Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, München, 1999/2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Manitoba, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-316).

This dissertation explores student environmentalism in Beijing, China. It traces students' political norms and values, explains their activism and experience of pollution, and investigates the role of environmental non-governmental organisation (ENGOs) in forming youth environmentalism. To serve these objectives, the work takes forward theories on youth activism and agency and recent debates on environmental health, environmentalism and ENGOs. This study was designed as a qualitative research project based primarily on interviews and complemented by ethnographic methods, content analysis, pictorial evidence and survey results provided by the Jane Goodall Institute China. Research findings and methodology are presented in four papers and a framing document. My work challenges labels of agency and activism as either protest and resistance or 'quiescence' and questions the influence of globalisation on activists' norms and values. I put forward 'fragmented activism' as a new concept to capture the nature of youth environmental activism in Beijing. I contribute to environmental health literature by tracing how young people develop discursive mechanisms to mitigate the fear of air pollution and argue that their response offers invaluable insights into the interplay between space and the body in polluted environments. This thesis further shows that the repertoire of student environmental associations in Beijing represents a type of 'place based environmentalism' (Smith, 2001) but argues that, whilst this may be a contradictory response to contemporary environmental issues, it is not usefully assessed against abstract and normative notions of what environmentalism should be. I also challenge scholarly assessments of ENGO action. By exploring ENGO strategies in China that rely on extant societal and governmental narratives about good citizenship and moral values - instead of radical alternatives to mainstream development models or political processes - I argue for new research paradigms guiding the study of environmental movements.

As the world's major car-producing countries and companies are increasing research and development efforts on vehicle electrification, electric vehicles (EVs) are developing rapidly from the development and testing stage to commodity production and application stage. As the largest global vehicle manufacturer and new vehicle market, China has considered the EV as one of the key tools to solve the increasing energy security issues and environmental pollution issues in the road transport sector. However, as a new market, what the challenges and key factors are in the EV promotion process is still not clear. The main objective of this dissertation is to answer this question through evaluating the effectiveness of EV development in China on energy savings, environment protection and policy demonstration. Instead of covering all determinants, this dissertation mainly focuses on four key aspects: the current statues and issues surrounding China's EV development and promotion; the energy consumption and carbon emissions of EVs based on the power mix both at the state level and regional level; the potential diffusion trend of the EV penetration and the sensitivities of the key impact factors; and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the EV demonstration program in China. Applying a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods (such as lifecycle analysis, diffusion model and evaluation framework), this dissertation found that, in addition to the technology limitation of the EV, there are still many issues surrounding the environmental, industry, infrastructure and policy aspects, which have hindered EV development in China. To accelerate EV promotion, more comprehensive and diversified policy strategies should be developed instead only focusing on the financial subsidies. The charging infrastructures, for example, showed a more important role in EV penetration than the pricing factors, based on current market conditions. For the energy and environmental motivations, although the pure battery EV (BEV) can achieve a great reduction in fossil energy consumption, its benefits in carbon emission savings is not obvious due to China's heavy reliance on coal-fired power generation. The plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV) seems to be the right choice as a transit technology, according to its performance with emission savings in the current market situation. An evaluation framework has been developed in this dissertation to discuss the effectiveness of the EV demonstration program in China, and help to guide a more balanced development of EVs by considering comprehensive aspects, which include the EV industry, market conditions, policy support, and environmental impacts. Ultimately, this dissertation provides recommendations for the policy implementation for developing a diversified and flexible policy strategy for the EV penetration in China based on different technology choices (EV types), different situations (national and regional) and different timelines (short-term, mid-term and long-term).

Even though there has been no lack of scholarly attention to Chinese epistolary texts as a source of information, discussions of the functions and practices of letter writing in imperial China are very limited. This thesis deals with how elites in Song dynasty (960-1279) China exchanged personal and political information by writing and sending letters to each other, and how the genre of letters functioned in its various forms throughout the socially transformative and culturally active period. Through contextualizing epistolary material - such as letters in manuscript and print form, letter collections, and epistolary manuals, as well as sources in other genres that describe letter writing practices - I explore the multifaceted uses of letter writing for literati officials. The study provides a systematic view of the functions of Song letter writing in political, social, and cultural realms by investigating its complex practices. Using letters in several sub-genres by important literati figures such as Mi Fu, Li Gang, and Sun Di, it illustrates the main aspects of letter writing, including format, rhetoric, topical content, and handwriting. In view of the roles played by letters exchanged among Song scholars, this research on literati correspondence provides a window on how interpersonal relationships were conducted by written exchanges during that period. It also sheds light on how epistolary culture was transformed by the literati community during one of the key periods of Chinese civilization. These insights will contribute to the research of Chinese literati culture and related fields, such as the social history of middle period China, and will also be useful for comparing China's epistolary culture with the world's other letter writing traditions.

