There is extensive interest in how deliberative democracy can be institutionalized, in particular through forms of democratic innovation that directly engage citizens in the political process. This paper analyses two aspects of this ″institutional turn″. First, through a comparison of mini-publics and participatory budgeting, it shows how the design of any democratic innovation involves trade-offs between deliberative democratic goods. Second, it reflects on the pressing question of how democratic innovations can be integrated more effectively into the political system. The article concludes that the focus on institutionalization provides an important critical perspective on current debates on deliberative systems.

In the previous ten years, rural tourism has been the primary choice for most tourists from urban areas. At the same time, rural tourism industry is regarded as an important catalyst for rural revitalization. Despite its rapid development, series of problems regarding product, service and rural environment come into being. These problems result from ″the lag in the modern management capability of individual operators″ in the process of the development of agriculture, countryside and farmers. Rural tourism in China is largely dependent on rural community, and thus is inseparable from community support. In this sense, rural tourism development should be not only rich in tourism resources, but also in culture and connotation of community. Previous researches regarding residents’ supporting attitude towards tourism can be divided into macro and micro levels. Macro researches generally followed the ″economy-culture-environment″ perspective and are concerned with the impact of residents’ perception on their attitude towards tourism development. In contrast, micro researches focused more on tourist satisfaction, community involvement, and place attachment, which may also impact residents’ attitude. Overall, residents’ perception of the impact from tourism is still the mainstream of studying the residents’ supporting attitude towards tourism. Recent researches have started to pay attention to the role of knowledge transfer in the formation of community residents’ attitudes towards tourism. Theoretically, knowledge transfer is carried out through the social network, which is closely related to the social capital of the subject and object of knowledge transfer. Therefore, by introducing social capital theory, this study tries to construct and test the relationship modal of social capital, knowledge transfer and residents’ supporting attitude towards tourism. Three rural communities in northern Zhejiang Province were selected, and data was collected through in-depth interviews and questionnaires, and analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling with the assistance of AMOS 17.0 software package. It is found that:(1) interpersonal trust, reciprocal cooperation and shared vision positively affect knowledge transfer by overcoming the conflict between individual rationality and collective rationality; (2) Interpersonal trust and reciprocal cooperation help residents to change their role from an ″individual rational person″ to a ″social man″ and thereby positively affect their supporting attitude towards tourism;(3) knowledge transfer has a positive impact on residents’ supporting attitude towards tourism by promoting the residents’ tourism innovation ability and management ability and the benefits from tourism development. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that the community establish cooperating groups and learning groups to increase residents’ support for tourism, promote knowledge transfer, and further promote the sustainable development of residents and communities. Meanwhile, tourism departments should play the role of knowledge intermediaries in tourism development. The major contributions of this study include: (1) It changes the previous research paradigm regarding residents’ perceptions on tourism impact as the main factor of residents’ supporting attitude towards tourism, and introduces the concept and theory of knowledge transfer into the research of residents’ attitude, which may provide a new perspective.(2) Previous studies mostly emphasized the role of an ″individual rational person″ in the development of community tourism, while ignoring its role as a ″social person″. By introducing social capital theory, this study treats community residents as ″social persons″ embedded in the network of community relationships, and thus may more comprehensively explain the degree of residents’ participation in and support of for tourism.(3) The applications of knowledge transfer theory in tourism research are mostly focused on hotels and tourist attractions. By focusing on the rural community of individuals or families, small businesses or social organizations, this study expands the application of knowledge transfer theory in tourism research.

Stage outsourcing behavior of rice producers has become increasingly important because of the rapid transformation of China’s countryside,which includes the rapid development of land rental markets, village labor out-migration and use of farm machines. However, few studies have addressed this issue using a theoretical framework. We set out to fill this gap in the literature by developing a theoretical model that integrates determinants of rice farmers’ outsourcing behavior and number of rice growing stages outsourced, and use a Probit model and a Poisson model to estimate them at both the growing season-level and the household-level, respectively. Moreover, a multivariate probit model is used to determine whether outsourcing decisions are made at different stages in isolation or if they are related. In particular, we use 2011 data from 325 rice farmers in Jiangxi Province and 2007 data from 307 rice farmers from the same group. The survey covered 8 rice-growing stages over multiple growing seasons. Descriptive and regression results show that (1) stage outsourcing in rice production is a common phenomenon, especially for labor-intensive stages, with technology-intensive stages still generally involving on family labor. (2) Rice farmers with different production scales utilize different outsourcing modes with small-scale rice farmers typically outsourcing labor-intensive stages, while large-scale rice farmers exhibit a higher proportion of technology-intensive stage outsourcing. (3) Focusing on the season-level instead of on the household-level improves rice production outsourcing research by preventing the loss of useful information through the process of data aggregation, which often produces inaccurate results. (4) Multivariate probit model regression results show that outsourcing decisions made at different rice production stages are related, and are not made in isolation. (5) Different factors affect outsourcing decisions at different kind of rice production stages. In general, not only growing non-farm employment opportunities and rising non-farm incomes facilitate rice farmer stage outsourcing, but also reducing outsourcing prices will increase the proportion of outsourcing taking place at each rice production stage. In light of these findings, it is suggested that specialized rice farmers and farmers’ cooperative organizations be gradually developed and encouraged to provide organized services related to seedlings provision and pests and diseases control, etc. As for the traditional and wasteful modes of paddy drying, policy financing and purchasing subsidies should be provided to large rice farmers, mills, and farmers’ cooperatives for dryer purchase, so as to raise the mechanization level in the drying stage of rice production, as well as to safeguard food safety and quality.

