Lynn T. White

Working amid Corporatism and Confusion: Foreign NGOs in China

Foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) face impediments in the People’s Republic of China. Many such problems result from the NGOs’lack of stable connections to the government. Academic literature on China is rich with data about links between the state and indigenous “civil” organizations, but relations between the government and foreign development NGOs have received less coverage in public. This article bypasses the widely accepted view of the Chinese state as solely corporatist. It describes Chinese regulation of foreign assistants in development and then offers two case studies of recently established NGOs. It concludes that, rather than demonizing the government for its faults in other areas, foreign development workers in China should be willing to work with government structures whenever possible. Only by understanding the political climate and regulatory structure, as well as the available options, can foreign NGOs hope to establish a long-term presence in China and effect lasting change.

Local Autonomy in China During the Cultural Revolution: The Theoretical Uses of an Atypical Case.

This article explores the extent to which Shanghai City, and its subordinate units, have been politically independent of higher authorities in the Chinese government. Evidence from the ‘fifties and early’ sixties suggests increasing managerial and cultural independence at the city level. Evidence from the early Cultural Revolution however suggests conceptual problems in the connection of usual notions of “autonomy” with substantive issue areas, and in their connection with local and central patterns of factions. The slow reconstruction of a local Party hierarchy in Shanghai was paralleled by a decentralization of some commercial and industrial decisions. Shanghais role as a model in Party rebuilding increased the fully national role of the citys top leadership. Analysis of autonomy, power, or dependence in administrative units is affected when strong local leaders acquire national ambitions. Suggestions are made about the characteristics of an organization these words might describe.

Political booms : local money and power in Taiwan, East China, Thailand, and the Philippines

Why have Taiwan, rich parts of China, and Thailand boomed famously, while the Philippines has long remained stagnant both economically and politically? Do booms abet democracy? Does the rise of middle “classes” promise future liberalization? Why has Philippine democracy brought no boom and barely served the Filipino people?This book, unlike most previous studies, shows that both the roots and results of growth are largely political rather than economic. Specifically, it pays attention to local, not just national, power networks that caused or prevented growth in the four places under consideration. Violence has been common in these polities, along with money. Elections have contributed to socio-political problems that are also obvious in Leninist or junta regimes, because elections are surprisingly easy to buy with corrupt money from government contracts. Liberals should pay more serious theoretical attention to the effects of money on justice, and Western political science should focus more clearly on the ways non-state local power affects elections. By considering the effects on fair justice of local money and power (largely from small- and medium-sized firms that emerge after agrarian reforms), this book asks democrats to face squarely the extent to which electoral procedures fail to help ordinary citizens. Students and scholars of Asia will all need this book — as will students of the West whose methods have become parochial.

Response To Comments About "War or Peace Over Taiwan?"

Thanks are due to Editor Woei Lien Chong, and to each of the distinguished commentators she chose together with Dr. Tak-Wing Ngo, for this chance to vet academic thinking about an important policy topic. Nobody can be sure exactly what will happen in the future, but dangers of war across the Taiwan Strait within several decades remain real. Perhaps it is natural that the three commentators on my essay who are from outside the Chinese region predict war less urgently than do either George W. Tsai from National Chengchih University on Taiwan or Guoguang Wu from Hong Kong (who during the 1980s worked as a writer for the People’s Daily and for Zhao Ziyang). Let me heartily thank these, as well as Jfrgen Domes, Frangoise Mengin, and Lowell Dittmer for raising a wide variety of interesting questions about my analysis of this naturally controversial subject. There is no need here to respond to all their points, because my original paper is in substantial accord with much of what they write. The most useful frame for this appendix will follow the questions of the original paper, slightly rephrased to address the commentators’ concerns, exploring the extent to which they could find different answers.

Unstately Power: Local Causes of China’s Economic Reforms

A critique of Americas flawed Asia policy that centres on US-Japan relations but harkens back to the same disastrous views that drew America into Vietnam. The technique is a narrative flow of short vignettes woven into longer chapters; the main strands are personal reflections and interviews.

Chinese Constitutional Currents

The Chinese constitution in action is far more flexible than the written state charter might suggest. Jiang Shigong and Xueguang Zhou best capture China’s actual constitutional patterns of power, appointment, jurisdiction, and amendment when they treat China as complex, evolving, and large.

Regional Perspectives and Domestic Imperatives

What interests may cause the United States to help defend Taiwan from mainland aggression? This essay considers three kinds of interests: economic, normative and military. After examining relevant politics within and between Washington, Taipei, and Beijing, it concludes that the US president, the constitutional commander‐in‐chief, is likely to find that Taiwans current liberalism, but not self‐determination, deserves defence. The island, as potentially Chinese, shows that democracy might later work on the much larger mainland, where comparative international statistics predict that any decisive shift to liberalism would allow concrete US trade profits and defence savings. The paper criticizes ‘strategic ambiguity’ as a doctrine that weakens deterrence of cross‐strait war by encouraging opportunism in all three capitals.

Political System and Change: A "World Politics" Reader

Political System and Change includes articles on the analytic categories political scientists have developed for understanding the Third World. Many essays in this anthology are concise summaries of later books that are now famous landmarks in the study of comparative politics.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Temporal, Spatial and Functional Governance of China's Reform Stability

Governance is a hot topic in China, as well as among political scientists. Ways of thinking about it can be improved. This essay offers a ‘neo-functionalist’ method to test for successful or unsuccessful governance of reform stability in China. It takes account of the need for participation in effective governance. Steering a state (or any part of a state) requires attention to multiple sizes of polity—especially several medial sizes in a country as large as China. Governance has varied over time during the ‘reform’ era, when anti-reform conservatives have remained important in many nested political networks. The paper shows variation of governance over time, over sizes of polity and over four sample governance functions: managing the economy, maintaining orderly stability, linking ‘social’ parts of the polity to the government, and choosing cadres. It shows how these categories exhaust a logical field that is at least implicit in any analysis of governance roles, and it suggests the value of a ‘circulati...Governance is a hot topic in China, as well as among political scientists. Ways of thinking about it can be improved. This essay offers a ‘neo-functionalist’ method to test for successful or unsuccessful governance of reform stability in China. It takes account of the need for participation in effective governance. Steering a state (or any part of a state) requires attention to multiple sizes of polity—especially several medial sizes in a country as large as China. Governance has varied over time during the ‘reform’ era, when anti-reform conservatives have remained important in many nested political networks. The paper shows variation of governance over time, over sizes of polity and over four sample governance functions: managing the economy, maintaining orderly stability, linking ‘social’ parts of the polity to the government, and choosing cadres. It shows how these categories exhaust a logical field that is at least implicit in any analysis of governance roles, and it suggests the value of a ‘circulation of elites’ paradigm when thinking about governance success or failure.

Mao and the Cultural Revolution in China: Perspectives on Mao's Last Revolution

This forum includes five commentaries focusing on a much-acclaimed book by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Maos Last Revolution, published by Harvard University Press. The book provides a meticulous account of the Cultural Revolution in China, from 1966 to 1976. MacFarquhar and Schoenhals assess the roles of Mao Zedong and other senior Chinese officials and discuss what was happening in all regions of China during this period of terror and upheaval. Five leading experts on Chinese politics and society discuss the books many strengths but also raise questions about some specific interpretations and omissions. The forum includes a reply by MacFarquhar and Schoenhals to the commentaries.