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201. From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand: A Rent Seeking Model of China's Township-Village Enterprises

Author:
Jiahua Che
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
I present a study of ownership of firms under government rent seeking. Using its control of regulated inputs, a government agency extracts rents from a manager who undertakes an investment. Such a government rent seeking activity leads to a typical hold-up problem. Government ownership is shown to serve as a second best commitment mechanism through which the government agency will restrain itself from the rent seeking activity and even offer the manager support and favor such as tax breaks and subsidies. This mechanism works at a cost as government ownership compromises ex post managerial incentives and creates distortion in resource allocation. Nevertheless, government ownership may Pareto dominate private ownership under certain conditions. These conditions correspond to a host of stylized empirical observations concerning local government-owned firms (township-village enterprises) during China's transition to a market economy.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

202. The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution

Author:
Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term.
Topic:
Communism, Government, Science and Technology, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
China and Asia

203. "One China" and Relations Across the Taiwan Strait

Author:
James J. Przystup, Ronald N. Montaperto, and Gerald W. Faber
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Relations across the Taiwan Strait have reached an apparent impasse. Both China and Taiwan have, in a sense, painted themselves into corners. Yet, aware of the considerable costs that will inevitably be incurred by new and higher levels of tension or conflict, both President Jiang Zemin of China and Chen Shui-bian, the newly elected President of Taiwan, share a vital interest in finding a face-saving way out of their respective dilemmas without compromising their longer term objectives. In the process, each is being influenced and constrained by a number of factors related to politics, economics, and broad strategic interests. Overall, these factors will provide incentives to seek a reduction of tensions, at least in the short term. At the same time, years of mutual mistrust and the stark and growing differences between their respective political and social cultures will continue to affect the prospects for a mutually acceptable resolution of the issues separating China and Taiwan.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Taiwan

204. CIAO: China — Market Manipulation

Author:
Caspar Fithin
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
A leaked Shanghai Stock Exchange report has detailed the extent of trading irregularities within China's domestic equity markets. In the primary market, a series of companies have falsified records on profits, assets and even entire businesses in order to publicly issue and list shares. In the secondary markets, insider trading, the spreading of false information, coordinated stock purchases, price ramping and sales of stocks by large institutional investors are common practice. The extent of trading irregularities reflects the government's preference for market growth over regulatory standardisation. This approach is undermining the CSRC's credibility. Unless regulatory practices are tightened, institutional investors will not have the maturing effect on markets and stabilising impact on prices the government seeks.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Markets
Political Geography:
China

205. United States — Presidential Race

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
With the presidential primary season having ended this week, the race for the White House now heads for the party conventions. Since effectively securing the Republican nomination, Texas Governor George Bush has regained his poll lead over the de facto Democratic nominee, Vice-President Al Gore. If Bush retains a clear poll lead by the convention season, the current signs of apprehension amongst Democratic leaders will become more apparent. If Gore can more closely identify himself with the economy's exceptionally strong performance, he is perfectly capable of staging a full recovery and securing victory in November.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and China

206. International -- Problematic Piracy

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
A recent meeting of Asian countries on how to combat increasingly violent pirates in the region follows landmark prosecutions of those involve, but years of half-hearted action by coastal states. The International Chamber of Commerce has already called on ASEAN trade bloc nations to join China and Japan in signing the 1988 UN Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (the Rome convention). It would allow pirates caught in seas beyond national maritime jurisdictions to be prosecuted as international criminals. However, 14 of the 16 countries at the Japanese-sponsored talks in Singapore last March have yet to sign. Findings will be presented to a high-level international conference between regional maritime security agencies and government shipping bodies in Tokyo this month.
Topic:
Security, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, and Singapore

207. External versus domestic Vs Coastal versus Interior

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
02-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
China's relatively rapid growth cannot mask the fundamental problems the economy faces. The government will be forced to continue to apply stimulus to the economy, but the sustainability of this approach is limited. The positive impact of eventual WTO membership will take time to be felt, while accession–related reforms and increased foreign competition will prove disruptive. The country has a limited time in which to prepare.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China

208. The Diffusion of the Internet in China

Author:
William Foster and Seymour E. Goodman
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
China and the United States share a new and rapidly expanding border—the Internet. It is a border that neither country fully understands. The possibility for misunderstanding is great because the Internet is not only transforming the relationship between the two countries, it is also transforming the countries themselves. It could be argued that China is going through the greater change. Unlike the past where information was mediated by the State, the mass media, and the work unit, Chinese citizens with Internet connections and a command of English have unprecedented direct and immediate access to information and people around the world. Because of abundance of Chinese language content, Chinese who can only read Chinese still have access to a wealth of information. The Chinese government has imposed its own unique regime on the networks in China that connect to the Internet. Though the United States and China both participate in the Internet, the regimes that they use to govern their networks are very different.
Topic:
Government and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

209. Blazing New Trails: Villagers' Committee Elections in P. R. China

Author:
Linda Jakobson
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Though the Chinese Communist Party clings to its monopoly on power and fully intends to avoid “walking down the road of the Soviet Union,” it is implementing revolutionary political reform in the countryside. For the past decade, multi-candidate elections, in which candidates need not be members of the Communist Party, have been held in hundreds of thousands of Chinese villages. Abdicating its prerogative to appoint village chiefs, the Party has conceded that elected ones are more effective. The grassroots-level governance reform (jiceng zhengquan gaige) not only empowers ordinary citizens and encourages them to take part in the decision-making process. It also institutionalizes the concepts of accountability and transparency.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Soviet Union

210. Cooption and Repression in the Soviet Union

Author:
Dmitriy Gershenson and Herschel I. Grossman
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Independent Institute
Abstract:
The Soviet ruling elite, the nomenklatura, used both cooption and political repression to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. Loyalty was critical both in defusing internal opposition to the rule of the nomenklatura and in either deterring or defeating foreign enemies of the Soviet Union. The cost of coopting people into the communist party was a decrease in the standard of living of members of the nomenklatura, whereas the cost of political repression was the danger that members of the nomenklatura would themselves be victimized. We assume that the nomenklatura determined the extent of cooption and the intensity of political repression by equating perceived marginal benefits and marginal costs.
Topic:
Cold War and Government
Political Geography:
Russia and China