Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
This graduate seminar provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of the political economy of contemporary China. It examines the main theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of Chinese economic reform. After more than four decades of reform, China has emerged as one of the world's leading economic powerhouses. In the course of reforming its economy, China has experienced the fastest economic growth and social transformation in human history. To what extent, however, does China’s development follow the orthodox recipes prescribed by the literature on political economy? What exactly is the source of China’s economic growth over the past decades? What is the current state of the market institutions in China? How do we interpret China’s ascendancy economically and politically? How does Sino-U.S. competition affect China’s rise in the international economic system?
能力項目說明
(1) to familiarize students with empirical knowledge related to China’s development; (2) to provide students with theoretical tools to analyze Chinese political economy; and (3) to hone students’ analytical skills and improve their writing and presentation skills.
WEEK 1 Introduction
Suggested Reading
Arthur R. Kroeber. 2016. China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keyu Jin. 2023. The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism. New York: Viking.
Tao Wang. 2023. Making Sense of China’s Economy. New York: Routledge.
WEEK 2 Overview: Political Science and China’s Political Economy
Required Reading
Kellee, S. Tsai. 2013. “China’s Political Economy and Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics 11(3): 860-871.
Lily L. Tsai. 2017. “Bring in China: Insights for Building Comparative Political Theory.” Comparative Political Studies 50(3): 295-328.
Ling S. Chen. 2022. “Getting China’s Political Economy Right: State, Business, and Authoritarian Capitalism.” Perspectives on Politics 20(4): 1397-1402.
Suggested Reading
Kevin J. O’Brien. 2018. “Speaking to Theory and Speaking to the China Field.” Issues and Studies 54(4):184007-1-16.
蔡中民，2023，「美國政治學界的中國研究之延續、變遷與挑戰」，中國大陸研究 66(1): 85-107
WEEK 3 The Initiation and Process of Economic Reform
Required Reading
Dali L. Yang. 1996. “Governing China’s Transition to the Market: Institutional Incentives, Politicians’ Choices, and Unintended Outcomes.” World Politics 48(3): 424-452.
Andrew H. Wedeman. 2003. From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China. New York: Cambridge University. Chapters 1-3. (ebook)
Isabella M. Weber. 2020. “Origins of China’s Contested Relation with Neoliberalism: Economics, the World Bank, and Milton Friedman at the Dawn of Reform.” Global Perspectives 1(1): 12271.
Suggested Reading
Susan Shirk. 1993. The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Barry Naughton. 1995. Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Isabella M. Weber. 2021. How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. New York: Routledge.
WEEK 4 The Rural Economy
Required Reading
Jean C. Oi. 1999. Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chapters 1-2.
James Kai-sing Kung and Yi-min Lin. 2007. “The Decline of Township-and Village Enterprises in China’s Economic Transition.” World Development 35(4): 569-84.
Li Zhou, Hui Feng, and Xuan Dong. 2016. “From State Predation to Market Extraction: The Political Economy of China’s Rural Finance, 1979-2012.” Modern China 42(6): 607-637.
Suggested Reading
Susan Whiting. 1999. Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jean C. Oi. 1991. State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Yiqing Xu and Yang Yao. 2015. “Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China.” American Political Science Review 109(2): 371-391.
WEEK 5 The Urban Economy
Required Reading
Edward S. Steinfeld. 1999. Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-owned Industry. New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1.
Fulong Wu. 2002. “Urban Restructuring in China’s Emerging Market Economy: Towards a Framework for Analysis.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21(4): 640-663.
Meg Rithmire. 2017. “Land Institutions and Chinese Political Economy: Institutional Complementarities and Macroeconomic Management." Politics & Society 45 (1): 123-153.
Suggested Reading
Yimin Lin and Tian Zhu. 2001. “Ownership Restructuring in Chinese State Industry.” The China Quarterly 166: 305-41.
Carsten A. Holz. 2001. “Economic Reforms and State Sector Bankruptcy in China.” The China Quarterly 166: 342-67.
Chen Li. 2016. “Holding ‘China Inc.’ Together: The CCP and the Rise of China’s Yangqi.” China Quarterly 228: 927-949.
