnian Zheng explores how China's leaders have embraced global capitalism and market-oriented modernization. He shows that with reform measures properly implemented, the nation-state can not only survive globalization, but can actually be revitalized through outside influence. To adapt to the globalized age, Chinese leaders have encouraged individual enterprise and the development of the entrepreneurial class. The state bureaucratic system and other important economic institutions have been restructured to accommodate a globalized market economy. In rebuilding the economic system in this way, Zheng observes that Chinese leaders have been open to the importation of Western ideas. By contrast, the same leaders are reluctant to import Western concepts of democracy and the rule of law. The author argues that, ultimately, this selectivity will impede China's progress in becoming a modern nation state.

Stephen Morgan provides a comprehensive analysis of China's unprecedented economic transformation and the specifics of its development, including issues such as well-being and human capital, inequality, ageing, urbanization and sustainability, consumerism, health, education and the environment.

Few observers are unimpressed by the economic ambition of China or by the nation's remarkable rate of growth. But what does the future hold? This meticulously researched book closely examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese economic system to discover where the nation may be headed and what the Chinese experience reveals about emerging market economies. The authors find that contrary to popular belief, cutting edge innovation is not a prerequisite for sustained economic vitality-and that China is a perfect case in point.

China's recent economic reforms have led to impressive growth, and an unprecedented enthusiasm for establishing foreign enterprises in China. Since 1993, China has been the second largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world and is now considered to be the world's third biggest economy. Its greater economic integration with the rest of the world, especially since its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has further accelerated its market-oriented economic reforms. China is now opening its protected markets and beginning to submit to the rule of international law. This ongoing transition and increasing participation in the world economy has resulted in significant changes in human resource management and social welfare practices in China's enterprises. The book examines the key areas, all of which are linked, where China is grappling with institutional reforms as it opens up to the outside world: state-owned enterprise reform, capital markets and financial reform, human resources and labour market reform, social welfare reform, and China's accession to the WTO and the growth of the private sector.

It has become a truism that continued economic reform in China will contribute to political change. Policy makers as well as many scholars expect that formation of a private sector will lead, directly or indirectly through the emergence of a civil society, to political change and ultimately democratization. The rapidly growing numbers of private entrepreneurs, the formation of business associations, and the cooperative relationships between entrepreneurs and local officials are seen as initial indicators of a transition from China's still nominally communist political system. This book, first published in 2003, focuses on two related issues: whether the Chinese Communist Party is willing and able to adapt to the economic environment its reforms are bringing about, and whether China's 'red capitalists', private entrepreneurs who also belong to the communist party, are likely to be agents of political change.

China's Economic Development and Democratization examines China's transformation from an institutional perspective. It proposes an analytical framework comprising six macro institutional environments: international, ideological, political, economic, constitutional, and civil-social, to analyze the Chinese transition. Through an institutional analysis of the ruling elite’s policy institutionalization, it tries to answer three main questions: Will China’s economic reforms lead to a meaningful political reform? Will economic freedom lead to political freedom? Will economic development lead to political democratization? The major findings from the institutional analysis of the dynamic interactions between political actors and institutions suggest that China is moving closer towards democracy. Students and scholars who are studying or conducting researches on the Chinese economy, society or politics will find this book of particular interest. Contents: Part I: Understanding the Chinese Transition: Introduction; Towards an institutional analytic framework. Part II: Transition From Mao Zedong To Deng Xiaoping: Legacies of Mao Zedong: constraints and opportunities; Transformation of the ideological environment and Deng Xiaoping's rise. Part III: Policy Institutionalization In The Post-Mao Era: Institutionalization of agricultural reform and open-door policy; Restoration of private enterprises and property rights. Part IV: Changes in the Mass Public Orientations: Mass public orientations and implications for policy institutionalization. Part V: Prospects For A Democratic Transition: Conclusion; Bibliography; Documents and reports; Index. Yanlai Wang is an Associate Researcher for the Euro-Asia Center at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

The resilience of the Communist partystate, in combination with a rapidly expanding economy, represents a significant deviant case for the debate about models of development. This book focuses on the manner in which China’s governmental system can be developed, formulated, implemented, adjusted, and revised. Policymaking is seen as an open ended process with an uncertain outcome, driven by conflicting interests, recurrent interactions, and continuous feedback, rather than determined by history, regime type, or institutions. Key to this are the capacity to deal with both existing and emerging challenges, correction mechanisms when conflicts arise, and adaptive capabilities in a changing economic or international context.

The Chinese Economic Transformation, the 19th volume in the China Update book series, provides an opportunity for young economists to share their views on various issues relating to the Chinese economic transformation. More than half of the contributors to this book are female scholars. Some of the contributors are rising stars in the studies of the Chinese economy and economic transition, and some only recently received their PhDs and are on their way to establishing themselves in the field of China studies. But they have one thing in common: to passionately observe, study and research what is going on in the Chinese economic transformation during the reform period; and, by so doing, make contributions to the policy debates on, and general understanding of, the Chinese economy. The chapters in this volume include an in-depth probe into challenges in capital and credit allocation due to financial friction and policy distortions; investigating the causes of growth slow-down in China and suitable policy responses; the evolution of the household registration system and its impact on off-farm employment and the integration of rural and urban labour markets; the growth, scale and characteristics of nonstandard employment; the development of rural e-commerce and its economic impact; innovation performance of listed enterprises in China; financial services liberalisation and its impact on firms’ performance; financing support schemes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the effect on banks’ credit allocation to SMEs; the potential costs of US–China trade conflict and ways to mitigate them; gender income gap in China’s labour market; causes of blockage of Chinese overseas direct investment and strategies to reduce the probability of encountering obstacles; and the role of state capital in the iron ore boom in Australia. The great variety of topics in this year’s Update allows readers to understand the current shape of the Chinese economy and to think deeply about policies and necessary reforms for future growth and development.

Despite many predictions of collapse and disintegration, China has managed to sustain unity and gain international stature since the Tiananmen crisis of 1989. Originally published in 2004, this volume addresses the 'fragmentation/disintegration thesis' and examines the sources and dynamics of China's resilience. Through theoretically informed empirical studies, the volume's authors look at key institutions for political integration and economic governance. They also dissect how difficult policies to regulate economic and social life (employment and migration, population planning, industrial adjustment, and regional disparities) are designed and implemented. The authors show that China's leaders have retained authoritarian political institutions, but have also reinforced and modified them, constructing fresh ones in the light of changing circumstances. Institutional and policy adaptations together have helped shore up political authority and create an environment for rapid growth, while accommodating growing diversity.

The first edition of \"The Political Economy of Chinese Socialism\" reconceptualized the political economy of China by highlighting the changing character of urban-rural and state-society conflicts in the era of Mao Zedong's leadership and in the contemporary post-Mao reforms. The economic and social crises that engulfed China - and indeed much of the rest of the socialist world - in the late 1980s, culminating in the 1989 democratic movement and its suppression, stimulated a rethinking of central propositions of the first edition. It particularly led the author to inquire anew into the meaning of socio-political as well as economic development in a populous and poor agrarian nation. This volume, then, assesses the economic performance and social consequences of China's political economy over four decades, with a focus on China's countryside and city-countryside relations. In addition to a reconceptualization and updating of the introductory chapter, there is a new chapter, \"The Social Origins and Limits of the Chinese Democratic Movement\".