Changing China

Thirty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a fateful decision: to allow newspapers, magazines, television, and radio stations to compete in the marketplace instead of being financed exclusively by the government. The political and social implications of that decision are still unfolding as the Chinese government, media, and public adapt to the new information environment. Edited by Susan Shirk, one of America's leading experts on contemporary China, this collection of essays brings together a who's who of experts--Chinese and American--writing about all aspects of the changing media landscape in China. In detailed case studies, the authors describe how the media is reshaping itself from a propaganda mouthpiece into an agent of watchdog journalism, how politicians are reacting to increased scrutiny from the media, and how television, newspapers, magazines, and Web-based news sites navigate the cross-currents between the open marketplace and the CCP censors. China has over 360 million Internet users, more than any other country, and an astounding 162 million bloggers. The growth of Internet access has dramatically increased the information available, the variety and timeliness of the news, and its national and international reach. But China is still far from having a free press. As of 2008, the international NGO Freedom House ranked China 181 worst out of 195 countries in terms of press restrictions, and Chinese journalists have been aptly described as "dancing in shackles." The recent controversy over China's censorship of Google highlights the CCP's deep ambivalence toward information freedom. Covering everything from the rise of business media and online public opinion polling to environmental journalism and the effect of media on foreign policy, Changing Media, Changing China reveals how the most populous nation on the planet is reacting to demands for real news.

An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China. China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta. As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation. A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago.

As China becomes the world’s largest economy, so it becomes important to understand the key issues shaping the country’s business environment and the behaviour of Chinese businesspeople. This is difficult because those issues are contested. Is China growing at 3% or 8%? Is the Chinese consumer going to save the world? Are state-owned enterprises national champions or zombies? Have we reached the end of "Cheap China"? Can China innovate? Is business still dominated by personal connections? Are markets or the state in control? Does Chinese culture impede or support organizational effectiveness? Are Chinese dragons at your door? Will the finance and property sectors implode? Is the Chinese model sustainable, or will it end in tears? On all these issues there is ill-informed "noise", and an abundance of partisan interpretations. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to provide an even-handed analysis of the key issues that will shape the threats and opportunities arising from China’s development in the next decade. It cannot resolve the competing claims made. However, it does provide the reader with the ideas and the sources of evidence needed to understand and to make well thought-out judgments as China continues to evolve.

"This textbook will be welcomed by professors and students who have been long looking for an appropriate textbook for teaching and studying the changing geography of post-reform China." —Hongmian Gong, Hunter College, CUNY "A wonderful collection of current source data. The range of bibliographic material in these pages is great." —Kit Salter, University of Missouri, Columbia Changing China: A Geographic Appraisal provides an up-to-date and detailed account of the giant country that is undergoing an unparalleled and historic transition from a centralized command economy to a market-based economy, and from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial power. Contributions from a distinguished team of geographers both inside and outside of China are divided into three parts that assess, respectively, economic changes since the reform of 1978, recent social transformations, and changes along China's peripheries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and inner Mongolia. An introductory chapter provides an overview of major themes. Includes a chronology of major events in Chinese history and a glossary of Chinese terms.

This work analyses the implications for world trade of China's entry into the World Trade Organization. It has taken fifteen long years of dialogue and heated debate and it will take its place among the other members at the end of 2001. This momentous event is relayed by the next WTO Chairman.

Scholars from China, Singapore and the U.S. use the opportunity of the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to explore the issue of leadership change in China, and its impact on institution building and foreign policy there.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The question Professor Li Wuwei investigates is not 'whether' creativity is changing China - but 'how' creativity is changing China. The outcome will have a profound impact on how China develops and its economic role in the world. Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Zarafonetis, Nicole, author. Title: Sexuality in a changing China : young women, sex and intimate relations in the reform period / Nicole Zarafonetis. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge research on gender in Asia series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017001825| ISBN 9781138240148 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315293936 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sex--China. | Sex instruction--China. | Sex role--China. | Dating (Social customs)--China. | Marriage--China. | Women--China--Social conditions. Classification: LCC HQ18.C6 Z37 2017 | DDC 306.70951--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017001825