China in and beyond the Headlines

Timothy B. Weston, Lionel M. Jensen

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2012
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781442209060
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the third volume of this popular series, leading experts provide fascinating and unexpected insights into critical issues of culture, economy, politics, and society in today's China. This world, outside the reach of state control and either misunderstood or unreported in Western media, gains clarity and dimension from the fresh insights of a prominent group of activists, investigative journalists, lawyers, scholars, and travelers, who share a common interest in lessening the profound information gap between China and the rest of the world. In sixteen new essays, they address such key topics as civil society, consumerism, environmental adversity, ethnic tension, the Internet, legal reform, new media and social networking, nationalist tourism, sex and popular culture, as well the costs of urban gigantism to portray the complexity of life in contemporary China—and how, increasingly, it speaks to the everyday experience of Americans.

Contributions by: David Bandurski, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Gady Epstein, Andrew S. Erickson, Lionel M. Jensen, John Kamm, Wenquing Kang, Katherine Palmer Kaup, Travis Klingberg, Orion A. Lewis, Benjamin L. Liebman, Jonathan S. Noble, Tim Oakes, Jessica C. Teets, Alex L. Wang, and Timothy B. Weston.

Table of contents

• Chronology
• Table of Equivalent Measures and Administrative Units
• A Note on Romanization and Chinese Pronunciation
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction: China, the United States, and Convulsive Cooperation
• Part I: In the Headlines
• Chapter 1: Jousting with Monsters: Journalists in a Rapidly Changing China
• Chapter 2: Youth Culture in China: Idols, Sex, and the Internet
• Chapter 3: Dismantling the Socialist Welfare State: The Rise of Civil Society in China
• Chapter 4: Mutually Assured Destruction or Dependence? U.S. and Chinese Perspectives on China’s Military Development
• Chapter 5: China’s Environmental Tipping Point
• Chapter 6: China’s Historic Urbanization: Explosive and Challenging
• Chapter 7: The Worlds of China’s Intellectuals
• Chapter 8: Why Does China Fear the Internet?
• Part II: Beyond the Headlines
• Chapter 9: Producing Exemplary Consumers: Tourism and Leisure Culture in China’s Nation-Building Project
• Chapter 10: Professionals and Populists: The Paradoxes of China’s Legal Reforms
• Chapter 11: The Decriminalization and Depathologization of Homosexuality in China
• Chapter 12: The Evolution of Chinese Authoritarianism: Lessons from the “Arab Spring”
• Chapter 13: Culture Industry, Power, and the Spectacle of China’s “Confucius Institutes”
• Chapter 14: Tensions and Violence in China’s Minority Regions
• Chapter 15: An Unharmonious Society: Foreign Reporting in China
• Afterword: What Future for Human Rights Dialogues?
• About the Contributors