Digital Commons Network^™

Conducting Ethnography In China, Leung-Sea, Lucia Siu

Prof. SIU Leung-sea, Lucia

Conducting ethnography in modern China can be highly fruitful, yet there are special-care items that seldom appear in methodology literature. Drawn from the author’s fieldwork in China’s futures markets in 2005, the first part of this paper discusses a list of practical items that ethnographers are likely to face: field access, the organizational culture of public and quasi-public institutions, obtaining trust, the scenarios of gifts and banquets, reliability of statistical data, politically sensitive areas, and personal safety.

The second part is a reflection on standpoint issues, namely Orientalism and nationalism. Ethnographers usually face tensions that arise from their roles, as …

Is Labor Really "Cheap" In China? Compliance With Labor And Employment Laws, Marisa Anne Pagnattaro

marisa pagnattaro

Abstract: This article details China’s the growing body of labor and employment laws. Specifically, this research analyzes major labor and employment law developments in China, including the newly adopted Labor Contract Law, employment discrimination sexual harassment, wages, workplace health and safety, worker privacy, and dispute resolution. The ramifications of this developing legal landscape on U.S. companies doing business in China are also discussed.

Poverty And Proximate Barriers To Learning: Vision Deficiencies, Vision Correction And Educational Outcomes In Rural Northwest China, Emily Hannum, Yuping Zhang

Emily C. Hannum

Few studies of educational barriers in developing countries have investigated the role of children’s vision problems, despite the self-evident challenge that poor vision poses to classroom learning and the potential for a simple ameliorative intervention. We address this gap with an analysis of two datasets from Gansu Province, a highly impoverished province in northwest China. One dataset is the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (GSCF, 2000 and 2004), a panel survey of 2,000 children in 100 rural villages; the other is the Gansu Vision Intervention Project (GVIP, 2004), a randomized trial involving 19,185 students in 165 schools in two …

Public Awareness Of Human Rights: Distortions In The Mass Media, Eric Heinze, Rosa Freedman

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

This article examines distortions of human rights reporting in the mass media. We examine human rights coverage in four of the most influential newspapers, two from the US and two from the UK. The US papers are The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The British papers are The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Most current scholarship on international human rights draws its information from specialized sources, such as the published reports of intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. Wholly absent has been any systematic study of the mass media. To date, no one has examined the dominant media agencies, …

Web Sites Created By Haiwang Yuan, Haiwang Yuan

Haiwang Yuan

This is a brief introduction to the web sites Haiwang Yuan created with actual links to the sites.

Gender And The Chinese Legal Profession In Historical Perspective: From Heaven And Earth To Rule Of Woman?, Mary Szto

Mary Szto

This article first discusses the current phenomenon of women judges and male lawyers in China. Many women have joined the ranks of the Chinese judiciary because this is considered a stable job conducive to caring for one’s family, as opposed to being a lawyer, which requires business travel and heavy client entertaining. I then trace this phenomenon to ancient views of Heaven, earth, gender and law in China. In this yin/yang framework, men had primary responsibility for providing sustenance for both this life and the life to come and women were relegated to the “inner chambers”. Also, law was secondary …

The Perils Of Foreign Contracating In China, Debra J. Reed

Debra J Reed

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether a business contract executed between a foreign party and a Chinese party is enforceable in the courts of the People’s Republic of China?

BRIEF ANSWER

Probably not. Foreign party reliance on Chinese courts to enforce their contracts is premature because China is not yet a rule of law country. Chinese courts do not exercise judicial independence. Political domination by the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, over the courts, and Chinese local protectionism both influence the outcome of cases. Moreover, the Chinese legal system is wrought with corruption. Because inexperienced judges adopt new laws at varying speeds and apply …

Electronic Contracting In China, Debra J. Reed

Debra J Reed

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether an electronically signed business contract between a Chinese and foreign party is legally valid under the 2005 Electronic Signature Law of the People’s Republic of China and is enforceable in China’s courts?

