Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics

Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics PDF Author: Zhengyuan Fu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521442282
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This book examines the Chinese political tradition over the past two thousand years and argues that the enduring and most important feature of this tradition is autocracy. The author interprets the communist takeover of 1949 not as a revolution but as a continuation of the imperial tradition. The book shows how Mao Zedong revitalised this autocratic tradition along five lines: the use of ideology for political control; concentration of power in the hands of a few; state power over all aspects of life; law as a tool wielded by the ruler, who is himself above the law; and the subjection of the individual to the state. Using a statist approach, the book argues that in China political action of the state has been the single most important factor in determining socio-economic change.

Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics

Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics PDF Author: Zhengyuan Fu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521442282
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the Chinese political tradition over the past two thousand years and argues that the enduring and most important feature of this tradition is autocracy. The author interprets the communist takeover of 1949 not as a revolution but as a continuation of the imperial tradition. The book shows how Mao Zedong revitalised this autocratic tradition along five lines: the use of ideology for political control; concentration of power in the hands of a few; state power over all aspects of life; law as a tool wielded by the ruler, who is himself above the law; and the subjection of the individual to the state. Using a statist approach, the book argues that in China political action of the state has been the single most important factor in determining socio-economic change.

Tradition in Chinese Politics

Tradition in Chinese Politics PDF Author: Jyrki Kallio
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789517692946
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
"This study discusses the role of history and tradition in the legitimization of the state in the People's Republic of China. In Chinese political debate, history has traditionally been the most important source of argumentation. Today, the Party-state is reinventing history and tradition to bolster its legitimacy, but the project has met with opposition. This study introduces and analyzes the related debate, ongoing among various actors in different public fora in China, and engaged in both by those affiliated with the Party-state and those outside the establishment"--Summary.

Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts PDF Author: C J Barker
Publisher: Book Guild Publishing
ISBN: 1835740685
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The lives of Vic Woods and Ruth Wolfe, working-class teenagers from Liverpool and London, are profoundly disrupted by the arrival of World War II. Ruth’s journey leads her to aerial photographic interpretation, though her aspirations for advancement are denied, while Vic’s wartime experiences with bomber command haunt him long after the war is over. Their post-war marriage and tumultuous relationship with their son, James, make for a gripping narrative of trauma, conflict and, ultimately, love. Set against the backdrop of World War II and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, Hungry Ghosts transports readers into the drama of two pivotal eras in history, exploring the intergenerational impact of war, particularly on the intricate relationships between fathers and sons. Hungry Ghosts is not just a war story; it’s a timeless exploration of family bonds and the indelible scars left by war.

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture PDF Author: Richard J. Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442221941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
The Qing dynasty (1636–1912)—a crucial bridge between “traditional” and “modern” China—was remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication. This engaging and insightful history of Qing political, social, and cultural life traces the complex interaction between the Inner Asian traditions of the Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, and indigenous Chinese cultural traditions. Noted historian Richard J. Smith argues that the pragmatic Qing emperors presented a “Chinese” face to their subjects who lived south of the Great Wall and other ethnic faces (particularly Manchu, Mongolian, Central Asian, and Tibetan) to subjects in other parts of their vast multicultural empire. They were attracted by many aspects of Chinese culture, but far from being completely “sinicized” as many scholars argue, they were also proud of their own cultural traditions and interested in other cultures as well. Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China’s preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization’s remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.

Policing Chinese Politics

Policing Chinese Politics PDF Author: Michael Robert Dutton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Beginning with the bloody communist purges of the Jiangxi era of the late 1920s and early 1930s and moving forward to the wild excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Policing Chinese Politics explores the question of revolutionary violence and the political passion that propels it. "Who are our enemies, who are our friends, that is a question germane to the revolution," wrote Mao Zedong in 1926. Michael Dutton shows just how powerful this one line was to become. It would establish the binary division of life in revolutionary China and lead to both passionate commitment and revolutionary excess. The political history of revolutionary China, he argues, is largely framed by the attempts of Mao and the Party to harness these passions. The economic reform period that followed Mao Zedong's rule contained a hint as to how the magic spell of political faith and commitment could be broken, but the cost of such disenchantment was considerable. This detailed, empirical tale of Chinese socialist policing is, therefore, more than simply a police story. It is a parable that offers a cogent analysis of Chinese politics generally while radically redrafting our understanding of what politics is all about. Breaking away from the traditional elite modes of political analysis that focus on personalities, factions, and betrayals, and from "rational" accounts of politics and government, Dutton provides a highly original understanding of the far-reaching consequences of acts of faith and commitment in the realm of politics.