Technology spillover from outward foreign direct investment is one of the important ways to improve technological progress of the home country. Previous studies focused mainly on the spillover effects of technology from the host country to the home country, but paid little attention to the inter-provincial diffusion effect of these technologies. In fact, the absorption of foreign technology by a single enterprise cannot lead to national innovation. The major way of improving national innovation capability is to exchange technology inter-provincially. Furthermore, the international trade protectionism has made domestic technology transfer a particularly important way to achieve technological progress. However, previous studies of outward foreign direct investment discussed only the existence or non-existence of regional diffusion effect. They didn’t measure the diffusion, nor did they study the influencing factors of the diffusion process. To address this issue, we use Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2013 to carry out a two-step study: Firstly, on the basis of discussing the reverse technology spillover effect of outward foreign direct investment, we measured the inter-provincial diffusion capacity. Secondly, we studied the impacts of bilateral product trade barriers, technology trade barriers and talent flow barriers on the spillover of inter-provincial diffusion of OFDI reverse technology. The first empirical study shows that there are two channels of OFDI reverse technology spillover: R&D spillover and absorption effect. Provinces which absorb technology spillovers will spread the technology to neighboring provinces. Two conclusions are found in the study of the diffusion. The first is that the two main reasons for the recent increase in diffusion are the increase of OFDI reverse technology spillover and the strengthening of inter-provincial trade. The second is that in the diffusion ranking, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta industrial zone and the proliferation of regional transport hub rank top. The third is that after the recent financial crisis, regional transport, rather than the spillover volume, plays an increasingly important role in the diffusion of OFDI reverse technology spillover. According to the above conclusions, in the second empirical study we select five provinces as central provinces which spread OFDI reverse technology spillover. The results are as follows: (1) Technological spreads of central provinces are negatively affected by the provincial trade barriers. Product trade barriers will reduce inter-provincial sales of new products and the formation of inter provincial industrial associations, which reduces the inter-provincial spillover of technology. Technology trade barriers reduce spillover of technology by increasing the contract cost of technology trading. Talent flow barriers add to the difficulty of talents dispatch, which weakened the inter-provincial absorption of technologies. (2) The reception of OFDI technology spillover by other provinces is negatively affected by multiple trade barriers. Product trade barriers hinder products of central provinces selling to this area, which reduces technology spreading. Technology trade barriers reflect the defects of the technology reception provinces’ technology trading market, and the lack of technology trading incentive reduces technology from flowing in. Talent flow barriers reflect the low absorption capability of technology reception provinces and obviously have negative effects on technology spreading. (3) The OFDI reverse technology spillover from R&D spillover and absorption effects are similarly affected by trading barriers. In both ways the OFDI reverse technology spillover will ultimately be solidified into specific technologies or innovative products, and thus be affected by the three bilateral trade barriers in the same way.

Administrative litigation retrial reasons are the standards of review to start the retrial procedure. The maintenance to res judicata is the premise when the retrial reasons are stipulated. In the meantime, the following principles should be insisted on: more severe errors in the court referee, the clear expression of retrial reasons and the close scope of retrial reasons. Based on the above standard, this paper analyzes the new administrative procedure law from two aspects. Firstly, the retrial reasons are analyzed from the form. This paper points out that the inconsistency statements about the retrial reasons in the new administrative procedural law among three main subjects, the parties, the court, and the procuratorate, are harmful. Secondly, the content of retrial reasons of the new administrative litigation is analyzed, especially the following six retrial reasons. Namely, the retrial reason for ″refusing to register or rejecting pleadings because of the court’s fault″, the retrial reason for ″new evidence enough to overthrow the original judgment or written order″, the retrial reason for ″the main evidence for ascertaining the facts by the original judgment or written order is not sufficient and not cross-examined or falsified″, the retrial reason for ″the laws and regulations are mistakenly used in the original judgment or written order″, the retrial reason for ″the litigation procedure in violation of laws may affect a fair trial″, the retrial reason for conciliation statement. These reasons are too general and broad to accurately grasp in practice because of their lack of clarity, concreteness, and objectivity. As a result, the stability of legal relations affirmed by the court’s efficient decision and judgment will be threatened, and the res judicata of the court judge will be severely affected, and the seriousness and authority of law will be damaged in the end. And also, the system of two-tier appellate will be malfunctioned, and the limited judicial resources will be wasted, and the opposing party will be reduced to the endless litigation. On the basis of the above research and through absorbing and drawing lessons from foreign experience about the retrial reasons for administrative litigation and combining the characteristics of administrative litigation in China, this article puts forward the suggestions on the establishment of the retrial reasons for administrative litigation,as follows. In the premise of the stability of the new administrative procedure law, the explanatory amendment of the retrial reasons for new administrative procedure law should be done in order to eliminate the vagueness and uncertainty and to ensure that the retrial reasons be listed maneuverable and clearly, by way of judicial interpretation by the Supreme People’s Court. On the basis of the maintenance of the res judicata, the standards should be the seriousness about the mistakes in the referee documents, the clarity of the statement, the limited scope, and the uniformity among the parties, court, procuratorate. At present, the research on retrial reasons for the administrative procedure law is much less than that of civil suit retrial reasons, especially on the retrial reasons for the new administrative procedure law. Therefore, this in-depth research on the retrial reasons for that law boasts high theoretical value and practical importance.

