Latest Posts

by SinoEconomics 29th Mar 2021
Agriculture

The development of China’s agrarian economy

For much of its history China’s agrarian economy has experienced involutionary growth due to high population density. However, since the Reform and Opening era, the emergence of a new agricultural model focused on the production of high-value products and the increase of cultivated land per worker has led to a certain degree of de-involution.

by SinoEconomics 14th Dec 2020
Governance

The politics of weak leadership

According to Han Gang 韩钢, political changes in China are not necessarily initiated by strong leaders but can also happen under the leadership of weak leaders 弱势领袖. Compared to strong leaders, the politics of weak leaders is characterized by flexibility, an accommodating and communicative stance, as well as by compromise.

by SinoEconomics 27th Nov 2020
Governance

China’s urban governance model in transformation

Huang and Zhou (2019) argue that due to the shift in urban local government’s policy imperatives from economic growth to social policy and social governance, the performance assessment of local officials has refocused itself on impression-based results. This translates itself into the emergence of a new competition mechanism – paired competition – between pairs of local governments and state agencies.