Confucian Image Politics

Confucian Image Politics PDF Author: Ying Zhang
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
During the Ming-Qing transition (roughly from the 1570s to the 1680s), literati-officials in China employed public forms of writing, art, and social spectacle to present positive moral images of themselves and negative images of their rivals. The rise of print culture, the dynastic change, and the proliferating approaches to Confucian moral cultivation together gave shape to this new political culture. Confucian Image Politics considers the moral images of officials—as fathers, sons, husbands, and friends—circulated in a variety of media inside and outside the court. It shows how power negotiations took place through participants’ invocations of Confucian ethical ideals in political attacks, self-expression, self-defense, discussion of politically sensitive issues, and literati community rebuilding after the dynastic change. This first book-length study of early modern Chinese politics from the perspective of critical men’s history shows how images—the Donglin official, the Fushe scholar, the turncoat figure—were created, circulated, and contested to serve political purposes.

China's Long March to Freedom

China's Long March to Freedom PDF Author: Kate Zhou
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412815207
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
China is more than a socialist market economy led by ever more reform-minded leaders. It is a country whose people seek liberty on a daily basis. Th eir success has been phenomenal, despite the fact that China continues to be governed by a single party. Clear distinctions between the people and the government are emerging, underlining the fact that true liberalization cannot be imposed from above. Although a large percentage of the Chinese people have been part of China's long march to freedom, farmers, entrepreneurs, migrants, Chinese gays, sex pleasure seekers, and black-marketers played a particularly important role in the beginning. Lawyers, scholars, journalists, and rights activists have jumped in more recently to ensure that liberalization continues. Social dissatisfaction with the government is now published in the media, addressed in public forums, and deliberated in courtrooms. Intellectuals devoted to improvement in human rights and continued liberalization are part of the process. This grassroots social revolution has also resulted from the explosion of information available to ordinary people (especially via the Internet) and far-reaching international influences. All have fundamentally altered key elements of the moral and material content of China's party-state regime and society at large. Th is social revolution is moving China towards a more liberal society despite its government. Th e Chinese government reacts, rather than leads, in this transformative process. Th is book is a landmark--a decade in the making.

The Politics of the Core Leader in China

The Politics of the Core Leader in China PDF Author: Xuezhi Guo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108480497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
This is the first full-length scholarly study of the Chinese 'core' leader and his role in the Chinese Communist Party's elite politics.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung PDF Author: Mao Tse-Tung
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1446545318
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung' is a volume of selected statements taken from the speeches and writings by Mao Mao Tse-Tung, published from 1964 to 1976. It was often printed in small editions that could be easily carried and that were bound in bright red covers, which led to its western moniker of the 'Little Red Book'. It is one of the most printed books in history, and will be of considerable value to those with an interest in Mao Tse-Tung and in the history of the Communist Party of China. The chapters of this book include: 'The Communist Party', 'Classes and Class Struggle', 'Socialism and Communism', 'The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among The People', 'War and Peace', 'Imperialism and All Reactionaries ad Paper Tigers', 'Dare to Struggle and Dare to Win', et cetera. We are republishing this antiquarian volume now complete with a new prefatory biography of Mao Tse-Tung.

Afterlives of Chinese Communism

Afterlives of Chinese Communism PDF Author: Christian Sorace
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760462497
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Afterlives of Chinese Communism comprises essays from over fifty world- renowned scholars in the China field, from various disciplines and continents. It provides an indispensable guide for understanding how the Mao era continues to shape Chinese politics today. Each chapter discusses a concept or practice from the Mao period, what it attempted to do, and what has become of it since. The authors respond to the legacy of Maoism from numerous perspectives to consider what lessons Chinese communism can offer today, and whether there is a future for the egalitarian politics that it once promised.