BRIEF ANSWER

An electronically signed business contract between a Chinese and foreign party is legally valid under the 2005 Electronic Signature Law of the People’s Republic of China, PRC. Statutorily, Chinese law enables electronic contracting by giving the same legal force to electronic signatures and data messages, as to traditional ink signatures and paper documents. Lack of payment systems, high costs to businesses of adopting …

Guiding The Censor’S Scissors: A Framework To Assess Internet Filtering, Derek E. Bambauer

Derek Bambauer

While China’s Internet censorship receives considerable attention, censorship in the United States and other democratic countries is largely ignored. The Internet is increasingly fragmented by states’ different value judgments about what content is unacceptable. States differ not in their intent to censor material – from political dissent in Iran to copyrighted songs in America – but in the content they target, how precisely they block it, and how involved their citizens are in these choices. Previous scholars have analyzed Internet censorship from various values-based perspectives, and have sporadically addressed key principles such as openness, transparency, narrowness, and accountability in evaluating …

Gendercide And The Cultural Context Of Sex Trafficking In China, Susan W. Tiefenbrun, Susan W. Tiefenbrun

Susan W Tiefenbrun

Abstract:Gendercide and the Cultural Context of Sex Trafficking in China

By Susan Tiefenbrun and Christie Edwards

Women in China are bought and sold, murdered and made to disappear in order to comply with a strict government One Child Policy that coincides with the cultural tradition of male-child preference and discrimination against women. Everyday “500 female suicides” occur in China because of “violence against women and girls, discrimination [against women] in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, the country’s birth limitation policies, and other societal factors…” As a result of a widespread and arguably systematic disappearance and death …

China: Re-Emerging, Not Rising, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

In late 1993 Nicholas Kristof argued in the pages of Foreign Affairs that “the rise of china, if it continues, may be the most important trend in the world for the next century”. Fifteen years later two things are clear: there is no longer any reason to wonder if China’s rise will continue and the impact of this surge in the East is now clearly the most important trend in international politics this century.

The Medium Of Exchange Paradigm: A Fresh Look At Compensated Live-Organ Donation, Dean Lhospital

Dean Lhospital

For over twenty years, human live-organ sales have been banned in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Observations and data arising from black market transactions and the few legal markets for organs suggest that permitting and regulating organ sales leads to more humane conditions than outlawing sales. Despite the data, opponents of organ sales still argue that selling human organs devalues human life. This article examines the panoply of organ markets – white, grey, and black – and identifies the source of this cognitive dissonance. Recognizing that there is a fundamental paradox in ethical objections, …

Forecasting The Storm: Power Cycle Theory And Conflict In The Major Power System, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

Unpredicted and unpredictable storms have cut a disastrous swathe through coastal communities in recent years. If the international relations system can be imagined as a peaceful coast, then conflict is the storm that wrecks havoc upon those in its path. One goal, then, of those within the discipline who study conflict is to forecast these international storms and, in power cycle theory, there exists a method which is of some utility to this end. This paper re-introduces power cycle theory, explaining its components and methodology before introducing the specific changes to the method that are the result of the author’s …

China’S New Anti-Monopoly Law: Big Trouble In Little China?, Henry C. Cheng

Henry C Cheng

China’s New Anti-monopoly Law: Big Trouble in Little China? addresses China’s new Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”) that became effective in August 2008, specifically the implications of provisions related to China’s state-owned enterprises ("SOEs"). It explores the legislative history of the AML and provides interpretations of the pertinent provisions.

In addition, the article is the first to synthesize competition laws from the U.S. and the European Community in order to apply them in another country. To achieve that, the author embarked on a comprehensive research on the development of competition laws in the US and the EC. There has been no work …

Human Rights And Harmony, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Russia And China: The (Re)Emergent Great Powers And The Impact In The World System, Dylan Kissane, Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues

Dylan Kissane

No abstract provided.

