China's rapid urbanization has driven large-scale rural-to-urban labor migration and reinforced the dual structure between urban and rural societies. To address the urban-rural education inequality, the national policy of rural school re-mapping adjustment has been implemented, resulting in many rural adolescents attending boarding schools with more centralized educational resources. This study examines the child development outcomes of 1,208 rural junior middle school students in Guangdong Province. Our findings suggest that, across all dimensions of child development, boarding students perform as well as or better than their non-boarding counterparts. We also find that strengthening conventional social bonds (especially school-related bonds), reducing exposure to deviant peers, and fostering an orderly school climate can enhance positive child development for both boarding left-behind children and non-left-behind children
This article contributes to the literature on multiple accountabilities relationships in China by examining how the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has effectively incorporated and institutionalized upward representative accountability into its cadre management system. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of the Publicity System before Appointing (PSA), an accountability innovation that empowered the masses to better monitor middle-and lower-level cadres over the past two decades, the article analyzes how the CPC managed vertical accountability relationships through top-driven mechanisms. These include the nationalized and institutionalized local PSA innovations, the normalized nationwide operation of the PSA under conditions of guaranteed authority in cadre selection and management, and the strengthened implementation of the PSA through piloted supporting systems and intensified political inspections. While significant challenges remain, the CPC tries to maintain a balance among these multifaceted accountability relationships. Nonetheless, the developed top-driven participatory accountability model demonstrates that, especially in non-Western regimes, upward representative accountability innovation can be institutionalized, well managed, and embedded within downward bureaucratic accountability to sustain credibility and resilience.
Over the past decade, growing tensions between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have alarmed global leaders about the potential for open conflict. Beijing asserts that the Taiwan question is China's internal affair, and all countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Beijing acknowledge this position in varying ways. In realpolitik, however, escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait would likely draw in global and regional powers, with profound consequences for regional stability. This study examines the key Pacific Rim and Asian states and issues possibly involved in the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Through a systematic analysis of news content, it identifies patterns of cross-strait interaction that have fueled these escalating tensions. Utilizing Social Network Analysis in combination with MAXQDA and Gephi, the study processes the data to reveal the influence and interests of various states as reflected in their connections to specific Taiwan Strait-related issues. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive mapping of actors, interests, and strategies involved in the mainland-Taiwan conflict.
Over the past two decades, China's digital economy has emerged as one of the most dynamic and contested arenas of global capitalism. From the expansion of platform labor and automation workforces to the growth of digital cultural industries, technological innovation has become deeply intertwined with political authority, market governance, and everyday work. Yet, contrary to narratives that equate digitalization with market liberalization, China's digital transformation unfolds under a distinct state-mediated regime of governance-one that fuses socialist traditions of political control with market-oriented mechanisms of efficiency and accumulation. This thematic section examines how the Chinese state governs digital work across diverse sectors of the digital economy, from e-commerce, intelligent manufacturing, to creative production. Moving beyond the conventional state-versus-market paradigms, we investigate a mode of governance characterized by indirect yet decisive state influence, where platforms, skill regimes, and production models adapt to a policy environment shaped by regulatory uncertainty and developmental imperatives. By situating labor, technology, and governance within this evolving constellation, the articles in this thematic section advance a new framework for understanding the political economy of digital work under state-led digital capitalism.
The rise of the digital economy, including e-commerce, has spurred scholarly interest in state-business relations within China's digital sector. However, existing literature focuses primarily on state-platform dynamics, overlooking grassroots actors such as e-commerce merchants. In particular, while current research highlights state influence over platforms and their strategic adaptations, few scholars examine whether such influence permeates down to the grassroots level, risking an incomplete understanding of the multifaceted nature of Chinese e-commerce and the broader digital economy. Drawing on fieldwork with e-merchants in Yiwu, a major e-commerce hub in Zhejiang Province, this article demonstrates that although the state occasionally launches regulatory campaigns and co-opts certain entrepreneurs into the Communist Party, it largely governs e-merchants at a distance through platforms. Consequently, the state's regulation of and delegation to platforms at the top, combined with its nominal governance of e-merchants at the bottom, constitutes a form of neo-socialist govern-mentality in the Chinese e-commerce world.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, China has maintained strong ties with Russia, offering significant economic and diplomatic support amidst a concerted Western backlash. This study analyzes the drivers of Chinese netizen opinions (N = 3,680) by undertaking quantitative analysis, namely linear regression and structural equation modelling. Results reveal predominantly sympathetic stances towards Russia and critical views of the U.S. and NATO, though significant Ukraine support indicates Chinese netizens are not simply parrots of propaganda. Three variables show significant associations with these attitudes: nationalism, conservative-liberal ideology, and media consumption. Nationalism correlates most strongly with pro-Russia positions, while liberal ideology associates with pro-Ukraine attitudes. Although media consumption does have a direct impact on the public, its influence operates primarily through individuals' nationalist and ideological positions. This research advances understanding of public opinion formation in China by identifying how information environments interact with pre-existing ideological predispositions rather than simply determining attitudes through exposure.
