This title investigates China’s network society, both its online cyber society and offline real world society, by analyzing the trends and social foundations of society as network and the social challenges it poses, as well as structural changes in social space and social interaction. The first part of the book examines how network society in China forms and develops, analyzing the challenges and structural changes it poses. The author studies network power and uncertainties that lies in the supply, flow, and reception of a massive amount of information, revealing how this influences the government's administrative power as well as governance measures to stabilize social cohesion. The second part first discusses the social restructuring and characteristics of network social space in China. Based on case studies of several momentous social events, the spatial change characterized by an integration of absence and presence space and its influence on social interaction and experience is elucidated, including active absence interaction, mediated experience, spatial representation, and social identities of network aggregation. The book will be a crucial reference for scholars and students studying sociology, network sociology, and contemporary Chinese society.

The Internet and social media are pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China explores the changing relationship between China's Internet and social media and its society, politics, legal system, and foreign relations.

Marxist ideology is the only fully scientific ideology, the only one able to guide mankind toward the settlement of fundamental social problems and to point out the royal road for the proletariat to take in its march toward socialism and communism. Without Marxism, modern people cannot establish true social ideals, nor can they engage in the rational pursuit of values. Without Marxism, modern people cannot choose the correct path of development, nor can they build up new forms of civilizations. Without Marxism, modern people would never base their commitments to schedule the consensus-building effort and support the consensus-building process on any irrefutably and sufficiently sound theoretical foundations.

The year 2018 marks 40 years of reform and development in China (1978–2018). This commemorative book assembles some of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Chinese economy to reflect on what has been achieved as a result of the economic reform programs, and to draw out the key lessons that have been learned by the model of growth and development in China over the preceding four decades. This book explores what has happened in the transformation of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years for China itself, as well as for the rest of the world, and discusses the implications of what will happen next in the context of China’s new reform agenda. Focusing on the long-term development strategy amid various old and new challenges that face the economy, this book sets the scene for what the world can expect in China’s fifth decade of reform and development. A key feature of this book is its comprehensive coverage of the key issues involved in China’s economic reform and development. Included are discussions of China’s 40 years of reform and development in a global perspective; the political economy of economic transformation; the progress of marketisation and changes in market-compatible institutions; the reform program for state-owned enterprises; the financial sector and fiscal system reform, and its foreign exchange system reform; the progress and challenges in economic rebalancing; and the continuing process of China’s global integration. This book further documents and analyses the development experiences including China’s large scale of migration and urbanisation, the demographic structural changes, the private sector development, income distribution, land reform and regional development, agricultural development, and energy and climate change policies.

This book analyzes the relationship between trust and social capital in contemporary Chinese society. It attempts to clarify the differences in degree among various types of trust in China today and the logic of social actions, hoping to provide a new perspective from which China's local social relationship networks can be understood. The book contributes to the field of contemporary Chinese sociology in the numerous ways. First, it improves the methods for comparing the ways in which different types of trust are measured. Second, it analyzes the regional differences in trust (especially universal trust) across China. Third, it discusses the impact of social capital (social relations and their embedded resources) on trust and tests the relationship for linearity and curvilinearity. Fourth, it explores whether the relationship between social capital and universal trust is regulated by institutional structural resources. The analysis of the regulatory role of structural resources paves the way for a more comprehensive theory of the relationship between social capital and trust. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, contemporary China, and East Asian studies. It will also be a valuable source of reference for policymakers on the improvement of social institutions.

This book analyses credit crisis issues in China from the aspect of individuals, enterprises, and government through investigations of six Chinese urban and rural areas. After China’s reform and opening up in the 1970s, a slew of new problems involving integrity, trust, and credit appeared with the establishment of a market economy and the creation of new business opportunities. To track these phenomena down to their very origins and to explore the theoretical principles underlying them through a truly holistic sociology, this book highlights a native Chinese perspective when dissecting and analysing the characteristics of their origins, mechanisms, and manifestations. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of economic sociology, Chinese studies, and those who are interested in the sociology of credibility in general.

This book investigates the Internet use and online engagement of China's elderly population, especially in relation to the formation of their social mentality and vision. The online life of the elderly is a complex issue that is important for both economic development and social progress. In a country with a rapidly aging population like China, overlooking the online needs of the elderly and the extent to which they are met can have serious consequences for society as a whole. This book examines the impact of the Internet on the lives and social mindset of this population, specifically by analyzing their vision, i.e., their perception and concept of the world, of which the Internet is an integral part. It aims to better understand how the elderly use and adapt to the Internet, the challenges they face, and how their online experience shapes their social attitudes. The authors propose practical measures to help this significant population to benefit from the digital age and to foster positive social attitudes. The title will appeal to scholars, students, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the sociology of the Internet, especially elderly online engagement and digital inclusion.

The concept of civil society was borrowed from 18th-century Europe to provide a framework for understanding the transition to post-authoritarian regimes in Latin America and post-communist regimes elsewhere. This book asks whether this concept is useful for analyzing China.

Based on almost eight years of fieldwork in a town and a village in South China, this book analyzes contradictions among various dimensions of the peasant economy, social relationships, popular religion, and local politics in rural China. Compared to many anthropological, sociological, and political studies of rural China, which regard Chinese peasants as one-dimensionally materialistic, politically conservative, egocentric (lacking public-mindedness, as in anthropologist Yan Yunxiang’s notion of the "uncivil individual"), with collapsed beliefs, and thinking only of the present (or the "today-ness of today" according to anthropologist Liu Xin), this book shows that people in contemporary rural China are actually "two-dimensional": trying to combine the calculation of self-interest with affective networks of reciprocity, but often falling into awkwardness or cynicism, in a paradoxical symbiosis between nihilism and transcendence. While Marcuse used the words of Benjamin to analyze "one-dimensional man," writing "Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope," this book writes of two-dimensional people, "Only when the vast majority of ordinary people can find hope in everyday life can we finally be given hope!" This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Sociology, Anthropology and East Asian Studies. It will also be a great read to those who are interested in contemporary China in general.

Decades ago, there was no distinct middle class in the People's Republic of China. Any meaningful discussion of China's economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class. This book details the origins and characteristics of this dramatic change.