[30 May 2009 | No Comment | ]
Spring 2009 China Left Review out

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.

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Theoretical Trends »

[31 May 2009 | No Comment | ]
异议的困境与必要性

在我得知《台湾社会研究季刊》(以下简称“台社”——编者注)即将举办二十周年纪念活动时,心中微微有些触动。1990年代初期,杭之先生来北京访问,我们在《读书》杂志的活动中见面,第一次读到《台湾社会研究季刊》;那时中国内地的知识分子还处于1989年的阵痛之中,对于台湾知识分子争取民主的斗争抱有自然的同情,也因此对于诞生于八十年代解放运动中的“台社”怀有一份建立在陌生之上的亲切感。

China Studies »

[31 May 2009 | No Comment | ]
Institute for Advanced Historical and Social Research

Just spotted: the Institute for Advanced Historical and Social Research - a new interdisciplinary research institute in Beijing. Philip Huang, Wang Hui and Cui Zhiyuan are listed as core faculty, and He Xuefeng, Peng Yusheng, Wang Mingming and Wang Shaoguang are visiting.

Theoretical Trends »

[31 May 2009 | No Comment | ]
改革三十年——中国成为“正常的”发展中国家?

路爱国

中国改革已经持续了30年,学术界出现了很多对改革的理论总结和反思。本文提供了一个比较特殊的视角,作者纵向对比了改革前后的各类基本制度、社会经济特征;横向比较了中国与发达国家、发展中国家的基本状况。最后得出的结论是,改革的一个重要结果是使中国在基本制度、社会经济特征等方面越来越类似于其它发展中国家,中国存在的问题、面临的挑战也与一般发展中国家类似。对改革的理论总结和反思应该以这一基本事实作为基础,对未来改革走向的判断也应该以此为依据。

Rural Studies »

[25 Mar 2009 | No Comment | ]

Published in: journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 10, Issue 1 March 2009 , pages 138 - 153
Abstract
NSC (the Chinese government’s campaign to ‘construct a New Socialist Countryside’) aims to increase agricultural productivity, improve the rural environment, and promote peasant welfare (fuli).1 In order to achieve this goal, peasants must get organized. Since most young peasants leave the countryside to work in the city, elderly people have become the main agents of production and life in the villages, so peasant organization must involve the organization of the elderly. Experiments in NSC …

China Studies »

[21 Mar 2009 | No Comment | ]

In December 2008 the Financial Times spoke of an irony of history if the Communist Party of China (CPC), that had survived the collapse of the socialist Eastern Block in 1989 (and the social upheaval of Tian’anmen), would collapse through the events that come along with the global crisis of capitalism in 2009. Another commentator said, China’s politicians, faced with a possible social explosion of workers, peasants and unemployed, were already in a “state of panic”. But this is not just about China and the rule of the CPC. The question is whether the current crisis and subsequent social turnover can lead to the formation of a global working class that can finish off the capitalist mode of production world-wide. For any answer to that question class struggles in China play an important role.