Issue #3 of China Study Group’s bi-lingual web-journal China Left Review is focused on new essays, by Chinese and overseas writers, revisiting several English-language books about rural China during the collective/ “people’s commune” era (ca. 1957-1982). The issue also includes an article on China’s ongoing land-tenure debate, and one on Sino-Korean relations. With the exception of the latter article, every text is presented in both Chinese and English versions - a first for this journal which we hope to continue. (If you’d like to help out with translating, revising or writing for future issues, please contact [email protected].) Also note the new design of the CLR website, including the painting “Iron Bones Giving Birth to Spring” (铁骨生春).

Like a mighty tugboat on the sea of market ideology, CSG again sets out to make waves in the blogosphere, pushing and pulling lost boats unmoored by the mainstream force of “China watchers.” After a brief hiatus, now, following the 60th anniversity of the PRC on October 1, 2009, we relaunch at chinastudygroup.net. We hope our new website design, new bloggers, and new emphasis on blogging and interacting with other China websites will attract more attention and make bigger waves in the rising tide of international discussions about China.

China Study Group is pleased to announce the launch of the Spring, 2009 bilingual web-journal China Left Review. Issue No. 2 examines the the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, and focuses on China’s role and reaction. Our purpose is to stimulate discussion and collaboration between left-leaning scholars and activists in Chinese and English-speaking worlds. We seek to do this by compiling, translating, and commenting on a variety of works related to controversial and pressing social issues.

Following a reform plan that was forced on Beijing University staff and faculty
to significant resistance, the leadership in the Chinese Academy of Social Science
(CASS) have now hatched a similar reform scheme to reshape the merit system at
CASS. The draft of the reform blueprint was announced on Feb. 19, 2004, and was
quickly formalized on March 1, with little discussion between the CASS leaders
and the research staff about the plan. The reform plan is to expand the current
system of four ranks of researchers (junior, middle, associate senior, and senior)
into eleven ranks, with …

On December 14-15 1996, some 150 participants took part in a highly valuable and quite unique 30th Anniversary Symposium on China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution at the New School for Social Research in New York. The conference was organized by the China Study Group, and co-sponsored by the Economics Students Union of the New School and the Monthly Review Foundation. The unusual character of this meeting reflected the point of view of the primary sponsoring organization, “to critique mainstream perceptions and assessments and offer alternative perspectives on China.” This conference was almost certainly the first in at least two decades in the United States to address the history and legacy of the Cultural Revolution from a largely positive, though by no means uncritical standpoint. It openly challenged the prevailing approach in mainstream media and academic circles of treating that monumental event as little more than a disaster, and as a weapon in the arsenal of “China bashing” and denigrating the accomplishments of the Chinese people under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Due to its nature, the conference drew participants and interest from as far away as Canada, Australia, and Germany.