This research aims to examine the role of Chinese intellectuals in policymaking through the case of Labor Contract Law. Chinese intellectuals have played an important role in shaping of the post-Mao China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership have always benefited from their expertise in formulation and development of the reform policies. Also, the fact that the CCP still need intellectuals&rsquo / support for ideological justification for its policies contributes to importance of intellectuals. In addition, intellectuals have affected the policy agenda-setting of the CCP leadership through their effects on the Chinese public opinion which has increasingly become influential since the 1990s. Furthermore, intellectual debates could function as a substitute for party politics in China&rsquo / s one-party system. These all jointly enhance the role of intellectuals in Chinese politics and make it a crucial subject to study. The case of this research, namely the Labor Contract Law, is selected not only for it received a high level of public attention, but also for it is closely related with one of the central matters of contemporary Chinese politics, i.e. economic development path and social justice. This inquiry into the making of the Labor Contract Law lead the author to emphasize that tension and animosity between liberal intellectuals and the authoritarian state, on which the existing literature largely focuses, is just one aspect of the intellectual politics in China. In the context of re-configuration of power and wealth due to the marketization, intellectuals&rsquo / position in the society has dramatically changed and patterns of the Party-intellectual relation have diversified. Thus, it is argued in this research that by taking into account the emergent market with its ideological effects and as an institutional force that is linked to intellectuals through ties with the new economic elite inside or outside the Party, parameters of intellectuals politics in China can be more accurately understood.

Les organisations caritatives religieuses connaissent depuis la fin de l’ère maoïste une croissance importante en Chine. De façon générale, ces organisations complémentent les services de l’État, lequel a réduit sa présence dans la sphère sociale au cours de la période de Réforme et d’ouverture. Face à ces groupes, le Parti communiste chinois est passé d’une attitude répressive à une attitude instrumentale. La présente thèse explore le détail de cette instrumentalisation. Elle constate, grâce à une étude de terrain, l’attitude différenciée du Parti communiste envers les groupes caritatifs religieux, selon que ceux-ci adhèrent à une religion « chinoise » ou « étrangère ».

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.