Finding Women in the State

By Wang Zheng on November 30, 2017

Finding Women in the State is a provocative hidden history of socialist state feminists maneuvering behind the scenes at the core of the Chinese Communist Party. These women worked to advance gender and class equality in the early People’s Republic and fought to transform sexist norms and practices, all while facing fierce opposition from a male-dominated Chinese Communist Party leadership, from the local level to the central level. Wang Zheng extends this investigation to the cultural realm, showing how feminists within China’s film industry were working to actively create new cinematic heroines, and how they continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. This book illuminates not only the different visions of revolutionary transformation but also the dense entanglements among those in the top echelon of the Party. Wang discusses the causes for failure of China’s socialist revolution and raises fundamental questions about male dominance in social movements that aim to pursue social justice and equality. This is the first book engendering the People’s Republic of China high politics and has important theoretical and methodological implications for scholars and students working in gender studies as well as China studies. —University of California Press

Social Organizations and the 19th Party Congress

By Jessica Batke on November 30, 2017

Neither the 19th Party Congress political report (issued in October 2017) nor the 18th Party Congress political report (issued in November 2012) actually use the term “non-governmental organization” (非政府组织), nor do they specifically address international NGOs. Instead, they use the phrase “social organization” (社会组织), the de rigueur official term that encompasses several more specific types of domestic non-profit registrations: social groups (社会团体), private non-enterprises (民办非企业单位), and foundations (基金会). The reports’ discussion of social organizations, however, still offers insights into the Party’s official views on civil society and what both domestic and international groups might expect going forward.

The Beijing Migrants Crackdown

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Jeremiah Jenne, Lucy Hornby & more on November 30, 2017

After a fire in a Beijing apartment building catering to migrant workers killed at least 19 people on November 18, the city government launched a 40-day campaign to demolish the capital’s “unsafe” buildings. Many Beijing residents view the campaign as a thinly veiled excuse to force out migrant workers. Since mid-November, police and security officials have evicted tens of thousands of migrants from their apartments, and pictures of the newly homeless from all across China sitting outside in the Beijing winter have spread widely on social media. Why did the city government take this step? And what does this mean for the rights of China’s so-called “low-end population”?

U.S. Seeks to Deny China Market Economy Status in WTO

By Shawn Donnan on November 30, 2017

The Trump administration has opposed China’s bid for recognition as a “market economy” in the World Trade Organization, citing decades of legal precedent and what it sees as signs the country is moving in the opposite direction under Xi Jinping.

Business, Economy, Politics
Market Economy, World Trade Organization, Antidumping, Trade