Overseas Chinese refer to those who have resided abroad but still keep Chinese nationalities, including those who have emigrated from China to foreign countries and those who were born in foreign countries. They have been an important political and economic force in the historical period of revolution and construction in New China. It is well-known that early overseas Chinese mostly lived in South-East Asian countries, but the number of new overseas Chinese has been rapidly increasing in European countries, as well as in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and other developed countries since China carried out the reform and opening up policy. These new overseas Chinese are playing more and more important roles in politics, economics, science, cultures all over the world, becoming not only the major objects of overseas affairs for the Chinese government, but also the bridges of better understandings between China and the whole world. As there exist drawbacks in the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Overseas Chinese, there have been frequent cases when the rights and interests of overseas Chinese are infringed upon, so it is necessary to enact an improved law to protect the political and economic rights and interests of overseas Chinese. This article includes three parts. Part One is concerned with the importance of protecting the political rights and interests of overseas Chinese, which is in accordance with the strategic demands of ″One Belt, One Road (OBOR)″ and with China’s national interest, and reveals that the right to vote and the right to be elected is the citizen’s political rights stipulated in the constitution of our country. However, the current fragmented system is hard for overseas Chinese to rely on in terms of the protection for their political rights and interests. Part Two discusses our proposal of how to construct the data base of overseas Chinese voters. Whether they reside at home or abroad, they may register in the election districts in China or in the election districts in foreign countries. The Chinese government, Chinese embassies and consulates abroad should establish the data base of overseas Chinese as early as possible. In order to exercise the suffrage of overseas Chinese, the data base may be classified by their professions, and should include the following information of voters like name, gender, date of birth, political affiliation, country of permanent residence, occupation, numbers of passport and identity card, etc. The authors suggest that the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council should authorize (or accredit) political and legal counselors in embassies or consulates abroad the right to examine and approve the overseas Chinese status which is the basis for voters to propose or vote for overseas candidates as deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC) or to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Part Three mainly expounds on how to implement the specific measures to protect the suffrage of overseas Chinese. According to International Migration Law, there are two types of overseas Chinese constituency: one is that the members of Congress might be elected by their respective constituencies in a direct election; and the other is that the overseas Chinese election districts can be divided by the voters’ residing countries, or divided by the voters’ population size. In the authors’ view point, the latter method would be more operable so as to assure the constitutional principle of ″one-man one-vote″. There are three election methods for the overseas Chinese voters: (1) They may choose the on-the-spot vote wherever at home or abroad. (2) They may vote by mail, telephone, email, fax, etc. if it is inconvenient for them to vote on the spot. (3) They may also vote on the designated website on the condition that the voter’ status has been checked in advance. These flexible voting methods can encourage more overseas Chinese to take part in the political activities and protect their right to vote. To protect the suffrage of overseas Chinese will not only be profitable for reforming the socialist political democratic system in China, but also be helpful to carry out the ″OBOR″ strategic plan as well as to further consolidate and develop the patriotic united front in the new era.

The Award of the South China Sea Arbitration was issued on 12, July, 2016. The Award has a lot of legal arbitration fallacies in the identification of historic rights and rocks as well as other serious flaws on many legal issues. (1) Historic rights of China in the South China Sea are deeply rooted in international customary law and should not be interpreted and modified according to the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea. The Award of the South China Sea Arbitration denies China’s claims to historic rights within the South China Sea on the basis of the wrong interpretation of the article 298(1)a(i) and the article 311 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea. This is a mistake in applying articles of UNCLOS. (2) The Award of the South China Sea Arbitration considers that China’s relevant rights comprise a claim to historic rights to living and non-living resources within the Nine-Dash Line. The United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea does not include any express provisions preserving or protecting historic rights which are at variance with the Convention. The Tribunal considers the text and context of UNCLOS to be clear in superseding any historic rights that a state may once have had in the area that now forms part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of another state. Furthermore, the Tribunal considers that the Convention is clear in according sovereign rights to the living and non-living resources of the exclusive economic zone to the coastal state alone. For China’s relevant rights comprise a claim to historic rights to living and non-living resources within the Nine Dash Lines, partially in areas that would otherwise comprise the exclusive economic zone or continental shelf of the Philippines. The Tribunal cannot agree with this position. Obviously and objectively, the Tribunal takes step into the situation of involvement in the maritime delimitation between China and the Philippines. But according to article 298 (1) of UNCLOS, the Arbitral Tribunal has no jurisdiction over the disputes concerning maritime delimitation. (3) Although the historical records have shown that some fishermen had been living on features of Nansha, China, the Tribunal considers that it cannot be considered to form a settled community on Spratly Islands because there was no description of conditions on the features suggesting that the population intended to reside permanently among the islands. Furthermore, commercial activities over these features comprise of mining and fishing which are centered on the sea areas adjacent to the feature and belonging to natural harvest, using offshore resources instead of features themselves. Distant fishermen exploited the territorial seas surrounding a small rock and made no use of the feature itself. However, they would not suffice to give the feature an economic life of its own. Nor would an enterprise be devoted to extracting the mineral resources of the seabed adjacent to such a feature and making no use of the feature itself. None of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands is capable of sustaining human habitation or an economic life of their own. Such features are rocks and shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. Thus, the Tribunal wrongfully interprets and applies the article 121 (3) of UNCLOS, adding a new subjective element into the phrase of ″human habitation″. Eventually, the Tribunal judges whether marine features have the ability to maintain human habitation or their own economic activities by ″if there exited a stable community in history″. Moreover, there exist many logical doubts in the Award. (4) As a response, China should reveal the illegality of Award by issuing government white papers and research reports with careful legal analysis of the South China Sea Award developed by independent institutions. At the same time, it should actively promote re-examining the position of Annex Ⅶ in UNCLOS by the international society, seeking to modify the compulsory arbitration framework in Annex Ⅶ and play an important role in making UNCLOS more perfect.

