Already the world has seen the political, economic, and cultural significance of hosting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—in policies instituted and altered, positions softened, projects undertaken. But will the Olympics make a lasting difference? This book approaches questions about the nature and future of China through the lens of sports—particularly as sports finds its utmost international expression in the Olympics.

The rise of China's economy over the past thirty years is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable events in human history. People outside China consider the country's amazing transformation a mystery. Those inside China have been challenged with a colossal task--taking more than 1.3 billion people from an agrarian existence into the modern world--in the face of intense conflicts of interest and complicated domestic and international economic situation. No nation ever did it before; none will ever do it again. This book presents, through vivid language and hundreds of photographs covering diverse aspects of Chinese society, a wide array of significant events and influential figures that have profoundly impacted the course of China's development from 1978 through 2008. Examples include the fall of the Gang of Four, the establishment of Lenovo, the country's first special economic zone, China's entry into the WTO, the Sichuan Earthquake, and the Beijing Olympic Games.Also available in the Gale Virtual Reference Library (eBook).eBook pricing varies according to the size of your institution. Please contact us for details.eBook ISBN-13: 9789814314053

Presents a story of two Chinas – an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China. In the 1980s, rural China gained the upper hand. In the 1990s, urban China triumphed. In the 1990s, the Chinese state reversed many of its rural experiments, with long-lasting damage to the economy and society. A weak financial sector, income disparity, rising illiteracy, productivity slowdowns, and reduced personal income growth are the product of the capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the 1990s and beyond. While GDP grew quickly in both decades, the welfare implications of growth differed substantially. The book uses the emerging Indian miracle to debunk the widespread notion that democracy is automatically anti-growth. As the country marked its 30th anniversary of reforms in 2008, China faces some of its toughest economic challenges and substantial vulnerabilities that require fundamental institutional reforms.

This landmark study provides an integrated analysis of China's unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. The authors combine deep China expertise with broad disciplinary knowledge to explain China's remarkable combination of high-speed growth and deeply flawed institutions. Their work exposes the mechanisms underpinning the origin and expansion of China's great boom. Penetrating studies track the rise of Chinese capabilities in manufacturing and in research and development. The editors probe both achievements and weaknesses across many sectors, including China's fiscal, legal, and financial institutions. The book shows how an intricate minuet combining China's political system with sectorial development, globalization, resource transfers across geographic and economic space, and partial system reform delivered an astonishing and unprecedented growth spurt.

A systematic investigation into the origins and unraveling of China's economic miracle.

For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP. China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it? In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War. Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response. Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.

The current global financial turmoil, triggered by the US subprime crisis, has spread quickly and resulted in the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s. As the world's third largest economy and the second largest trading nation, China is inevitably affected seriously. How China responds to the crisis and how effective its measures are in sustaining a healthy growth will have important implications, both domestically and internationally.The chapters in this volume are divided into five sections. Section one examines the overall impact of the global economic crisis and the responses of the Chinese government. Section two studies the regional aspect of the economy affected by the crisis. Section three explores such economies of the Mainland's southern neighbors as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and the prospect of China's trade. Section four surveys the impact on the ideological and social aspects of the country. Section five concludes with an assessment of China's external policies. The volume offers a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of the impact of the crisis and the measures of the Chinese government to overcome the difficulties.

Village China Under Socialism and Reform offers a comprehensive account of rural life after the communist revolution, detailing villager involvement in political campaigns since the 1950s, agricultural production under the collective system, family farming and non-agricultural economy in the reform, and everyday life in the family and community. Li's rich examination draws on original documents from local agricultural collectives, newly accessible government archives, and his own fieldwork in Qin village of Jiangsu province to highlight the continuities in rural transformation. Firmly disagreeing with those who claim that recent developments in rural China represent a radical break with pre-reform sociopolitical practices and patterns of production, Li instead draws a clear history connecting the current situation to ecological, social, and institutional changes that have persisted from the collective era.

Helps the United States and the rest of the world better comprehend the facts and dynamics underpinning China's rise. This book analyzes the data on China's economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security.

The Beijing Olympics ensured that the world would be watching China in 2008, a year that turned out to be the most tumultuous and traumatic for the country since the massive Tiananmen uprising of 1989. Crippling winter storms, riots in Tibet, the devastating Sichuan earthquake, and many other dramatic events grabbed international headlines. This innovative book--based on postings from the noted group blog/electronic magazine China Beat as well as works from other leading publications and completely new material--takes the unique approach of bringing the timeliness of the blogosphere into book form, expanding and reflecting on stories in the news while retaining the eclectic, opinionated, and engaging feel of the blog. It will be invaluable reading for everyone with a keen interest in China today.