著者
橋本 誠浩
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.66, no.3, pp.20-36, 2020-07-31 (Released:2020-09-12)
参考文献数
30

Since the introduction of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978, social inequality and instability in Chinese cities have reemerged. Conflicts between individual urban residents, private enterprises, social organizations, and local authorities over wealth and opportunities created by the rapid economic development have intensified. Moreover, frustration among those who failed to benefit from this competition is also on a sharp rise. Social tension, along with social diversity, has made it very difficult for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain social stability in urban China. In order to cope with this situation, which might become a severe risk for the party-state system, the CCP has been trying to reinforce its urban governance through residents’ committees.In the official context, the residents’ committee is a grassroots level autonomous organization, which takes care of daily issues within local communities. Members of residents’ committees are chosen through elections. This election gives the residents’ committee a “democratic” image. However, in reality, it is a sub-administrative organization controlled by the local government. Not only does it provide benefits for urban residents, but it is also in charge of management and surveillance of the urban populous. Therefore, many literatures have concluded that local governments have established a firm control over residents’ committee and through that control the CCP has improved its urban governance.In order to investigate state influence towards residents’ committees, the author conducted fieldwork at a residents’ committee (“J” committee) located in Hangzhou city from 2015 to 2017. One of the objectives of this ethnographical observation was the election process of choosing the new leadership of “J” committee. This paper introduces what the author encountered during that election and elaborates over those findings.All of the members of “J” committee leadership, turned out to be CCP members. They interfered with the election process by mobilizing other party members within the community. Mobilized party members interfered with the election in various ways in order to secure a high voting rate. They did this to gain high evaluation from the local government, which decides the annual budget of “J” committee.What became clear through this ethnographical observation was that “J” committee was indeed manipulating the election in order to gain more resources from the local government. Since the officials of the local government and members of “J” committee were both party members, it could be said that lower level party members were actually maneuvering against their superiors. This incident shows that local governments do not necessarily possess firm control over residents’ committees. Therefore, this paper argues that the theory of “Fragmented Authoritarianism” propounded by Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg might be applicable to the explanation of urban governance in contemporary China.
著者
任 哲
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.55, no.1, pp.1-18, 2009-01-31 (Released:2014-09-15)
参考文献数
51
被引用文献数
2

Since 2002, the central government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has issued numerous policies to suppress the price of real estate across the country. These policies, however, have shown little effectiveness at the local level. Why did the central government fail to suppress these high prices in the real estate sector?Existing interpretations in the literature often put much emphasis on the responsibility of local governments for overheating in the real estate sector. Many studies point out that the financial dependence of local government on the real estate sector is the main reason. However, the conventional interpretations fail to clarify which level of local government should be responsible to the failure of policy implementation.This paper presents two arguments. First, I argue that the financial dependence of grassroots local government on the real estate sector is the major reason for the failure of policy implementation. By analyzing the fiscal revenues of central, local and grassroots government from 2000 to 2004, this paper finds that the proportions of revenue from the real estate sector in local government is higher than in the central government, but lower than in grassroots government. Most taxes from the real estate sector become fiscal revenue of government at the grassroots level but not at the local level. This paper also insists that grassroots level government has no incentive to progress policy, as their fiscal revenues rely more on tax and expenses from the real estate sector, rather than on local and central government.Second, I argue that state-owned companies are the major obstacle to the effectiveness of the policy and the existence of these companies undermines policy implementation initiated by the central government. The real estate companies are divided into three categories for analysis: central government-owned company, local government-owned company and private company. In this paper, I focus on three regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong) and analyze those companies which are ranked in “China’s Real Estate Top 10” project. I demonstrate that half of them are state-owned companies. In the case study of Shanghai, for instance, I find that local government-owned companies play a decisive role in softening the intensity of policy implementation.
著者
川島 真
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.66, no.4, pp.60-67, 2020-10-31 (Released:2020-11-19)
参考文献数
14

The main topic of discussion at the 2019 meeting of the Japan Association for Asian Studies (JAAS) was the issue of the movement of “wartime laborers” from the Korean peninsula to Japan proper. Professor Kiyoshi Aoki and Professor Hideki Okuzono gave presentations on this topic, with Professor Tetsuya Yamada, Professor Mie Oba, and the author posing questions and offering comments to the presenters. This paper summarizes the author’s comments and questions at that JAAS meeting, which focused on the importance of considering the connections, commonalities, and differences that exist in how history problems are handled across East Asia.First, China, Korea, and Vietnam were divided during the Cold War, and each one came to rely on the use of history in order to provide it with some form of legitimacy. History problems in this region were often related to how competing factions in these divided polities sought to justify their rule based on the past. On the Korean Peninsula and across the Taiwan Strait, this historical legitimacy was often connected to resistance activities carried out against Japanese aggression and colonial occupation. However, though both Koreas have continued to assert their relative “historical legitimacy” on this basis through the present day, the Republic of China government on Taiwan began shifting its source of “historical legitimacy” from being based on the creation of a unified China to the creation of an autonomous/independent Taiwan in the 1990s.Second, the cases of South Korea-Japan and Taiwan-Japan relations share the fact that the dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the manner in which Korea and Taiwan were subsequently decolonized had a significant impact on the construction of their history problems. In both cases, authoritarian governments negotiated with Japan to conclude peace treaties. Their broader populaces, however, were not allowed to play a significant role in such negotiations. This led to the emergence of critiques of these treaties after their democratization, with the appearance of subsequent calls to revisit the postwar settlements that their authoritarian regimes had reached.Third, democratization in South Korea and the expansion of freedoms in China led to the emergence of new developments in how history problems were handled, with a shift toward a greater focus on individual claims for reparations against Japanese entities. The governments of neighboring countries had abandoned their ability to seek state reparations from Japan as part of the peace treaties they signed in the decades following the end of the war. However, individuals were able to seek private compensation through the Japanese judicial system from the 1980s through the 2000s, which played an important role in the resolution of a number of history problems. In Taiwan, democratization led to “Taiwanization,” creating a historical identity that included aspects of history problems that were different from South Korea’s case. Beginning around 2005, however, the Japanese Supreme Court changed its interpretation of the segment of the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration that dealt with reparations, ultimately ruling that private citizens did not have the right to seek compensation from Japanese companies on an individual basis. This marked a significant shift in the role that Japan’s legal system played in resolving history problems.View PDF for the rest of the abstract
著者
丸川 知雄
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.67, no.2, pp.21-37, 2021-04-30 (Released:2021-05-28)
参考文献数
29