The Medium Of Exchange Paradigm: A Fresh Look At Compensated Live-Organ Donation, Dean Lhospital

Dean Lhospital

For over twenty years, human live-organ sales have been banned in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Observations and data arising from black market transactions and the few legal markets for organs suggest that permitting and regulating organ sales leads to more humane conditions than outlawing sales. Despite the data, opponents of organ sales still argue that selling human organs devalues human life. This article examines the panoply of organ markets – white, grey, and black – and identifies the source of this cognitive dissonance. Recognizing that there is a fundamental paradox in ethical objections, …

From Star Wars To Space Wars—The Next Strategic Frontier: Paradigms To Anchor Space Security, Jackson N. Maogoto, Steven Freeland

Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto

Military blueprints by major space-faring powers now encapsulate concepts of ‘space support’ and ‘force enhancement’ which point to a central role of space assets in facilitating military operations while notions of ‘space control’ and ‘force application’ suggest the weaponization of space, and the putative view that space may in the near future be a theatre of military operations. As defence goals increasingly focus on space as the final frontier evident in development of national missile defence systems, anti-satellite weapons and other space-based systems, international peace and security faces a new challenge. Creators of the current legal regime for space failed …

China And Climate Change: Domestic Environmental Needs, Differentiated International Responsibilities, And Rule Of Law Weaknesses, Patricia Ross Mccubbin

Patricia Ross McCubbin

China recently become the world’s largest emitter by volume of greenhouse gases. As the U.S. moves forward with domestic efforts to restrict its GHG emissions, some policymakers will continue to condition any U.S. obligations on China’s commitments to curb its own emissions. Fortunately, the opportunity exists for a mutually beneficial U.S.-China dialogue on this issue, since, as this article makes clear, China’s central government recognizes that climate change could cause devastating sea level rises that will affect major population centers in the country, as well as droughts and other natural disasters. The central government likewise understands that measures to reduce …

A Process Theory Of Natural Law And The Rule Of Law In China, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Mark C Modak-Truran

The Rule of Law faces critical challenges both at home and abroad. At home, legal indeterminacy and the ontological gap between legal theory and practice defy resolution by contemporary normative theories of law. Legal indeterminacy raises the specter that judicial decisions in hard cases are illegitimate (political not legal) because judges must rely on personal political, moral, or religious beliefs. The “ontological gap” between the practice of law, which presupposes a classical or religious ontology, and legal theory, which presupposes a scientific ontology (i.e., scientific materialism), further reveals the irrelevance of legal theory (including conceptions of the rule of law) …

Decentralizing Eligibility For A Federal Antipoverty Program, Martin Ravallion

Martin Ravallion

In theory, the informational advantage of decentralizing the eligibility criteria for a federal antipoverty program could come at a large cost to the program’s performance in reaching the poor nationally. Whether this happens in practice depends on the size of the local income effect on the eligibility cut-offs. China’s Di Bao program provides a case study. Poorer municipalities are found to adopt systematically lower thresholds—roughly negating inter-city differences in need for the program and generating considerable horizontal inequity, whereby poor families in rich cities fare better. The income effect is not strong enough to undermine the program’s overall poverty impact; …

How Relevant Is Targeting To The Success Of An Antipoverty Program?, Martin Ravallion

Martin Ravallion

Policy-oriented discussions often assume that “better targeting” implies larger impacts on poverty or more cost-effective interventions for fighting poverty. The literature on the economics of targeting warns against that assumption, but evidence has been scarce, and the lessons from the literature have often been ignored by practitioners. The paper shows that standard measures of targeting performance are uninformative, or even deceptive, about the impacts on poverty, and cost-effectiveness in reducing poverty, of a large cash transfer program in China. The results suggest that in program design and evaluation, it would be better to focus directly on the program’s outcomes for …

The Paradox Of Social Instability In China And The Role Of The Xinfang System, Matthew Adam Bruckner

Matthew Adam Bruckner

No abstract provided.

