Contemporary China Review Quarterly Journal

This is the Inaugural Issue of an English version of Contemporary China Review. Contemporary China Review was published by Bouden House in New York. A group of Chinese intellectuals have courageously stepped forward to overcome all difficulties and publish an independent periodical that seeks to discuss important issues relating to China openly and honestly.

This is the second issue of Contemporary China Review (Quarterly Journal) published by Bouden House in New York. We are very excited to include in this issue many in-depth commentaries by various scholars and experts on current affairs in China and America.

Cultural China is a unique annual publication for up-to-date, informed, and accessible commentary about Chinese and Sinophone languages, cultural practices, politics and production, and their critical analysis. It builds on the University of Westminster’s Contemporary China Centre Blog, providing additional reflective introductory pieces to contextualise each of the eight chapters. The articles in this Review speak to the turbulent year that was 2020 as it unfolded across cultural China. Thematically, they range from celebrity culture, fashion and beauty, to religion and spirituality, via language politics, heritage, and music. Pieces on representations of China in Britain and the Westminster Chinese Visual Arts Project reflect our particular location and home. Many of the articles in this book focus on the People’s Republic of China, but they also draw attention to the multiple Chinese and Sinophone cultural practices that exist within, across, and beyond national borders. The Review is distinctive in its cultural studies-based approach and contributes a much-needed critical perspective from the Humanities to the study of cultural China. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and debate about the social, cultural, political, and historical dynamics that inform life in cultural China today, offering academics, activists, practitioners, and politicians a key reference with which to situate current events in and relating to cultural China in a wider context.

Since its inaugural issue November 2020, through diligent effort and teamwork by our editors, our New York-based Contemporary China Review has published four issues in Chinese, and now the second issue in English. Contemporary China Review has established itself with a growing reputation, attracted attention from scholars and libraries (including Library of Congress) among the academia, drew recognition from experts in think tanks specialized in U.S.-China relations, and received praises among the community of Chinese-language publication worldwide. Contemporary China Review has been fulfilling its mission to provide independent Chinese intellectuals and scholars around the world with an open and free platform to discuss their research findings and express their opinions, especially now that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) totalitarian regime has almost completely suppressed the freedom of speech and freedom of press in the most parts of Chinese-speaking world. We are very excited to include in this issue many in-depth commentaries by various scholars and experts on current affairs in China and America.

Cultural China is a unique annual publication for up-to-date, informed and accessible commentary about Chinese and Sinophone languages, cultural practices, politics and production, and their critical analysis. It builds on the University of Westminster’s Contemporary China Centre Blog, providing additional reflective introductory pieces to contextualise each of the seven chapters. The articles in this Review speak to the challenging and eventful year that was 2021 as it unfolded across cultural China. Thematically, they range from health and medicine, environment, food, children and parenting, via film, red culture and calls for action. Many of the articles in this book focus on the People’s Republic of China, but they also draw attention to the multiple Chinese and Sinophone cultural practices that exist within, across, and beyond national borders. The Review is distinctive in its cultural studies-based approach and contributes a much-needed critical perspective from the Humanities to the study of cultural China. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and debate about the social, cultural, political, and historical dynamics that inform life in cultural China today, offering academics, activists, practitioners, and politicians a key reference with which to situate current events in and relating to cultural China in a wider context.

In the vast majority of literature on 'Chinese nationalism' the distinction between nation and state is rarely made, consequently nationalism usually appears as loyalty to the state rather than identification with the nation. Yet, since 1989, both the official configuration of the nation and the state's monopolized right to name the nation have come under rigorous challenge. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China relocates the discussion of nationalism to within a more contemporary framework which explores the disjunction between the people and the state and the relationship of each to the nation. With its challenging exploration of one of the most neglected aspects of identity in China, this book should appeal to Asianists, China watchers and all of those with an interest in cultural and sociological phenomena in East Asia.