Similar to many other countries, the populations of singles in China have been rapidly increasing. The rise of single population is mainly driven by the advanced education and economic empowerment-singles intentionally postpone their marriage or even choose to stay unmarried because marriage seems to offer few incentives for personal development. This effect is particularly strong for single women, especially professional women. The proportion of never-married women aged between 25 and 29 in China has risen by 13% whereas the proportion of singles aged above 25 only increases by 1% from 2000 to 2010. Despite such significant changes, marriage norms remain strong in China. Confucian values consider settling down as a prerequisite of better career development and family welfare. The accelerating aging process also calls for more marriages, which presumably would booster the already low fertility rate. It has been widely documented that Chinese single women face significantly more pressure than Chinese single men, mainly for failing to fulfill the traditional gender role. While acknowledging the oppressive reality, most studies use a dichotomization perspective that considers gender as the most defining factor in creating the dilemma of Chinese single women. In this paper, we argue that there is a more significant complexity in the production of oppressive reality. Indeed, single women in different age groups, with different education levels or in different social classes have different experiences when they negotiate for their single identity. We instead introduce the intersectionality framework, which argues that gender interacts with other social identity/divisions (e.g., class, age, education, religion) to create multi-layered oppression and discrimination. Such intersectional oppression occurs on multiple and often simultaneous levels, and is deeply embedded in various interpersonal processes (e.g., social exclusion for single women), bureaucratic practices (e.g., single enjoy less rights and welfare), hierarchical structures (e.g., single women with higher socioeconomic status have more negotiation power), and hegemonic ideologies (e.g., women need to respect masculinity and patriarchy in marriage or family). The paper later extensively discusses how the intersectional oppression is manifested on macro-, meso- and micro- levels in the context of mainland China. On the macro-level, the intersecting influences mostly operate via ideological forces, policy-making and institutional acts. Confucianism continuously defines a set of subordinate controlling images for Chinese women. Young women are expected to pursue certain life events in a given sequence. State power is a critical agent in creating institutional oppression for single women. In general, there is little recognition of this population in terms of social policy and legislation. On the contrary, the aging process even motivates Chinese government to privilege marriage and cultivate hostile public opinions towards single women. On the meso-level, controlling images are vividly manifested in public agenda. Media is one of the critical agents that negatively depict single womanhood. The gender media portrayals have been widely documented in terms of professional images, domestic roles, interpersonal power, etc. When it comes to single women, Chinese media are devoted to stereotype single women as picky, lonely, deviant, as well as having unrealistic expectation for love and marriage. On the other hand, anxious parents have also rendered single womanhood a salient issue on public agenda. One-child Policy leaves Chinese parents no choice other than intervening their daughter’s mate selection. On the micro-level, Chinese single women face multiple and intersecting oppressions rooted in sexism, marriage norm, ageism and social class. On the Chinese marriage market, youth, beauty, fertility, and marriage record are all pricing factors that determine a lady’s mating value. Such interlocking discrimination is further complicated by social class. Single women in middle- and upper-classes have more negotiation power to downplay the importance of relationship and frame their single status as positive and self-enhancing.

The figure type of Bai Juyi(Bai Letian) stems from Tao Yuanming and guides Su Shi(Su Dongpo). It is one of the most important three character types in Chinese literati. Bai Juyi once drew an analogy between Tao Yuanming and himself, while Su Shi once said he was a bit like Bai Juyi. Actually, from the perspective of inheriting and passing down, Tao Yuanming is the Bai Letian in Jin Dynasty and Su Dongpo is the Bai Juyi in Song Dynasty. Trough discussion of one poem of Su Shi, This paper has elaborated three important litterateur figures in China, namely Tao Yuanming, Bai Juyi and Su Shi, regarding the inheriting and passing down of Xing, Ying, Shen and Shen, Xin, Yi. Su Shi once wrote in his poem that he was alike with Tao Yuanming with respect to Xing and Shen, and was similar to Letian with respect to Xin and Shen. The so-called Xing, Ying, Shen refer to physics, fame, and sprit separately. Su Shi wrote three poems about Tao Yuanming, from which we can see his great admiration for Tao Yuanming. In Su Shi’s eyes, Tao was the one that had a comprehensive understanding of the whole World and himself as well. But Bai Juyi was the one who first discovered the cultural value of Tao Yuanming before Su Shi. Admiring both Tao and Bai, Su seized the opportunity of writing comments for the book called Letian Shenxin Wenda collected by one of his friends to express his own opinion. Including Xing, Ying, Shen of Tao’s and Shen Xin of Bai’s, Su put forward two other concepts called Wu and Wo and discussed the interactions between Wu and Wo. The Tao Yuanming’s Xing, Ying, Shen was all based on internal World which viewed the World from one’s own perspective. In comparison, Bai’s Shen Xin involved external World, which attached more importance to the interaction between the inner world and the outside World. While Su Shi’s opinion on this issue was that both Xing & Shen and Shen & Xin were two sides of a coin, complementary to each other and could not be divided. The Tao Yuanming’s Xing, Ying, Shen in Jin Dynasty, the Bai Juyi’s Shen Xin in Tang Dynasty and the Su Dongpo’s Wu Wo in Song Dynasty accomplish the spiritual communication between the three poets from different dynasties. This communication lays a solid foundation for Chinese literati character pattern, and led three major changes of the thoughts of Chinese literati which happened in the ages of Yuanjia, Yuanhe and Yuanyou (also called San Yuan or San Guan in the history of poetics). Why those changes are so important is mainly because they inquire large space and also more time to take place. And representatives like Tao, Bai and Su are highly needed for the transitions to be admitted by the whole society.