Over the past three decades, the rapid expansion of China's video game industry has not only generated immense profits but also reshaped cultural consumption, driving demand for a large and specialized game development workforce. As the world's second-largest gaming market, China has experienced extensive state intervention through legal regulations and policy directives aimed at steering and controlling industry development. This article examines the interplay between state power and digital capitalism, analyzing how their interaction shapes video game production in China. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research and 42 semi-structured interviews, this study finds that game capital operates through a "module-based scale-up" production model that prioritizes scalability and profitability while minimizing investment in innovation. This model reflects adaption to the industrial environment characterized by strong state policy and regulatory volatility, transforming game production into a labor-intensive, low-creativity, factory-like process-markedly distinct from Western practices. This production model also generates tensions within the gamer-based labor market, compelling passionate developers to devise coping strategies to the constraints on creative autonomy. By elaborating how state intervention shapes both industrial development and its labor process, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the state's role in Chinese digital capitalism and expands the scope of creative and digital labor studies by reintroducing the state as a central analytical focus.
China's manufacturing sector is undergoing rapid industrial upgrading, with automation driving demand for new occupational profiles and technical workers capable of managing complex production lines. Traditionally organized as a state-oriented labor regime, China's skill formation system now faces mounting pressure to adapt. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2023 in the automation industry, this article examines three main pathways of skill formation-enterprise-based on-the-job training, conventional vocational education, and commercial training offered by professional institutions-and analyzes the distinct roles of the state, firms, and private providers in this process. This article argues that a purely state-led approach is insufficient to meet current industrial needs, advocating instead for a more balanced model that combines policy guidance with market participation to better align worker skills with technological advancements. The findings contribute to broader debates on the political economy of skill formation and underscore the need for further research on the institutional dynamics of workforce development in late-industrializing economies.
Can integrating rural and urban systems foster a stronger sense of justice in society? Since 2002, China has advanced rural-urban integration to promote balanced development and reduce inequality. However, its impact on how citizens perceive social justice remains underexplored. Using survey data from 28 provinces, this study examines how three dimensions of rural and urban integration-economic, quality of life, and social development-relate to perceived social justice. The findings reveal a striking contrast: while integration in social development is positively associated with perceptions of justice, integration in the economic and quality of life domains is negatively associated. Further analysis suggests that economic integration has failed to deliver equitable income distribution (result justice), which may contribute to public dissatisfaction. In contrast, integration in social development has enhanced both welfare provision (result justice) and social mobility (opportunity justice), improving individuals' perceptions of fairness. These findings suggest that although rural and urban integration has the potential to enhance perceptions of justice, its impact differs across reform domains. Promoting inclusive social development, particularly through welfare provision and reforms that improve social mobility, may be essential to fostering a fairer society during China's ongoing transition.
This article engages in a critical dialogue with the "decolonizing" epistemology that has emerged over the recent three decades in contemporary Chinese historical studies, exemplified by the "Decolonizing Chinese History" roundtable published in The Historical Journal in early 2024. Through theoretical interrogation, the article challenges the epistemological assumptions of this thesis, specifically its approaches of deconstructing, decentering, and decolonizing established narratives of Chinese histories. It argues that these moves often result in new forms of reconstruction, recentering, and even recolonization within its own historical frameworks. By showing the historical inconsistencies and political implications of this unreflective "decolonizing Chinese history" thesis, this article contends that such a thesis is neither epistemologically sustainable nor morally coherent. In this context, this article not only contributes to debates in contemporary Chinese historical studies but also helps to establish more rigorous cognitive grounds for the practices of historical research in general.
Using a case study of the roles of four district-level Bureaus of Human Resources and Social Security (BOHRSS) in Guangdong under a national pilot project, this study delves into the process of policy experimentation at the local level in China through four dimensions identified from the literature: intergovernmental relations, local bureaucratic offices' interactions with policy targets, their relations with societal actors, and district officials' policy entrepreneurship. It reveals a nuanced policy diffusion process characterized by a mix of emulation of policy ideas and competition over practical policy designs. Notably, projects rated as "more innovative" by the Chinese government did not prioritize strengthening the rule of law or collective consultation. Instead, they delegated the BOHRSS's confict resolution duties to businesses and social organizations, thereby alleviating the burden on formal institutions. Moving beyond the state-society paradigm, this study contributes to the labor governance and public administration literature by elucidating the involvement of everyday policy agents in labor policymaking. Moreover, it underscores that these policy experimentation efforts are integral to broader Chinese government initiatives aimed at reassigning social governance functions to enterprises and social organizations, resonating with governance principles from the Maoist era.
