China's Long and Winding Road to Modernization


Book Description

This book adopts Austrian and evolutionary approaches to interpret contemporary China's economic transformation under uncertainty, learning and experimentation. It incorporates culture, institutions, government agents and entrepreneurship to understand policy making in China.




China’s Great Transformation


Book Description

This book examines how Confucian traditions have shaped modernity in East Asia. Ambrose Y. C. King discusses how China and East Asia developed a model of modern civilization distinct from the Western model of modernization, which involves not only a process of deconstructing the cultural tradition but also a process of reconstructing it. He shows how the experience of modernization diverges within different Chinese societies, namely Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Taiwan. By highlighting the impact of Confucianism, he argues that Confucianism contains the seeds of modernization and transformation, and that in the right institutional settings these seeds influence the course of development. King focuses on how Confucian ideas and values underpinning the foundation of East Asian societies, including social civility, political governance, the role of the family, and moral regulation, matter to the modern social and political transformations of Chinese societies today.




China's Authoritarian Path to Development


Book Description

This book examines the various stages of China’s development, in the economic, social, and political fields, relating theories and models of development to what is actually occurring in China, and discussing how China’s development is likely to progress going forward. It argues that China’s modernization hitherto can be characterized as "authoritarian development" – a fusion of mixed economic institutions of varying types of ownership with social stability and political cohesiveness – and that the present phase, where more emphasis is being given to social issues, is likely to lead on to a new phase where a more mature civil society and a more extensive middle class are likely to look for greater democratization. It presents an in-depth analysis of China’s changing social structure and civil society, explores the forces for and processes of democratization, and assesses the prospects for further democratization in the light of changing social structures.







China's Water Resources Management


Book Description

This book investigates water resources management and policy in China over the last two decades with a core focus on the role of water for socioeconomic development and sustainability. Recent policies, such as the Three Red Lines and the Water Ten Plan are evaluated for sustainable water supply, use and quality control. The book appraises solutions through demand management, water rights and pollution trading, virtual water and water footprint. Supply management is discussed taking examples from the Three Gorges Dam and the South North Water Transfer Project. The water market is investigated uncovering the active engagement of the private sector and includes discussions on how transboundary rivers demonstrate China’s engagement with its riparian countries for benefit sharing. This book will be an invaluable reference for researchers in the field as well as practitioners and students who have an interest in water and development in China.




Classical Chinese Medicine


Book Description

The English edition of Liu Lihong’s milestone work is a sublime beacon for the profession of Chinese medicine in the 21st century. Classical Chinese Medicine delivers a straightforward critique of the politically motivated “integration” of traditional Chinese wisdom with Western science during the last sixty years, and represents an ardent appeal for the recognition of Chinese medicine as a science in its own right. Professor Liu’s candid presentation has made this book a bestseller in China, treasured not only by medical students and doctors, but by vast numbers of non-professionals who long for a state of health and well-being that is founded in a deeper sense of cultural identity. Oriental medicine education has made great strides in the West since the 1970s, but clear guidelines regarding the “traditional” nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) remain undefined. Classical Chinese Medicine not only delineates the educational and clinical problems faced by the profession in both East and West, but transmits concrete and inspiring guidance on how to effectively engage with ancient texts and designs in the postmodern age. Using the example of the Shanghanlun (Treatise on Cold Damage), one of the most important Chinese medicine classics, Liu Lihong develops a compelling roadmap for holistic medical thinking that links the human body to nature and the universe at large.







East Asian Business Systems in Evolutionary Perspective


Book Description

Economic studies on East Asia economies in general and Chinese economies are not lacking. However, most studies hitherto adopt the conventional neo-classical economic approach. In particular, the Cobb-Douglas production function and/or theory of comparative advantage are often applied to explain economic growth of an Asian economy. In international business, Dunning's eclectic theory is also widely adopted to understand the pattern of foreign direct investments in East Asian economies. Yet it is generally agreed that the mainstream neo-classical approach has severe drawbacks and limitations. In particular, it does not consider the role of knowledge and uncertainty. Entrepreneurship, which is the true engine of growth, is largely missing in neo-classical economics. This book uses the evolutionary approach to analyse economic and business activities in East Asian economies. Specifically, the book focuses on knowledge and coordination problems and examines the role of entrepreneurship in economic affairs.




Higher Education in Post-Mao China


Book Description

Since the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, China has embarked upon the Four Modernizations reform programme that has transformed the social, economic and political landscape of the world's most populous nation. Higher education has been ascribed a key supporting role and has itself undergone major reforms. This book looks beyond the articulated goals and accomplishments of the modernization of higher education in China. It delves into the grass roots reality and identifies the true achievements, the unintended outcomes and the major obstacles that still have to be overcome. Incorporating twenty chapters from the new generation of scholars from inside and outside China, Higher Education in Post-Mao China presents in-depth analyses of the impact of educational reforms on tertiary educators, the curriculum, the economic structure, women, and students' values and aspirations. In conveying the Chinese experience of higher education reform over the past two decades, this book makes a major contribution to contemporary sinology and comparative education.