As one of the major poets in the Song Dynasty, Huang Tingjian is most skilled in using allusions, but it is rarely noticed that Huang is also the first poet in the history of Chinese poetry to create an allusive system which includes such skills as ″deviating from the original meaning of the allusions″, ″using the exact original sentences completely or structurally″, etc. Huang’s allusions usually hold a harsh, coarse appearance and deliberately avoid the smooth, insinuative way; however, it helps to create a unique poetical style which is in accordance with Huang’s typical poetic ideal. In his poem-writing, Huang keeps repeating each of such allusions and often with the same phrases, both contrary to the traditional way of using allusions. From all of these points of view, Huang’s allusions are somewhat formulaic (they can be called allusive formulae), which is one of the most outstanding characteristics of his poetry. Formulaic theory is nowadays widely applied in the fields of both ancient cultures and literatures in all civilizations, which is closely related to their oral traditions. Huang’s poetry is clearly none of the business of ″oral tradition″, but it does have most of the formulaic characteristics, especially in constructing allusive phrases, repeatedly using such phrases in the same metrical conditions in his different 5-syllable and 7-syllable poems, etc. According to M.Parry’s classical definition of ″formula″, Huang’s allusive formulae can be defined as ″a group of words, usually no less than 3 syllables, which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions (at the beginning or the end of a 5-syllable or 7-syllable verse, or even the whole verse) to express an essential idea, coming or deviating from the meaning of an allusion″. Such allusive formulae can trace their origins to Huang’s accumulation method of allusions. Compared with his contemporary poets, Huang focuses more on the mode of presentation of the allusions than their appropriate meanings in the verse. Generally, an allusion appears very structured, i.e., it is usually at the end of a verse with 3 syllables, sometimes the last syllable should also conform itself to the requirements of rhyme. In some cases, the allusion is endowed with a unique understanding which produces a surprising effect and seems only meaningful in Huang’s poetical style. Allusive formulae, in respect of poetical language, give Huang’s poetry a striking feature, and in the meanwhile make it easier to write (or improvise) a poem quickly, which is to some extent very important in Huang’s time, considering that there are a large number of replying poems needing to use the rhyme sequence in the Song Dynasty. As a matter of fact, formula in Huang’s poetry is not limited only to allusions, but is a widely used skill, though allusive formulae may be the most typical. Such skills are also inherited and improved by Huang’s successors in the ″Jiangxi Poetic School″. In conclusion, it is of most importance to probe into the essence of Huang’s allusive formulae and analyze the relationships between their usages and Huang’s poetics. It may help to understand better the whole poetical characteristics of Huang Tingjian and also the ″Jiangxi Poetic School″ during the entire Song Dynasty.

After the Anti-Japanese War broke out, National Chekiang University was forced to move westward. In exile with his family and books, Ma Yifu accepted the invitation of Zhu Kezhen, the president of National Chekiang University, to give lectures about Chinese ancient civilization to teachers and students of the university at both Taihe of Jiangxi province and Yishan of Guangxi province. He also wrote the University Anthem. This period could be the most glorious part in the history of Chekiang University. But after reviewing and scrutinizing the related literature, for example, The Complete Works of Ma Yifu, The Complete Works of Zhu Kezhen, lots of essays, memoirs and letters from Chang Chiyun, Mei Guangdi, He Changqun, Li Xiefei, Feng Zikai, who were close to Ma during those days, and after digging through the old files of Chekiang University, we find that the relationship between Ma Yifu and Chekiang University was fraught with misunderstandings and confusions. One widely spread misunderstanding about Ma in particular was about his self-conferred title ″Master of traditional Chinese culture″, and his persistence in establishing the ″ Seminar of Traditional Sinology Institute″ in 1936, which directly affected the understanding of, trust in and judgment of Ma Yifu from the people around, including Zhu Kezhen. Some of the rumors have even been passed down to the present day, and some research findings were incorrect. Chekiang University might have missed the respectable master of Chinese traditional culture if the Anti-Japanese War hadn’t happened. In the 1930s,with the rapid economic growth of China, the construction throughout the land was changing with each passing day. The traditional culture fault appeared and the enlightenment culture gradually declined as more than ten years had elapsed after the May 4th Movement of New Culture. The thoughts of industrialism or pragmatism and saving the country with industry,which the economic development relied on, were gradually growing into mainstream. Ma Yifu had mixed feelings about the young generation of college students who grew up and received education after the abolishment of the imperial examination and the May 4th Movement of New Culture, as they chose not to read the Four Books, and they had blind faith in modern science. This could be one of the reasons why Ma declined the invitation from National Chekiang University before the War. After the War broke out, he decided to go to Chekiang University to give lectures, with the hope that the War could not only bring back the importance of traditional culture and beliefs, but also make every Chinese rethink deeply about the modern culture. At the only university he taught as an instructor, Ma tried every means to guide the young people to abandon the utilitarian view of modern industry and drew their attention back to culture itself. For various reasons, however, Ma found that the effect of his lectures on national culture in Chekiang University were far from his expectations. In spite of this, it helped Ma finish the construction of his grand academic thoughts. During the two semesters at Taihe and Yishan, Ma Yifu compiled more than 20 lectures on ″traditional Chinese″ into a book entitled Yishan and Taihe Lectures. In these lectures, Ma Yifu spent more time and energy on ″Six Arts″ than any other time in his life. During the 3 years, the relationship between Ma Yifu and Chekiang University was full of misunderstandings and gaps, but also of the sharing of hardships and compatibility. Nowadays the Study of Ma Yifu is becoming popular and significant. As an established master of Chinese ancient culture studies, Ma Yifu’s high academic achievements are undeniable. And more and more researches on Ma have proved it. This paper aims to explore and clarify the relationship between Ma Yifu and Chekiang University, which may help us get a better understanding of the Master.

