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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research assignment examines pertinent factors affecting the political, economic and social landscape of the development of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Domestic conditions within the PRC are influencing its foreign policy behaviour in the international arena. The PRC's internal environment will thus determine the extent of its external presence. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die werkstuk bestudeer die relevante faktore wat die politieke, ekonomiese en sosiale landskap ten opsigte van die Republiek van China (PRC) se holistiese ontwikkeling beïnvloed. Omstandighede binne die Republiek beïnvloed die land se buitelandse beleidsgedrag in die internasionale arena. Dit sal dus regverdig wees om te sê dat binnelandse faktore 'n beslissende rol speel ten opsigte van hoe die land homself binne die globale arena hanteer.

Bibliography: leaves 269-327. "This dissertation investigates the political reforms initiated by the Hong Kong colonial government between 1978-1996 in light of Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese sovereignty on Juy 1, 1997." --Abstract

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

In this thesis I focus on mining and smelting in China during the Shang and Western Zhou periods (c. 2200-770 B.C.). The importance of bronze in Shang and Zhou society and the vast quantity of bronze artifacts recovered indicates that the acquisition of metal ore would have been a major occupation of the state. The Shang and Zhou governments controlled their own bronze foundries but did not control the mines. The mines are located in southern China where the Chu state flourished during the Eastern Zhou period, likely due partly to their possession of mineral resources, and in Inner Mongolia where the steppe cultures existed. The Zhou and the Shang were likely obtaining raw materials from southern and northern cultures, either through trade or raid. Provenance studies based on chemical composition of artifact and ore will help resolve the source of Shang and Zhou ore.

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 dissertation investigates the relationship between elections and authoritarian rule with a focus on the case of China's adoption of elections at the grassroots level. In this dissertation, I look at the incentives facing Chinese local governments in choosing between holding competitive elections or state-controlled elections, and how the selection of electoral rules shapes the public's preferences over political institutions and influences the citizens' political behaviors, especially voting in elections and participation in contentious activities. The overarching theme in this dissertation proposes that the sources and consequences of Chinese local elections are conditioned on the state-owned resources and the governing costs. When the amount of state-owned resources to rule the local society is limited, the paucity of resources will incentivize authoritarian governments to liberalize grassroots elections to offset the governance costs. The various levels of election liberalization will lead to different consequences in the public's political behavior. An abundance of state-owned resources not only discourages rulers from sharing power with the local society, but also supplies the rulers with strong capacity to obtain loyalty from voters when elections are adopted. As a result, elections under authoritarian governments with an abundance of state-owned resources will see more loyalist voters than elections with authoritarian governments with fewer state-owned resources. In addition, the varieties of election practices will exert impacts on public opinion toward the authoritarian government: awareness of elections will enhance public trust in the government and decrease the public's intention to challenge the incumbents' authority while at the same time increasing the public's faith in the institutions, thereby encouraging the public to adopt official channels to air their grievances. The analysis of the village-level as well as individual-level survey data and cases lends empirical supports to the argument. First, I find that the governing costs—measured by the size of labor force—are significantly and positively associated with the likelihood that local officials allow the villagers to freely nominate candidates. Second, I find that party members are more likely to vote in rural elections than urban elections while urban elections attract citizens with higher levels of democratic consciousness. The rural-urban divide in voter type indicates that the possession of economic resources by rural grassroots governments helps mobilize rural loyalist voters to participate in village committee elections, whereas the lack of such resources by urban governments discourages regime loyalist but encourage democratic voters to turn out to vote in urban elections. Third, I find significant evidence that citizens who are aware of grassroots elections are less likely to engage in contentious activities such as protest, strikes or demonstrations. Yet, the awareness of elections also encourages citizens to more frequently adopt, shangfang (petition), a government-sponsored conflict resolution mechanism, than those who are not aware of such elections. The implications of these findings suggest that the capability of state in controlling resources is vital to the success or failure of elections in stabilizing authoritarian regimes. The findings also provide an assessment on the substantial influence of the rural and urban grassroots elections in China's subnational democratization.

<p>This dissertation identifies an important strategy the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to manage crisis events online: the entertainment-oriented narrative. It appears in three forms: (1) likening the reality to an unreal TV show or a fictional scene; (2) using cute emojis and anthropomorphism to represent crisis-related concepts; and (3) framing the country as a pop star (idol) and encourage citizens to defend it regardless. The CCP uses these tactics to trivialize the importance of crises, deflect public criticism, and discourage the public from critical thinking. Case studies show that this strategy has become a regular practice of the government that worked effectively when the crises do not seriously and massively affect local citizens' lives.</p>

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