Wendy Leutert and Sarah Eaton. 2021. “Deepening Not Departure: Xi Jinping’s Governance of China’s State-owned Economy.” The China Quarterly 248: 200-221.
WEEK 6 Double Tenth Day
WEEK 7 The Private Sector
Required Reading
Kellee Tsai. 2005. “Capitalists without a Class: Political Diversity among Private Entrepreneurs in China.” Comparative Political Studies 39 (November): 1130-1158.
Bruce J. Dickson. 2008. Wealth into Power: The Communist Party’s Embrace of China’s Private Sector. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1.
Yue Hou. 2019. The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 1-3.
Suggested Reading
Kellee S. Tsai. 2002. Back-Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bruce J. Dickson. 2003. Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospect for Political Change. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Victor Nee and Sonja Opper. 2012. Capitalism from Below: Markets and Institutional Change in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Chapters 1-2.
Nicholas R. Lardy, 2014. Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China. Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics.
WEEK 8 Mid-term Review
Research topic and research question due!!
WEEK 9 China’s Regulatory State
Required Reading
Margaret M. Pearson. 2005. “The Business of Governing Business in China: Institutions and Norms of the Emerging Regulatory State.” World Politics 57(2): 296-322.
Chung-min Tsai. 2014. “Regulating China's Power Sector: Creating an Independent Regulator without Autonomy.” The China Quarterly 218: 452-473.
Chen Li, Huanhuan Zheng and Yunbo Liu. 2022. “The Hybrid Regulatory Regime in Turbulent Times: The Role of the State in China’s Stock Market Crisis in 2015-2016.” Regulation & Governance 16: 392-408.
Suggested Reading
Dali L. Yang. 2004. Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China. Stanford, C.A.: Stanford University Press, Chapters 2, 5, and 6.
Roselnyn Hsueh. 2011. China’s Regulatory State: A New Strategy for Globalization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
WEEK 10 Tax Reform
Required Reading
Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lű. 2003. Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 1 & 8. (ebook)
Hongbin Cai and Daniel Treisman. 2006. “Did Government Decentralization Cause China’s Economic Miracle?” World Politics 58(4): 505-535.
An Chen. 2014. “How Has the Abolition of Agricultural Taxes Transformed Village Governance in China? Evidence from Agricultural Regions.” The China Quarterly 219: 715-735.
Suggested Reading
Yingyi Qian, Hehui Jin, and Barry R. Weingast. 2005. “Regional Decentralization and Fiscal Incentives: Federalism, Chinese Style.” Journal of Public Economics 89(9-10): 1719-1742.
Jing Vivian Zhan. 2011. “Explaining Central Intervention in Local Extra-Budgetary Practices in China.” Asian Survey 51(3): 497-519.
Hiroki Takeuchi. 2014. Tax Reform in Rural China: Revenues, Resistance, and Authoritarian Rule. New York: Cambridge University Press. (ebook)
Changdong Zhang. 2021. Governing and Ruling: The Political Logic of Taxation in China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
WEEK 11 The Financial System
Required Reading
Victor Shih. 2007. “Partial Reform Equilibrium, Chinese Style: Political Incentives and Reform Stagnation in Chinese Financial Policies.” Comparative Political Studies 40(10): 1238-1262.
Martin Chorzempa and Yiping Huang. 2022. “Chinese Fintech Innovation and Regulation.” Asian Economic Policy Review 17: 274-292.
Suggested Reading
Loren Brandt, Hongbin Li, and Joanne K. Roberts. 2005. “Banks and Enterprise Privatization in China.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 21(2): 524-546.
Victor Shih. 2008. Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sarah Eaton and Zhang Ming. 2010. “A Principal-agent Analysis of China’s Sovereign Wealth System: Byzantine by Design.” Review of International Political Economy 17(3): 481-506.
WEEK 12 Foreign Trade and Investment
Required Reading
Yasheng Huang. 2003. Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment during the Reform Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1.
Scott Kennedy. 2005. “China’s Porous Protectionism: The Changing Political Economy of Trade Policy.” Political Science Quarterly 120(3): 407-432.