This study explores how gender mediates marital home acquisition in the context of skyrocketing property prices and the persistence of traditional norms in Hong Kong, particularly those that frame homeownership as a precondition for marriage and link masculinity to the provision of a marital home . The results reveal divergences in gender values and practices: some men have abandoned homeownership and marriage altogether, while some women view homeownership as a form of old-age social security in the absence of marriage. For men who endorse conventional housing and marriage norms, attempts to delay marriage until they can provide a marital home often clash with their female partners' anxieties concerning culturally defined timelines for wifehood and motherhood. These tensions prompt some couples to make gendered compromises and collaborations to achieve the dual goals of homeownership and marriage. The findings also highlight the housing burden and the pressure of social reproductive norms faced by young people in contemporary Chinese societies, as well as how they reflect on and reconsider traditional gender roles and middle-class family ideals. The study indicates that traditional gender norms regarding marital home provision are variously abandoned, challenged, compromised, or upheld, thereby revealing an increasingly fragmented gender regime and internal tensions within contemporary Chinese society.
Provinces have become increasingly powerful actors in China's subnational political economy. In this article, we examine how this trend of provincialization has affected the provinces' relationship with China's separately planned cities (SPCs), an autonomous deputy-provincial entity with provincial economic authority created by the central government in the early days of market reform. We show that, since 2015, the provinces have gained control over SPCs' city-owned port firms, which operate some of the world's largest seaports. The provinces have demonstrated political entrepreneurship in their efforts to centralize port management without changing SPCs' formal institutions. We find that both historical legacies and institutional arrangements have shaped the SPCs' bargaining power vis-& agrave;-vis their provinces, leading to divergent outcomes in the province-initiated port reorganization. The findings of this article shed light on how bargaining among provincial and local powers leads to informal institutional adaptation in China's intragovernmental relationships.
The abolition of agricultural taxes (AAT) in China in 2006 marked a significant step in the country's transition to a tax state. It was followed by the bureaucratization of village cadres and a grassroots state reconfiguration, altering the power balance and income distribution between cadres and villagers. By combining individual-level data from the China Household Income Project with macro-level fiscal data spanning from 2002 to 2013, and employing a difference-in-difference design, we find that AAT significantly reduced the income advantage previously held by village cadres. Prior to AAT, village cadres acted as tax farmers and enjoyed income advantages over ordinary peasants, regardless of village and upper-level government fiscal resources. After AAT, however, they became semi-bureaucrats reliant on upper-level government for income. Our findings suggest that post-communist state rebuilding is characterized by redistribution of power-both between state and society, and across different levels of government-marking a departure from the trajectories of classic state building.
This study explores the evolving relationship between China and Indonesian Islamic organizations, focusing on Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. Departing from conventional perspectives on China's religious diplomacy, it proposes a relational framework to elucidate the nuanced dynamics of these interactions. Emphasizing the construction of an "imagined resemblance" as a key element in relationship formation, the article examines how NU and Muhammadiyah engage with China to promote their respective religious doctrines. NU aligns Chinese elements with historical contributions to highlight pluralism and moderation in Islam Nusantara, while Muhammadiyah interacts with contemporary China to advance Progressive Islam in addressing modern societal challenges. Fruitful engagements with China stem from the alignment between China's accommodating religious diplomacy and the specific aspirations of NU and Muhammadiyah. Nevertheless, challenges occasionally emerge, underscoring the misaligned perceptions, the agency of Indonesian Islamic organizations, and the boundaries within China's religious diplomacy.
Language and language education are central to studies of Chinese diasporic culture. However, existing scholarship has overwhelmingly focused on how overseas Chinese populations navigate language politics in their host societies. This research adopts a different perspective by examining the crucial roles overseas Chinese played in establishing Indonesian language programs in mainland China between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s. Specifically, overseas Chinese "returnees" were indispensable in founding the National College of Oriental Studies during World War II and launching several Indonesian language programs in the early years of the People's Republic of China. While these programs served vastly different political purposes over time, they also reveal critical yet often overlooked aspects of-and surprising continuities in-China-Indonesia cultural exchange amid decolonization, domestic conflicts, and the Cold War. Although the primary aim of these programs was to fulfill the operational needs of state agencies and government-affiliated organizations, returnee networks played essential roles in promoting Indonesian culture in China. They actively participated in circulatory cultural diplomacy between the two countries, contributing significantly to China's long-term knowledge production on Indonesia.
