China in and Beyond the Headlines

Description

In the third volume of this popular series, leading experts provide fascinating and unexpected insights into critical issues of culture, economy, politics, and society in today's China. This world, outside the reach of state control and either misunderstood or unreported in Western media, gains clarity and dimension from the fresh insights of a prominent group of activists, investigative journalists, lawyers, scholars, and travelers, who share a common interest in lessening the profound information gap between China and the rest of the world. In sixteen new essays, they address such key topics as civil society, consumerism, environmental adversity, ethnic tension, the Internet, legal reform, new media and social networking, nationalist tourism, sex and popular culture, as well the costs of urban gigantism to portray the complexity of life in contemporary China—and how, increasingly, it speaks to the everyday experience of Americans.Contributions by: David Bandurski, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Gady Epstein, Andrew S. Erickson, Lionel M. Jensen, John Kamm, Wenquing Kang, Katherine Palmer Kaup, Travis Klingberg, Orion A. Lewis, Benjamin L. Liebman, Jonathan S. Noble, Tim Oakes, Jessica C. Teets, Alex L. Wang, and Timothy B. Weston. Contents Chronology ix Table of Equivalent Measures and Administrative Units xv List of Figures and Tables xvii A Note on Romanization and Chinese Pronunciation xix Preface and Acknowledgments xxiii Maps xxvii Introduction: China, the United States, and Convulsive Cooperation 1 Lionel M. Jensen and Timothy B. Weston Part I: In the Headlines 27 1 Jousting with Monsters: Journalists in a Rapidly Changing China 29 David Bandurski 2 Youth Culture in China: Idols, Sex, and the Internet 50 Jonathan S. Noble 3 Dismantling the Socialist Welfare State: The Rise of Civil Society in China 69 Jessica C. Teets vii Book 1.indb vii 5/30/12 11:45 AM viii Contents 4 Mutually Assured Destruction or Dependence? U.S. and Chinese Perspectives on China’s Military Development 87 Andrew S. Erickson 5 China’s Environmental Tipping Point 112 Alex L. Wang 6 China’s Historic Urbanization: Explosive and Challenging 134 Timothy B. Weston 7 The Worlds of China’s Intellectuals 154 Timothy Cheek 8 Why Does China Fear the Internet? 173 Susan D. Blum Part II: Beyond the Headlines 193 9 Producing Exemplary Consumers: Tourism and Leisure Culture in China’s Nation-Building Project 195 Travis Klingberg and Tim Oakes 10 Professionals and Populists: The Paradoxes of China’s Legal Reforms 214 Benjamin L. Liebman 11 The Decriminalization and Depathologization of Homosexuality in China 231 Wenqing Kang 12 The Evolution of Chinese Authoritarianism: Lessons from the “Arab Spring” 249 Orion A. Lewis 13 Culture Industry, Power, and the Spectacle of China’s “Confucius Institutes” 271 Lionel M. Jensen 14 Tensions and Violence in China’s Minority Regions 300 Katherine Palmer Kaup 15 An Unharmonious Society: Foreign Reporting in China 317 Gady Epstein Afterword: What Future for Human Rights Dialogues? 332 John Kamm Index 343 About the Contributors 351