Studies on Chinese urban societies under the planned economy tend to use the Chinese term “danwei” to depict the self-contained features of urban firms. However, this study proposes to view them as “isolated societies” instead. The purpose of using this term is to shed light on the difference in the degree of isolation between various urban firms under the planned economy. The industrial firms erected under the “Third Front” program were the most isolated from their surroundings among Chinese firms, while those located in traditional industrial cities were less isolated.This study focuses on Shanghai’s “Small Third Front”, which consisted of 81 projects built by the Shanghai Municipal Government in the mountainous region of southern Anhui Province during the late 1960s and 1970s. It produced rocket ranchers and artillery shells for the military under the direction and support of the Shanghai Government. All inputs for production were either transported from Shanghai or supplied by specialized plants in the Small Third Front. Staples for the employees such as grain, meat, tobacco, sugar, and soap were also transported from Shanghai. The Small Third Front was thus isolated from its surrounding rural societies in its production and daily life.The Small Third Front was also isolated in marriage. Most of the employees married some other employee in the Small Third Front or left their spouses in Shanghai. Inter-marriage with the surrounding rural population was rare, because there were wide cultural gaps between the employees who came from Shanghai and the local population. Only 5 percent of married couples were between the employees and local rural residents.However, societal relationship gradually developed between the Small Third Front and local rural residents. Local peasants sold vegetables and eggs to the employees and used the facilities for the Small Third Front’s employees such as clinics, schools, and movie theaters. The Small Third Front provided cement, steel, electricity, water, and even money to the surrounding rural societies to maintain good relationship.The Small Third Front’s plants were transferred from Shanghai to Anhui Provincial Government during 1986 and 1988 and most of the employees that came from Shanghai returned to Shanghai. Tens of thousands of Anhui peasants went to Shanghai later for work, taking advantage of their connections with the former employees of Small Third Front. This fact reveals that the Small Third Front was not absolutely isolated from its surroundings.
著者
五十嵐 隆幸
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.66, no.4, pp.1-19, 2020-10-31 (Released:2020-11-19)
参考文献数
92

The period when Chiang Ching-kuo served as Premier of the ROC largely overlapped the process of normalization of US-PRC relations. How did the ROC government, which in effect relied on the US to defend “Taiwan” by the Mutual Defense Treaty signed in 1954, attempt to survive the security crisis of de-recognition from the US with the termination of the treaty? Meanwhile, the ROC government, which was leaving the UN and losing support from the international community, had maintained the “Unity of Offensive and Defensive” strategy. How did the ROC government consider about “Retaking the Mainland,” which aimed to restore lost land, as the legitimate China?The leaders of the ROC government and the military were deeply concerned about the trend of US-PRC normalization negotiations and aware of the day to come in the near future. However, hey hardly envisioned a situation in which the ROC would defend “Taiwan” independently after the “Expected de-recognition from the US.” Behind this was estimation of the PLA’s forces remaining at the stage of preventing “Retaking the Mainland.” (from the ROC military). Namely, the leaders of the ROC did not feel anxiety about “Defending Taiwan” on their own because there was no immediate danger in preparation for the PLA’s invasion of Taiwan.The ROC military officers had the realistic belief that conducting “Retaking the Mainland” was difficult, but they also strongly felt that it was their responsibility to accomplish the mission. Nonetheless, meanwhile, “Retaking the Mainland” was essentially the task of some special operations forces. Above all, the ROC government as a whole lacked awareness of achieving “Retaking the Mainland.” For this reason, even if the power struggle that unfolded after Mao’s death was considered a chance for counterattack, it was not possible to complete such task.Premier Chiang Ching-kuo had limitations in leading national defense development. He had virtually full control of the military shortly before taking office as premier, but he was on behalf of the President during Chiang Kai-shek’s life. Until then, he was assumed to have taken leadership in national defense development, as well as political reform and economic construction. Yet, those were to continue the orthodox of the emphasis of “Retaking the Mainland.” Shortly after Chiang Kai-shek’s death, Chiang Ching-kuo showed his vision for military reform, but it was implemented specifically only after he became the President in 1978 and seized control of the military’s supreme power, both in name and in reality.
著者
毛里 和子
出版者
一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
雑誌
アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.55, no.2, pp.70-84, 2009

In contrast to the image of a "moving China" outlined by the four previous papers, this article inquires into the possibility of a "stable China". The argument is that we can identify some elements of stubborn continuity behind the fast-changing façade of contemporary China. One such example is the <i>hukou zhidu </i>system (the system of residency permits) which has survived all the reforms of the past thirty years. Is there any useful model in conceptualizing these two seemingly contradictory aspects of contemporary China? The article offers four possible models, and suggests that the China-is-China model is the more promising.