中国和新加坡一人公司:公司人格制度视角下的比较研究, Jianlin Chen, Rongjing Zhao

Jianlin Chen

中国和新加坡承认一人公司制度的时间和背景非常相似，然而中国的公司法制度下，一人公司被赋予明显区别于非一人公司的特殊制度安排，这与新加坡将两者之间的差别淡化处理的做法完全不同。在全球一体化的影响下，两大法系互相吸收融合的现象非常普遍。相比老牌英德等代表性国家，近年来新兴确立一人公司制度的中国和新加坡受法系融合影响尚小，可以更加清晰地体现两大法系的法人人格理论区别何在。本文通过对中国与新加坡一人公司制度的实体法规定，立法背景和法理依据进行分别研究，旨在比较理论和实务中两种制度安排的优势和弊端，取长补短，以此为一人公司制度的完善寻求新的法律途径。

Clash Of Corporate Personality Theories: A Comparative Study Of One-Member Company In China And Singapore, Jianlin Chen

Jianlin Chen

China accords the one-member company special treatment distinct from the normal company. This is in sharp contrast with Singapore's indifferent attitude towards one-member company vis-à-vis normal company. This paper critically examines these two distinct approaches including the respective substantive rules, legislative background and underlying jurisprudential theories. The respective advantages and limitations of the theories / approaches are then identified. The aim is to propose a new jurisprudential approach towards corporate personality which draws on the strength of the two theories while avoiding their pitfalls.

Reforming China’S Securities Civil Actions: Lessons From Us’S Pslra Reform And Taiwan’S Government Sanctioned Non-Profit Organization, Wallace Wen-Yeu Wang, Jianlin Chen

Jianlin Chen

In this paper, we analyze the different civil enforcement regimes of China, US and Taiwan to answer how China should reform her securities civil actions. Drawing on the latest scholarships and empirical studies, we examine the inadequacies of the US class actions in achieving the goals of deterrence and compensation and the implementation of PSLRA reform. The surprise finding on the active role by public institutional investors but passive role by private institutional investors is highlighted and discussed. Recognizing that efficiency of private attorney does not equate to efficiency of public good production and the importance of institutions motivated by …

China's "Ding Zi Hu", U.S.'S Kelo And Singapore's En-Bloc Process: A New Model For Economic Development Eminent Domain From A Giving's Perspective, Jianlin Chen

Jianlin Chen

This paper engages in a comparative study of the controversial exercise of economic development eminent domain by private developers in China, US and Singapore from a givings perspective. Such eminent domain has attracted substantial academic discussions in the U.S. and China but they have all missed a crucial aspect of the issue by merely focusing on the takings aspect. As dictated by the givings jurisprudence, it is only through ensuring that the private developers are not unjustly enriched by the eminent domain that the rent-seeking behavior and abuse can be nipped in the bud. Here, a new model based on …

Education In The Reform Era, Emily C. Hannum, Jere Behrman, Meiyan Wang, Jihong Liu

Jihong Liu

No abstract provided.

Attacking The Roots: Shiraishi Garments Company And An Evolving Thicket Of Business Ethics In China., Bin Jiang, Patrick J. Murphy

Patrick J. Murphy

This case examines management underpinnings of conducting socially purposeful business in contexts where the labor conditions and ethics are questionable. Shiraishi Garments Company was a Japanese entrepreneurial venture in the clothing industry that evolved into a highly successful multinational company. After its supply chain had extended into China, some ethical labor issues emerged. The decision point is focused squarely on the company’s CEO, who must deal with conflicting forces stemming from his personal values and professional responsibilities. In exploring the issues, the case illustrates business risks of superficial standards auditing of international operations. The case also describes how multinational firms …

Does Michigan Matter?, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle