Understanding Chinese politics has become more important than ever. Some argue that China's political system is 'institutionalized' or that 'win all/lose all' struggles are a thing of the past, but, Joseph Fewsmith argues, as in all Leninist systems, political power is difficult to pass on from one leader to the next. Indeed, each new leader must deploy whatever resources he has to gain control over critical positions and thus consolidate power. Fewsmith traces four decades of elite politi...

Forging Leninism in China is a re-examination of the events of the Chinese revolution and the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party from the years 1927 to 1934. Describing the transformation of the party as 'the forging of Leninism', Joseph Fewsmith offers a clear analysis of the development of the party. Drawing on supporting statements of party leaders and a wealth of historical material, he demonstrates how the Chinese Communist Party reshaped itself to become far more violent, ...

This is a comprehensive account of the Chinese debates on economic reforms, from the Third Plenum of 1978 to the crackdown of 1989. It is designed for scholars and graduate students interested in the political economy of China's reforms.

In the 1990s China embarked on a series of political reforms intended to increase, however modestly, political participation to reduce the abuse of power by local officials. Although there was initial progress, these reforms have largely stalled and, in many cases, gone backward. If there were sufficient incentives to inaugurate reform, why wasn't there enough momentum to continue and deepen them? This book approaches this question by looking at a number of promising reforms, understanding...

A discussion of elite politics in contemporary China. While a great deal of the text is descriptive, much of the emphasis is on drawing out and abstracting the political dynamic at work. The past half-century has seen many hopes raised and some dashed, a succession of fears and false alarms, and both triumphs and calamities that were almost entirely unexpected. This work offers a short but sweeping history of world politics since 1945: America's postwar pre-eminence and the hopes that atte...

Since becoming president of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has emerged as China's most powerful and popular leader since Deng Xiaoping. The breathtaking economic expansion and military modernization that Xi inherited has convinced him that China can transform into a twenty-first-century superpower.In this collection, leading scholars from the United States, Asia, and Europe examine both the prospects for China's continuing rise and the emerge...

Over the past two decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has paradoxically steered the development of a thriving capitalist economy. Unlike many faltering post-socialist states with fragile economies and weakly institutionalised democratic structures, China has witnessed a tide of economic entrepreneurialism that has raised living standards and the country's global economic stature. However, the strains of rapid economic change and the tensions between an increasingly liberalized econo...

State–society relations and governance are closely related areas of study and have become important topics in the social sciences in the past decades, not only in developed countries but also in the developing world. In China, state-society relations have been changing in the new era of reform and opening, and governance has become a central concern in policy practice and in academia. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, written by scholars from both inside and outside China, the con...

The series, Mao’s Road to Power, consisting of translations of Mao Zedong’s writings from 1912 to 1949, provides abundant documentation in his own words on his life and thought as well as developments in China during the pre-1949 period. This final volume in the series, Volume 10, covers the period from the Chinese Communist Party’s Strategic Offense during the Civil War to the Establishment of the People's Republic of China, July 1947 to October 1949.

The series, Mao’s Road to Power, consisting of translations of Mao Zedong’s writings from 1912 to 1949, provides abundant documentation in his own words on his life and thought as well as on developments in China during the pre-1949 period. This penultimate volume in the series, Volume 9, covers the period from the Japanese Surrender through the Chinese Communist Party’s Strategic Defense during the Civil War, August 1945 to June 1947.

Despite its recent rapid economic growth, China’s political system has remained resolutely authoritarian. However, an increasingly open economy is creating the infrastructure for an open society, with the rise of a non-state sector in which a private economy, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and different forms of social forces are playing an increasingly powerful role in facilitating political change and promoting good governance. This book examines the development of the non-state s...

In this timely book, a group of leading scholars provides a comprehensive assessment of China's polity, economy, and society. Taking the thirtieth anniversary of Beijing's adoption of reform and opening as an occasion to reflect on the course of development over the past three decades, the contributors consider where the country may be going in the future. Just as China has had enormous success in developing its economy, it continues to face equally enormous challenges across a wide variet...