Yumin Sheng. 2007. “Global Market Integration and Central Political Control: Foreign Trade and Intergovernmental Relations in China,” Comparative Political Studies.” 40(4): 405-34.
Suggested Reading
Nicolas R. Lardy. 2002. Integrating China into the Global Economy. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
William J. Norris. 2016. Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control. New York: Cornell University Press.
Min Ye. 2020. The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China, 1998-2018. New York: Cambridge University Press.
WEEK 13 Labor Politics
Required Reading
Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan. 1995. , “China, Corporatism, and the East Asian Model,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 33: 29-53.
Ching Kwan Lee and Eli Friedman. 2010. “Remaking the World of Chinese Labor: A Thirty Year Retrospective” British Journal of Industrial Relations 48(3): 3-17.
Sarah Swider. 2015. “Building China: Precarious Employment among Migrant Construction Workers.” Work, Employment and Society 29(1): 41-59.
Suggested Reading
Mary Elizabeth Gallagher. 2005. Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. Princeton University Press.
Ching Kwan Lee. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protest in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.
William Hurst. 2009. The Chinese Worker after Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
WEEK 14 Industrial Policy
Required Reading
Carsten A Holz. 2018. “Industrial Policies and the Chinese Patterns of Investment in the Chinese Economy.” The China Journal 81: 23-57.
Yingyao Wang. 2021. “Policy Articulation and Paradigm Transformation: The Bureaucratic Origins of China’s Industrial Policy.” Review of International Political Economy 28(1): 204-231.
Ya-Wen Lei. 2023. The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China. New Jersey, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 1.
Suggested Reading
Sebastian Heilmann and Lea Shih, 2013, “The Rise of Industrial Policy in China, 1978-2012.” Harvard-Yenching Institute Working Paper Series 17 (7).
Ling Chen and Barry Naughton, 2016, “An Institutionalized Policy-making Mechanism: China’s Return to Techno-industrial Policy.” Research Policy 45: 2138-2152.
Yifan Wei, Yuen Yuen Ang and Nan Jia. 2023. “The Promise and Pitfalls of Government Guidance Funds in China.” The China Quarterly 256: 939-959.
WEEK 15 Corruptions
Required Reading
Xueliang Ding. 2000. “Illicit Asset Stripping of Chinese State Firms.” The China Journal 43: 1-28.
Kilkon Ko and Cuifen Weng. 2012. “Structural Changes in Chinese Corruption,” The China Quarterly 211: 718-740.
Yuen Yuen Ang. 2020. China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1-2.
Suggested Reading
Xiaobo Lu. 2000. Cadres and Corruption: The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Melanie Manion. 2004. Corruption by Design: Building Clean Government in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Yan Sun. 2004. Corruption and Market in Contemporary China. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
WEEK 16 China and Global Economy
Required Reading
Edward S. Steinfeld. 2010. Playing Our Game: Why China’s Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapters 1-2.
David Shambaugh. 2013. China Goes Global: the Partial Power. New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 4.
Deborah Bräutigam and Kevin P. Gallagher. 2014. “Bartering Globalization: China’s Commodity-backed Finance in Africa and Latin America.” Global Policy 5(3): 346-352.
Suggested Reading
Margerat M. Pearson and Gregory Chin. Eds. 2013. Special Issue on “International Political Economy in China: The Global Conversation,” Review of International Political Economy 20(6).
Yiping Huang. 2016. “Understanding China’s Belt & Road Initiative: Motivation, Framework and Assessment.” China Economic Review 40: 314-321.
G. John Ikenberry and Darren J. Lim. 2017. “China’s Emerging Institutional Statecraft: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Prospects for Counter-hegemony,” Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings.
David Dollar, Yiping Huang, and Yang Yao Eds. 2020. China 2049: Economic Challenges of A Rising Global Power. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute.
Your final grade will be determined by the following criteria:
Class participation 40%
Response memos 30% (due at Moodle by 2 am each Monday)
Research proposal 30% (due on Dec. 15, 2025)