The Party-state's popular legitimacy is difficult to assess. This study aims to do so via a two- step methodology that aims to reveal the political belief sets through which the Chinese public evaluates the present regime and imagines possible alternatives. I focus upon the emerging middle class, as conceptualized by the Party-state, because the Party-state views this segment's support as a priority for its legitimation efforts. And I focus upon Beijing, because theory and evidence suggests that Beijing's emerging middle class should be especially persuaded by the Party-state's ideological work. Ideological diversity discovered in Beijing is a baseline of what one would hypothesize to exist elsewhere in China. First, I distil the main ideological traditions to which the emerging middle class is exposed - including Official Ideology, Liberalism, New Left and Political Confucianism - down into their essential convictions. Second, via Q Methodology, I present statements representing these distilled convictions to a sample of the emerging middle class and ask them, using these statements, to answer: 'What should the guiding values and principles of Chinese politics be?' From the patterns of their responses, I elucidate the variety of ways they evaluate the question - and hence, evaluate the legitimacy of the present regime. Four discourses emerge. Social Welfarism and Liberal Idealism form orthogonal boundaries between which most members of the emerging middle class situate themselves. Regression analysis suggests that the former is the default view, but a variety of factors can rotate people toward the latter. Authoritarian Reformism and Critical Realism are minority discourses that reveal more radical possibilities. My research suggests that the Party-state's efforts to contain public conceptions have had mixed success. The range of public political preferences is sufficiently constrained that a single Party can coherently claim to represent their fundamental shared interests. A corollary finding is that the 'middle class' is emerging into the role the Party-state envisages for it, as a stabilizing force. However, while its members may be 'allies of the state', only some are devotees, in the sense that they share substantially in the Official Ideological perspective. The bounded diversity of ideological discourses reveals the exquisite complexity of the Party-state's legitimation task, and many potential pitfalls and missteps. The present study reveals both the reach of the state (i.e., a bounded discourse weighted toward a Social Welfarist default) and its limits (i.e., popular drift toward problematic alternatives). More broadly, I find that popular legitimacy can be subjected to direct investigation. I show that while state-centric approaches to investigating China are compelling for their explanatory power, a balanced approach offers richer insight.

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This thesis examines political engagement amongst young urban Chinese Protestants. Based on 100 interviews in Beijing and Shenzhen, 50 with Protestants, and 50 with non-Protestants, it focuses on three areas: national narratives (what individuals think about China, its current situation and its future direction), political opinions, and social and political activity. I firstly argue that Protestants generally adhere to a relatively ‘critical’ national narrative, one that is more divergent from the Party-state’s nationalist discourse than that of their demographic peers. I then argue that in causal terms, it is primarily individuals who hold these critical values who are most drawn to Christianity, rather than developing the values as a result of their faith. Secondly, Protestants do not just hold more negative opinions of China's political regime, but that the criteria by which they judge it are different. In contrast to their demographic peers, Protestants do not base their judgements of the regime on its performance at delivering on everyday political issues. Thirdly, Protestantism catalyses the development of a sense of agency in its adherents: a sense of moral responsibility towards China and a desire to bring change through transformative activism. However, factors in China's cultural, historical, social and political context serve to steer Protestants' activism away from engagement with secular society and inward towards the church community. I conclude by arguing that Protestantism poses two challenges to China's Party-state: Firstly, it is symptomatic of an underlying sense of social and political malaise, of scepticism towards the primacy of economic enrichment and towards the Party-state’s attempt to legitimise its rule based upon this. Secondly, Protestantism catalyses the emergence of a critical, morally agentic individualism that anchors its worldview in a discourse outside the control of the Party-state. Adapting to these social shifts presents a major future challenge for the CCP.