The most commonly-used Western visualization database and software in the study of Chinese culture and history include ArcGIS, QGIS, CHGIS, CartoDB, Worldmap, CBDB, GEPHI, etc, among which ArcGIS and QGIS are cartographical systems working for the analysis of spatial and geographic information. The high cost of the ArcGIS system prohibits its widespread use in China. On the contrary, QGIS is an open-source system suitable for the researchers of culture and history all over the world. CartoDB is a cloud-computing database, a GIS platform that provides geographical information for display in a web browser. Chaired by Professor Peter K.Bol of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization in Harvard University, CHGIS (China Historical Geographical Information System) and CBDB (China Biographical Database) are two database projects directly related to the study of Chinese culture and history. Working in collaboration with Fudan University, CHGIS has established a database of populated places and historical administrative units in pre-modern China. In the form of a digitalized database of places and administrative units, any sort of geographically specific data related to China can be easily displayed at CHGIS. Working closely with the History Department of Peking University and ″Academia Sinica″ in Taiwan, CBDB is currently the largest database with biographical information about historical figures in China. It not only displays data on individuals, but also provides data on kin relations, social association, official career, as well as ranks and positions a person held, etc. Launched by the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University, Worldmap is an online platform for visualizing and sharing spatial data around the globe. GEPHI is an interactive visualization and exploration software for all kinds of networks, complex systems, and dynamic and hierarchical graphs. Researchers of culture and history can use this platform to explore an individual’s social network, represented by innumerous nodes and edges in the graph visualization. Taking advantage of the software and database above, one can have access to the geographical references in graph data. For example, locations of a writer’s life activities, social network, as well as different types of social associations, all of which can be seen in a visualized spatial distribution and refreshes user’s experience. Taking Tang Xianzu as an example, this essay demonstrates how the itinerary, social network and social association of this great dramatist of Ming Dynasty are illustrated in graph visualization. The approach of visualization in literary study would need support not only from the database but also from suitable software. The study of pre-modern Chinese literature requires data on personal names, place names, objects, vessels, clothing, animals, plants, etc., all of which can be visualized by the visualization software and database mentioned above. However, how to take advantage of the software and database in the study of pre-modern Chinese literature should be further explored. We also hope software developers in China and elsewhere develop more visualization software suitable for the researchers in this field in the future.

In describing the achievements and status of Lin Shu (18521924), who lived in late Qing and early Republican China, many researchers have called him a translator, novelist, theorist and writer of ancient-style prose (guwen), but few have considered him an anthologist and reviewer. In fact, Lin Shu edited and published two dozen anthologies of literature and history after 1908, such as Selected Readings of Chinese Literature for Middle Schools, Comments on Wang Fuzhi’s Historical Essays and Comments on Selected Masters’ Anthologies by Lin Shu, which together included almost 1500 pieces of prose and commentaries of varying length. During the selection trend of late Qing and early Republican China, Lin Shu’s anthology series stood above the rest. The external reasons for their success were the new publishing model and promotion of modern education, while the internal reasons were the unique text presentation, dominant implantation of the concepts of ancient Chinese (guwen), comprehensive reading system and diversified features of the commentaries. The production and dissemination of Lin’s anthologies was closely related to the rise of the Commercial Press (Shanghai) at that time. As a profit-pursuing private publisher, the Commercial Press extended its field of cooperation with Lin Shu from translated novels to literary anthologies, inevitably taking commercial interests into account in so doing. The strong demand for textbooks and anthologies created by the new education system had become the market focus of contemporary private publishers. The Commercial Press seized the opportunity and published many anthologies by Lin Shu, which not only produced economic benefits, but also effectively accelerated the spread of anthologies by Lin Shu. The quality of Lin’s anthologies was far higher than the selections produced by other common booksellers due to Lin’s great accomplishments in ancient Chinese and his motivation of passing on the classic texts of ancient Chinese. Lin Shu adopted two special modes of presentation in his anthology series: arrangement in reverse chronological order and choice from an existing selection. These practices not only highlighted the canonization and exemplariness of the selected works, but also took into account the students’ level and the new system of instruction. The preface and epilogue of the anthologies were Lin Shu’s essays on the last phase of the dynasty, which had a practical significance. Moreover, his preference for describing human feelings and his high opinion of the writing techniques in ancient Chinese prose were revealed in his selections and commentaries. The detailed content and diverse commentaries in Lin Shu’s anthology series complemented each other, and served as an indispensable reading system for readers. However, Lin’s commentaries clearly departed from traditional literary criticism, featuring a variety of methods such as comparison, induction, analogy and association. Lin Shu was a creative individual who possessed multiple identities, including those of prose writer, translator and theorist. Each of these identities could be considered a dimension for interpreting his commentaries. Lin Shu imbued his commentaries with two functions: the practical purpose of facilitating teaching and the idealist goal of passing on cultural tradition. Lin Shu and his anthology series laid an important foundation in the wave of selection during late Qing and early Republican China, and Lin’s self-image as an anthologist and commentator was shaped by his particular editing practices.

