Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Political Economy Of Contract Farming In China’S Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

How does rural China’s political economy determine the motivations and constraints that drive small farmers and agribusiness companies into contract farming and shape its practice and impact? This paper identifies three distinctive features of contract farming in China—varied impact on rural inequality, unstable contractual relations, and lack of competitiveness with other alternatives—and proposes tentative explanations with three features in rural China’s political economy: strong collective institutions, active state support for agriculture, and strong domestic markets. The recent turn in China’s agrarian transition toward vertical integration of agriculture with industries is, however, undermining these conditions and may move China toward more …

The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John Andrew Donaldson

Qian Forrest ZHANG

The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.

Status And Hierarchy: A Framework For Understanding Stratification And Inequality In Today’S China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

Social hierarchies and inequality in a society are shaped by the modes of production that extract and transfer surplus among social groups. In China under socialism, the redistributive economy established a powerful tributary mode of production (TMP) that extracted surplus from rural areas to cities and from commoner producers to cadre-officials. This TMP created two fundamental hierarchies in socialist China: the urban-rural divide and the official-commoner divide, both of which were based on politically defined statuses. China’s post-socialist transition has led to both a resurgence of the traditional petty-commodity mode of production (PCMP) and the rise of a novel capitalist …

The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan

Qian Forrest ZHANG

The state-monopolised system of vegetable retail in socialist urban China has transformed into a market-based system run by profit-driven actors. Publicly owned wet markets not only declined in number after the state relegated its construction to market forces, but were also thoroughly privatised, becoming venues of capital accumulation for the market operators now controlling these properties. Self-employed migrant families replaced salaried state employees in the labour force. Governments’ increased control over urban public space reduced the room for informal markets, exacerbating the scarcity of vegetable retail space. Fragmentation in the production and wholesale systems restricted modern supermarkets’ ability to establish …

Proposed Anti-Spam Legislation Model In Singapore - Are We Losing The War Before Even Starting The Battle?, Warren B. Chik

Warren Bartholomew CHIK

Unsolicited messages have grown into an intractable parasite on the underbelly of an otherwise effectual and vibrant electronic communications regime. There has been a sudden surge in the enactment of anti-spam laws globally within the last couple of years. On 25 May 2004, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore jointly released a Consultation Paper on a Proposed Legislative Framework for the Control of E-mail Spam in Singapore. It is timely to consider the proposed anti-spam legislation model for Singapore in the light of such existing laws in other countries and their levels of effectiveness …

The Law Of International Commercial Arbitration In Singapore, Warren B. Chik

Warren Bartholomew CHIK

The Singapore dispute resolution landscape entered the new millennium with the reconstruction of the dual carriageway for arbitration. In 2002, the old road to arbitral resolution of disputes ( i.e. , the old Arbitration Act and the old International Arbitration Act ) were reconstructed and what emerged were two updated legislations: the Arbitration Act and the International Arbitration Act . At about the same time, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) also diversified with the introduction of a new set of Domestic Arbitration Rules.

The Paradox Of Gender Among West China Missionary Collectors, 1920-1950, Cory A. Willmott

Cory A. Willmott

During the turbulent years between the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 and the communist victory of 1949, a group of missionaries lived and worked in West China whose social gospel theologies led to unusual identification with Chinese. Among the regular social actors in their lives were itinerant “curio men” who, amidst the chaos of feuding warlords, gathered up the heirlooms of the deposed Manchurian aristocracy and offered these wares for sale on the quiet and orderly verandahs of the mansions inside the missionary compounds of West China Union University. Although missionary men and women often collected the same types of …

Is The Doctor On? In Search For Users Of Rural Medical Diagnostic Software In Central Himalayas, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

The Indian healthcare sector provides ripe ground for development as access to high-quality and timely medical diagnosis remains unrequited among its vast rural populace. With an acute shortage of doctors in rural areas, medical diagnostic software has been created as a surrogate, propelling non-physician workers to step in. For diagnostic software to function effectively, it is paramount to identify the user. Using an intended pilot programme of RightChoice software in the central Himalayas, the present article focuses on the political and economic complexities involved in identifying users of such software.

Mediating Christianity In Asia, Francis Khek Gee Lim

Francis Khek Gee Lim

No abstract provided.

Some Observations On The Weddings Of Tokugawa Shogun’S Daughters – Part 1, Cecilia S. Seigle Ph.D.

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

In this study I shall discuss the marriage politics of Japan's early ruling families (mainly from the 6th to the 12th centuries) and the adaptation of these practices to new circumstances by the leaders of the following centuries. Marriage politics culminated with the founder of the Edo bakufu, the first shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616). To show how practices continued to change, I shall discuss the weddings given by the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) and the eighth shogun Yoshimune (1684-1751). The marriages of Tsunayoshi's natural and adopted daughters reveal his motivations for the adoptions and for his choice of the daughters’ …

Dressing The Lumad Body: Indigenous Peoples And The Development Discourse In Mindanao, Cherubim A. Quizon

Cherubim A Quizon

Ch5: Japan And The Far East, Jon D. Carlson

Jon D. Carlson

No abstract provided.