He, Jie. / Thesis submitted in: October 2008. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-236). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.ix / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.xiii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- The Development of the Cultural Route Concept --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- The Delimitation of Heritage Definitions and Conservation --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Questions --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Shortcomings of Delimitations and Their Implementation in Cultural Routes --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Authenticity as a Subject of Investigation and Planning Support --- p.11 / Chapter 1.3 --- Research Definition --- p.12 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Research Objectives --- p.13 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Significance of Study --- p.13 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1 --- Cultural Route Heritage Disciplines and Protection Practices --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Theoretical and Methodological Investigations --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Delimitations and Case Studies --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2 --- Routes and Associated Landscape Studies carried out by Archaeologists --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Archaeological Route Studies --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Landscape Archaeological Module and Cases --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Methodology and technology --- p.29 / Chapter 2.3 --- "Landscape Archaeology and ,GIS applications" --- p.29 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Landscape Archaeology through the Cognitive Paradigm --- p.30 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Information Technology and GIS Support --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- GIS Support for Heritage --- p.33 / Chapter 2.4 --- GIS for Cultural Resource Management --- p.34 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Gap between Practice and Research --- p.35 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- The Potential of GIS for Conservation Planning in CRM --- p.37 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- Problems in Gonservation Planning Relating to Heritage Value --- p.39 / Chapter 2.5 --- Perceptual Archaeology and GIS Applications. --- p.40 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Archaeological Yisibility --- p.41 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Cost Surface Analysis --- p.47 / Chapter 2.6 --- Problem-oriented Applications of Visibility and Cost-surface Analysis --- p.50 / Chapter 2.6.1 --- Single Factor Approaches --- p.50 / Chapter 2.6.2 --- Social and Cultural Interpretations --- p.52 / Chapter 2.6.3 --- Path Studies --- p.53 / Chapter 2.7 --- Visual Resource Management Researches by the Author --- p.54 / Chapter 2.8 --- Summary and Discussion --- p.54 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- SYSTEM DESIGN --- p.59 / Chapter 3.1 --- Research Questions --- p.59 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Authenticity and the Reified Attributes --- p.60 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Definition of Attributes --- p.62 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Authenticity Interpretations through Spatial Interrelationships --- p.65 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Authenticity Interpretations through Functionalities --- p.67 / Chapter 3.1.5 --- The Scale Issue --- p.69 / Chapter 3.1.6 --- Technical Potentials in GIS --- p.70 / Chapter 3.2 --- The System Framework --- p.71 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Path Replication and Prediction --- p.73 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Control of Space --- p.77 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Cultural Landscapes in Cultural Route Spatial Analysis --- p.82 / Chapter 3.3 --- Management and Delimitations --- p.85 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Allocations --- p.85 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Delimitations in Categories --- p.86 / Chapter 3.4 --- Summary --- p.90 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY --- p.91 / Chapter 4.1 --- Background Dataset. --- p.91 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- DEM --- p.91 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Mapping Scales --- p.96 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- "Historical Topography and Landscape Reconstruction," --- p.98 / Chapter 4.2 --- Cost Surface Analysis --- p.102 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Movement Singulation --- p.103 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Path Selection --- p.105 / Chapter 4.3 --- Cost Surface Modeling --- p.107 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Attributes Introduced --- p.108 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Cost-Surface Model Making --- p.110 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Visibility as a Cost --- p.114 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Algorithms --- p.121 / Chapter 4.3.5 --- rSpatial Control of Property --- p.128 / Chapter 4.4 --- Technical Issues and Validation --- p.137 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Technical Issues of Visibility Studies --- p.138 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Cost-Surface Analysis Conberns --- p.141 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Validations --- p.142 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary --- p.143 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- CASE STUDY OF THE GREAT WALL --- p.145 / Chapter 5.1 --- Background --- p.145 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Previous Research --- p.145 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Great Wall Conservation --- p.149 / Chapter 5.2 --- Case Study Design --- p.150 / Chapter 5.3 --- Data Sources and Data Preparation --- p.151 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- DEM --- p.151 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Historical Reconstructions --- p.156 / Chapter 5.4 --- Large-scale Analyses --- p.162 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Cost-surface Modeling --- p.163 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Invasion and Defensive Interpretations --- p.166 / Chapter 5.5 --- The Juyongguan Pass Study --- p.178 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Research Background --- p.181 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Facility Mapping and Viewshed Analysis --- p.181 / Chapter 5.5.3 --- Movement Modeling --- p.191 / Chapter 5.5.4 --- Analytical Results --- p.195 / Chapter 5.6 --- Spatial Control and Delimitations of Juyongguan Pass Fortress --- p.201 / Chapter 5.6.1 --- Spatial Control of the Great Wall --- p.201 / Chapter 5.6.2 --- Juyongguan Pass Fortress Delimitations --- p.203 / Chapter 5.7 --- Summary and Discussion --- p.209 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION --- p.211 / Chapter 6.1 --- Utility of the Proposed Study Scheme --- p.211 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- The Theoretical Aspect --- p.211 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Methodological Aspect --- p.212 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Conservation Practice --- p.213 / Chapter 6.2 --- Research Contributions and Limitations --- p.214 / Chapter 6.3 --- Further Research --- p.215 / REFERENCES --- p.219