The critical reception of Anglo-American literary modernism in the 20th Century China can be divided into three stages: 1920s-1940s, 1950s-1960s, and 1980s-1990s, and there emerged two major paradigms: the psychological one and the political one. The first paradigm, which originated in the 1920s and 1930s,became a significant undercurrent in the studies of Anglo-American literary modernism. It was characterized by making critical comments on the modernist writers (especially novelists) from a psychological or subconscious perspective, with theoretic framework constructed on the theory of psycho-analysis or the stream-of-consciousness. It was shaped under the influence of the prevailing modern Anglo-American literary thoughts and some Japanese scholarship that had just been introduced to China. The year of 1949 was a turning point when the political paradigm began to take shape. During the 17 years between 1949 and 1966 before the ″Cultural Revolution″, the Chinese intelligentsia, by adopting the critical principle that ″the political criterion precedes the artistic one″, defined Western modernism, including Anglo-American literary modernism, as belonging to a bourgeois ideology which was opposed to Marxist ideology. When it was regarded as bourgeois literature in enemy countries during the Cold War, the ″modernist school″ was therefore condemned as ″reactionary″, ″corrupt″, ″decadent″, and ″dying″. Yuan Kejia and Wang Zuoliang, who published quite a few politically-oriented critical essays, became the two typical representatives and most significant practitioners. The political criticism was officially accepted as the only scholarly approach, and consequently the first paradigm shift took place. It was a result of not only ″a synchronic transplantation of the political discourse″ from the Russian academics, but also an inheritance of the leftist and ultra-leftist literary ideas in the 1920s and 1930s. After the ten-year interregnum which had taken place during the ″Cultural Revolution″ (19661976), the 1980s witnessed a great debate on Western modernism including Anglo-American modernism. It can be interpreted as an open and sharp confrontation between the two critical approaches in a new political and cultural milieu, which betokened the second paradigm shift in the 1990s when the psychological criticism began to replace the political one as both dominant and widely accepted. The significant change, characterized by a ″modification of discourse″ and a re-evaluation, was not only a product of ″the transplantation of outside discourse″, but also a partial awakening or reconfirmation of the previous psychological criticism. As far as the two paradigm shifts are concerned, the ″synchronic transplantation of a discourse system″, and the ″historical inheritance of a discourse system″, that is, the continuity of the scholarly tradition or academic inheritance, had obviously played an equally important role in the shift of discourse. The critical studies of Anglo-American modernist literature in the 20th Century in China left behind a complex trajectory with regard to the constant change that took place in terms of concepts and notions concerning literature, literary history and literature studies. From the perspective of paradigm shift, the paper makes a detailed and innovative description of the reception history of Anglo-American literary modernism in China, which is not without significance or benefit to our re-understanding and reevaluation of ″modernism″ as a worldwide literary movement.

Ellen Widmer is professor of East Asian Studies and Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College; she is also professor at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She has contributed distinctive researches on issues including Ming-Qing fiction and Ming loyalism, Ming-Qing fiction and women, Ming-Qing fiction and publication, the history of books and the history of Christian mission. She thinks that Shuihu houzhuan probably does not deserve to be ranked as a first-rate classic, but its value as a manifestation of how the novel form took shape in China under the influence of Jin Shengtan and others is remarkable. The novel was used by its author, Chen Chen, to express political alienation and dissent; introducing the idea of fiction’s capability of expressing personal emotion put Chen ahead of his time. Chen Chen’s loyalism may be related to the utopia in his novel, and such utopia perhaps is a reference to Zheng Chenggong’s rule in Taiwan while referring in part to concepts developed earlier by Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming; it may also be something about the way The Water Margin itself is constructed that led to the Utopian theme. The Story of Hong Giltong from Korea (the sixteenth century) and Takizawa Bakin’s Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki of the nineteenth century used The Water Margin-based materials but end up with the establishing of island kingdoms off the coast of China. Chinese women underwent waves of development in certain eras. If one looks only at Jiangnan area, one can see development at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and also from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. The latter of these two periods had ramifications in the field of fiction, where women could be readers, critics, and even writers. Women readers help to shape the development of fiction, particularly when it comes to sequels to The Dream of Red Mansion. The various sequels to The Dream of Red Mansion give evidence that women could be respected critics of fiction; and the plots often seem to be responsive to women’s concerns. Although the sequels were not necessarily great literature, they are signs of a growing interest among women in the novel and growing involvement with the form. And at the very end of the chain of sequels an actual woman novelist emerged — Gu Taiqing, who wrote Honglou mengying in 1877. This development is completely independent of the influence of the West, which affects so many aspects of Chinese life since the end of the nineteenth century. There are ties between the topics of publishing and missionaries and the topic of women. Publication culture and women’s culture developed before the end of the nineteenth century, and both Chinese and Western works of fiction gained more readers in the nineteenth century because of growing interest among Chinese readers and sensitivity of booksellers to profits that could be made from fiction, or, in the case of missionaries, of awareness of the power of fiction to change readers’ minds. When one studies who wrote novels in China, who read them, who distributed them, and how they were constructed one gets a picture of how the form of novel evolved before Western influence set in.

