Beyond the Middle Kingdom: Comparative Perspectives on China's Capitalist Transformation

Beyond the Middle Kingdom: Comparative Perspectives on China's Capitalist Transformation is the nineteenth title in the East-West Center book series, Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific, published by Stanford University Press.

This book breaks new ground by systematically examining China's capitalist transformation through several comparative lenses. The great majority of research on China to date has consisted of single-country studies. This is the result of the methodological demands of studying China and a sense of the country's distinctiveness due to its grand size and long history. The moniker Middle Kingdom, a direct translation of the Chinese-language word for China, is one of the most prominent symbols of the country's supposed uniqueness.

Composed of contributions from leading specialists on China's political economy, this volume demonstrates the benefits of systematically comparing China with other countries, including France, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Brazil, and South Africa. Doing so puts the People's Republic in a light not available through other approaches, and it provides a chance to consider political theories by including an important case too often left out of studies.

Scott Kennedy is Associate Professor, Departments of East Asian Languages & Cultures and Political Science, and Director, Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business, Indiana University. He is author of The Business of Lobbying in China (Harvard University Press, 2005) and editor of China Cross Talk: The American Debate over China Policy Since Normalization, A Reader (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). His current research projects are on the growing role of Chinese industry and government in global governance and on the evolution of corporate political activity in China.

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Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

1. Overcoming Our Middle Kingdom Complex: Finding China's Place in Comparative Political Economy
   Scott Kennedy
   
   PART ONE: CHINESE ECONOMIC REFORM AND THE VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM
   
   
2. Variety Within and Without: The Political Economy of Chinese Regulation
   Margaret M. Pearson
3. Developmental Dreams: Policy and Reality in China's Economic Reforms
   Arthur R. Kroeber
4. Crossing the River by Feeling for Stones or Carried Across by the Current? The Transformation of the Chinese Automotive Sector
   Andrew Wedeman
5. Welfare Policy Pathways Among Large Uneven Developers
   Mark W, Frazier
   
   PART TWO: INTEREST GROUPS IN AN AUTHORITARIAN CONTEXT
6. Fragmented Influence: Business Lobbying in China in Comparative Perspective
   Scott Kennedy
7. Comparing China's Capitalists: Neither Democratic Nor Exceptional
   Kellee S. Tsai
8. When Are Banks Sold to Foreigners? An Examination of the Politics of Selling Banks in Mexico, Korea, and China
   Victor Shih
   
   CONCLUSION
   
   
9. Placing China in Comparison: An Outsider's Perspective
   Gregory F. Kasza

Notes

List of Contributors

Index