Covers the major historical problems of China in the twentieth century, namely imperialism, nationalism, state-building, religion and the role of history from the perspective of global and regional circulations and interactions.

Publisher description: China's economic rise has captured the world's imagination. At the forefront has been the Greater Pearl River Delta, a region consisting of Hong Kong, Macao, and part of Guangdong Province, whose unique and complex complementarities have created a regional powerhouse of global importance. The authors show how the Greater Pearl River Delta region has benefited from China's economic opening by combining the international orientation, business experience, and financial muscle of Hong Kong and Macao with the land, labor, and skills of the Chinese Mainland. They show how this combination has created an increasing number of world beating industries that have attracted companies and business people from all around the globe. They show how China's accession into the WTO strengthens the region's position in the national and international economies. Finally, they show how the region's trajectory will lead it to even greater prominence in the future.

Despite China's effort to maintain peace with its neighbors, its military and economic growth poses an undeniable threat. Regional states must account for a more powerful potential adversary in China, and China has become more ambitious in its efforts to control its surroundings. Historical baggage has only aggravated the situation as China believes it is reclaiming its rightful place after a time of weakness and mistreatment, and other Asia-Pacific countries remember all too well their encounter with Chinese conflict and domination. Through a careful consideration of historical factors and raw data, Denny Roy examines the benefits and consequences of a more politically, economically, and militarily potent China. Since China's intended sphere of influence encroaches on the autonomy of regional states, its attempts to increase its own security have weakened the security of its neighbors. Nevertheless, there is little incentive for Beijing to change a status quo that is mostly good for China, and the PRC thrives through its participation in the global economy and multilateral institutions. Even so, Beijing remains extremely sensitive to challenges to the Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy and believes it is entitled to exercise influence on its periphery. On these issues, nationalism trumps any reluctance to upset the international system. Diplomatic disputes regarding the islands in the South China Sea, as well as controversial relations with North Korea, continue to undermine Chinese promises of positive behavior. Roy's study reveals the dynamics defining this volatile region, in which governments pursue China as an economic partner yet fear Beijing's power to set the rules of engagement.

Today's China is governed by a new economic model that marks a radical break from the Mao and Deng eras; it departs fundamentally from both the East Asian developmental state and its own Communist past. It has not, however, adopted a liberal economic model. China has retained elements of statist control even though it has liberalized foreign direct investment more than any other developing country in recent years. This mode of global economic integration reveals much about China’s state capacity and development strategy, which is based on retaining government control over critical sectors while meeting commitments made to the World Trade Organization. In China's Regulatory State, Roselyn Hsueh demonstrates that China only appears to be a more liberal state; even as it introduces competition and devolves economic decisionmaking, the state has selectively imposed new regulations at the sectoral level, asserting and even tightening control over industry and market development, to achieve state goals. By investigating in depth how China implemented its economic policies between 1978 and 2010, Hsueh gives the most complete picture yet of China's regulatory state, particularly as it has shaped the telecommunications and textiles industries. Hsueh contends that a logic of strategic value explains how the state, with its different levels of authority and maze of bureaucracies, interacts with new economic stakeholders to enhance its control in certain economic sectors while relinquishing control in others. Sectoral characteristics determine policy specifics although the organization of institutions and boom-bust cycles influence how the state reformulates old rules and creates new ones to maximize benefits and minimize costs after an initial phase of liberalization. This pathbreaking analysis of state goals, government-business relations, and methods of governance across industries in China also considers Japan’s, South Korea’s, and Taiwan’s manifestly different approaches to globalization.

Since the end of the World War II, nation states have formed regions to give them some protection from the processes of globalization and internationalization. Against this background, the contributors consider the position of China in the processes of regional competitive interdependency. This book offers analysis at three levels: internal, regional, and global. Chapters consider China’s position in regional post-socialist associations such as the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Silk Road Economic Belt and the ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR). Contributors discuss how membership in these regional bodies is likely to enhance China’s economic power, strategic position, and political importance. A major theme addressed is whether these new powers will become complementary to the American-led economic core countries or evolve as countervailing powers. Contributors suggest that linkages favored by China’s regional associations are more ‘network’ based and informal in character. They are more in keeping with regionalization rather than regional blocs such as the European Union, which have ‘locked in’ members to market-driven institutions. Thus, these new developments move away from a neo-liberal market perspective and satisfy the needs of members to retain their economic and political sovereignty. This book considers whether these new regional blocs led by China will perform a ‘transformative’ process for the international order or become an alternative—supplementary to, but not replacing, the existing institutions of the North. An important topic is the relationship of Russia and China to the Central Asian countries of the former USSR and the interaction between the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt. There is potential for the evolution of an alliance between China and Russia against the neo-liberal order led by the USA. Concurrently, they bring out possible the tensions between Russia’s and China’s conflicting interests over influence in Central Asia. Reactions to China’s rise include the Trump administration’s movement from a multilateral to a bi-lateral trade policy and the threat of discriminatory tariffs for China. The contributors seek to promote a better appreciation of China’s role in regional associations, and the implications of contemporary developments in economic, geo-political, and international political affairs in the 21st century.

It is a resource book that profiles the geography, demography, economy, political environment and business climates for each of China's 31 provinces. It will become a useful source book to researchers, businesses, government agencies, and news media interested in either the rapidly changing provincial economies or the Chinese economy as a whole.

This book offers a theoretically informed study of recent Chinese initiatives to provide forms of regional economic governance; or as it is often termed in Chinese discourses, regional “public goods”. It does so by considering the evolution of Chinese thinking on international relations and the global order, and by considering how the development of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the putative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership reflect this change in thinking – and the change in both Chinese objectives and tactics.