Prepared by the East Asian Institute, NUS, which promotes research on East Asian developments particularly the political, economic and social development of contemporary China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), this series of research reports is intended for policy makers and readers who want to keep abreast of the latest developments in China. Contains three articles: 'The National People's Congress and its Electoral System', 'Interpreting Zhu Rongji's Strategies for the Chinese Economy' and 'China's Politics After the Ninth National People's Congress: Power Realignment'.

China's Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), convened in March 1998, established a new NPC and a new cabinet. Is NPC still much like a “rubber stamp” as before? Will the new chairman, Li Peng, follow his predecessor, Qiao Shi, use it as a base to expand his power in competition with Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji? More importantly, Zhu Rongji is now the new premier. What are his development strategies for China's economy? He has set out to shake up China's unwieldy bureaucracy and to reform its loss-making state-owned enterprises. Can he still accomplish his ambitions in the face of rising unemployment (xiagang)? How will Jiang Zemin manage his relations with both Li Peng and Zhu Rongji?Based on an in-depth analysis of the latest developments in China, this Occasional Paper contains three separate articles, addressing the above issues in order to provide a new perspective on China's fast-changing political economy in the post-Deng era.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with nearly 90 million members, is the largest ruling political party in the world. Its power and influence reach into every corner of state, society and economy in China. Given the CCP’s omnipresence, in-depth knowledge of how the CCP is organised and managed and how it will likely evolve is of paramount importance and is a basic prerequisite for understanding China’s rise. By bringing together the best scholarship on the CCP, covering areas such as organisation, cadre management, recruitment and training, ideology and propaganda, factions and elites, reform and adaptation, corruption and law, this collection provides a key to open the black box of Chinese politics.

This book provides a comprehensive empirical and theoretical analysis of the development of parties and party systems in Asia. The studies included advance a unique perspective in the literature by focusing on the concept of institutionalization and by analyzing parties in democratic settings as well as in authoritarian settings. The countries covered in the book range from East Asia to Southeast Asia to South Asia.

With mounting discontent due to widespread unemployment, corruption and misgovernment, the Ninth National People's Congress in March 2000 was a letdown. Significant though was Premier Zhu Rongji's announcement at the Congress of the leadership's decision to go west. While Zhu explained the policy shift as the government's attempt to develop the country's inland regions, many are skeptical, dismissing it as a camouflage for the premier's failure in the reform programmes introduced when he came to power. On the international front, with the US ambivalence in regard to China's WTO accession and China's apparent loss of grip on cross-straits relations, the future of the Jiang leadership appears to be in the balance.Against this background of neiyou waihuan (internal disturbance and external threats), will the Jiang-Zhu coalition be able to rise to the occasion and push through its many reform programmes, let alone retain its hold on power? China After the 2000 National People's Congress, (I) and (II) address this and related questions, giving an in-depth analysis of recent developments and changes in the power relations among China's top leaders, especially the Jiang-Zhu coalition.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is one of the largest and most powerful political organizations, and China’s rapid rise has allowed CCP to extend its influence throughout the globe. This book explores the CCP transformation as a form of "organizational emperor", and its ability to survive potential democracy.

At the beginning of the new century, China's leadership is preparing the ground for a smooth transfer of power from the third generation to the fourth generation leaders. Politicking among different factions has intensified as top leaders who are slated to step down after the 16th National Party Congress in 2002 jockey to put their imprint on the new power configuration.How have President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji dealt with the leadership succession while at the same time keeping an eye on the economy? What kind of power-sharing will be brokered among the different factions? Are the fourth generation leaders ready to take over the reins of power? And will China be able to maintain high growth even as it goes through this period of power transition? The articles in this publication address those issues.

This volume serves as a convenient handbook for both scholars and laymen to have a good overview of China's major developments and transformation in the political, economic, legal and social spheres since 1978. Such a review would be useful for appreciating the enormous problems that will challenge China in its next phase of transition.

The greatest success of Chinese enterprise reform has been the creation of market competition. Competition has forced the state to retreat from non-strategic sectors and increased private ownership in the industry. This development has created ownership diversification in the Chinese industry, which is in line with the leadership's 2-R (?Retreat and Retain?) enterprise reform policy. The ownership diversification is a distinction of the reformed economy, called ?a socialist economy with Chinese characteristics?. The backbone of the economy is the large state firms in strategic sectors, largely shielded from international competition, in which most of them have been coping well with the domestically competitive environment. After China's entry to the WTO, can these firms still maintain their market dominance once all forms of protection are dismantled? Are Chinese firms ready for direct competition with their foreign rivals in the manufacturing sector? Will FAW, China's No. 1 state-owned automotive corporation, be defeated on its home ground by its foreign rivals in a freely accessed market? The core of these questions is about the sustainability of diversified ownership in the economy after it is integrated with the world trading system. Who will dominate the Chinese industry after the WTO entry: foreign or private ownership? The question is addressed by applying the market structure and entry theory of industrial economics, since WTO accession will basically result in change in both the market type and the market structure of the industry. Based on this, the study developed the market share testing theory to assess the competitiveness of dominant incumbents according to the type of market. The overall finding is that most large state incumbents will survive but their survival strategy will be changed from single ownership control to mixed ownership control. Thus, it is expected that more joint ventures between foreign and large state-owned firms will emerge in the post-WTO-entry economy. But whether such firms will evolve into foreign-controlled state-owned firms is an interesting question which remains to be answered.

1997 saw a major reform in China which signaled the move away from its traditional economy, when Jiang Zemin called off the debate on public versus private ownership. However, none of the existing theories can fully explain the transformation of the property rights system during the post-Mao reforms. The first part of this volume will reconceptualize the property rights reform in post-Mao China to provide a political economy explanation of why the transformation of property rights in China appears piece-meal.The success of the post-Mao reforms can be attributed to China's ability to integrate the experience of a variety of transition models. The second part of the paper investigates two distinct transition models, in light of the lessons from current Vietnamese reform. It explores the dynamics of political actions and analyzes the political reasons for economic reform.