When Xi Jinping's name appeared as the favorite to succeed Hu Jintao during the 17th Congress of the CCP in 2007, he was still relatively unknown. However, since taking power at the 18th Congress in 2012, he has emerged as a forceful leader with a distinctive style, encapsulated in his notion of the "Chinese Dream." Economic and legal reforms have been announced at the 3rd and 4th plenums of the 18th Central Committee and the leadership structure has been to some extent streamlined and reorganized, in conjunction with a major anti-corruption campaign. At the same time, most characteristics of the regime seem unchanged and commentators have expressed doubts about the enforcement of reforms. Xi Jinping has consolidated power by appealing to a variety of interest groups, referring at different times to "governing by the constitution" or "according to the law" as well as to notions from traditional Party ideology such as the "mass line" favored by Mao. This panel is devoted to assessing the structural and institutional changes that have taken place in China in the build-up to and the aftermath of the 18th Congress. It also marks the 100th issue of China Perspectives, our quarterly journal, which has been publishing academic research analyzing the political, social and economic changes in contemporary China for the last two decades.
Speakers
Fu Hualing (HKU): The Pitfall of Authoritarian Legal Reform
Kellee Tsai (HKUST): State Capitalism and Shadow Banking
Yan Xiaojun (HKU): State-Society Relations since the 18th Party C
Discussant: Sebastian Veg (CEFC)
Biographies
Fu Hualing is a professor of law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong. He graduated from the Southwestern University of Politics and Law in Chongqing and received post-graduate degrees in Canada. His research interest includes public law, human rights and legal institutions in China. He has published widely on Chinese legal institutions and human rights in China. Kellee S. Tsai is Professor and Head of the Division of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University (on leave, 2013-16). She is the author of State Capitalism, Institutional Adaptation, and the Chinese Miracle (with Barry Naughton, Cambridge UP, forthcoming), Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China (Cornell UP, 2007), Back-Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China (Cornell UP, 2002), and dozens of articles.
Yan Xiaojun is Associate Professor of Politics and Public Administration at The University of Hong Kong. He obtained his Bachelor of Law and Master of Law degrees from Peking University and an A.M. and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He is a comparative political scientist with special expertise in the politics of China. His articles are published in journals such as The China Quarterly, The China Journal, Journal of Contemporary China, Policy & Politics, Problems of Post-Communism. His article on China’s rural politics is awarded the 2012 Gordon White Prize by The China Quarterly for “the most original article or research report in the relevant year”.
Sebastian Veg is a research professor at the China Centre, School of advanced studies in social science (EHESS), Paris and director of the CEFC. His research interests are in 20th century Chinese literature, political debates and intellectual history. He is presently working on a book on Chinese intellectuals’ new role after 1989 and has recently published articles in China Quarterly, China Perspectives, Journal of Chinese Cinemas and Boundary 2.
Room Segalen, 25/F, Admiralty Centre, Tower 2, 18 Harcourt Road, Hong Kong (Admiralty MTR station, exit A)