In the late Qing and Republic of China, how to interpret Chinese cultural tradition became an unavoidable step to seek reconstruction the system of Chinese civilization for the modern scholars. The different positions held scholars have led to the different paths of converting academic tradition. It is important to sort and evaluate the Confucianism of Zhou, Qin and Han Dynasties. The analyzing of the Confucianism and Taoism, the interpreting of the controversies over Mencius and Xun Zi and the clarifying the doctrine of Spring and Autumn ram reform became the key to determine if Neo-Confucianism in Qin and Han Dynasties is a metamorphism or a development. Hu Shi believed that the Neo-Confucianism of Qin and Han Dynasties was a mixture of Confucianism, Mohism and Alchemists, which gradually became religious, and Guo Moruo regarded it as a complete metamorphism. Li Yuancheng pointed out that it was a key element in the academic evolution of Zhou and Qin to reconcile Mencius and Xun Zi and to integrate Confucianism and Taoism into, thus it established the perfect Neo-Confucianism. According to Yi Chuan and Dai Ji, based on cosmology and life theory, Qian Mu suggested the Neo-Confucianism of Qin and Han Dynasties integrated Confucianism and Taoism, which was the important hub in the history of Chinese academic thoughts;Dong Zhongshu tempered and compromised various thoughts, proposed the reform theory, but went astray; Gu Jiegang regarded the historical truth as the inner layer and core of Chinese culture, and thought Dong Zhongshu inherited the theories of Yin and Yang and Five Elements to serve the Han Dynasty. And Gu also addressed the current academic innovation should absorb the criticism of Song and Qing learning research, and transcend the dispute of Jinwen and Guwen. During the period of the Anti-Japanese War, a new trend of Neo-Confucianism had arisen in the academic field. He Lin emphasized that China should not lose its cultural autonomy to fall into the cultural colonies. Through connecting Confucian ethics and the political system, Confucianism and Historiography, Meng Wentong tried to illustrate that ″Neo-Confucianism of Qin and Han Dynasties″ had developed the doctrines of the Mencius and supported the revolutionary thought of Jinwen classics. Having proposed these new theories, Meng Wentong aimed at subverting outdated thoughts and promoting new ones for the future. Facing the great changes of modern Confucianism, the scholars had been able to reconstruct the subjectivity of Chinese civilization and to integrate the Chinese and the Western, the new and the old based on their traditions, positions and their care of Yili. If taking breaking down the old tradition as innovation or drawing far-fetched analogies between Chinese attached Western doctrines, it will inevitably separate the tradition from the reality, the value from the knowledge, and will not be able to escape the fate of the cultural colony. The probes of the sources and purposes of the scholars in the historical context of the republic of China will further reveals multiple paths of integrating the Chinese and the Western, the new and the old. Blending together the various methods and purposes may carry forward and transform Chinese cultural morality, system and historical facts by the way of the modern knowledge and academic system, further build dynamic relationship between cultural spirit, historical traditions and civilization and realize the revival of civilization in practices.

The current research of the political geography of the East Jin Dynasty focuses on certain areas of strategic importance such as Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Xuzhou, Guangzhou, etc., while the discussion of the spatial structure of the regime from the perspective of macro political geography is inadequate, among which many issues are covered by the studies of the Six Dynasties or the Southern Dynasties. Considering the particularity of the aristocratic political society of the East Jin Dynasty, it is necessary to examine its political geography, independent from the Six Dynasties or the Southern Dynasties. This paper is a study of the macro political geography of the regime of Emperor Yuan of the Jin, the first emperor of the East Jin Dynasty who started the era of an aristocratic political society south of the Yangtze River. Emperor Yuan’s court, a so-called state co-governed by Wang and Ma, was heavily checked by Wang’s clan, against which Emperor Yuan tried to fight. This paper thereby discusses the distribution and interaction of the military and political geographical units which were a result of the political struggles and military conflicts between the two sides, and then interprets the aristocratic politics of Emperor Yuan’s regime from a perspective of political geography. The regime of Sima Rui, also known as the Jiangdong regime, lasted over sixteen years, including his roles as the head of the East for ten years, King of Jin for one year, and the Emperor of East Jin for five years. During his period as the head the East, the Sima Rui clique conquered the disobedient forces within the territory. Although his group had an ambition of establishing a new regime south of the Yangtze River, his administrative regionalization showed full respect for the falling court of West Jin. After East Jin was founded south of the Yangtze River, the spatial structure of Emperor Yuan’s regime exhibited five political geographical units, including the core zone along the Yangtze River, the protective supporting area, the marginal area, the border area and the occupied area. This spatial structure reflected an aristocratic political form called ″Wang and Ma co-governing the state″. The Wang brothers controlled the core zone along the Yangtze River while Emperor Yuan tried to contend with Wang’s clan by managing the protective supporting areas, neighboring the core zone. The marginal areas, located on the southern and western frontiers, were further marginalized because of the influence of the aristocratic ethos on the one hand, and on the other hand were not efficiently administered due to the sluggish and weak imperial court on the other. The border areas, which were first distributed between the Yellow River and the Huai River then retreated to the south of the Huai River, and the armed forces, predominantly consisting of refugee generals who fought against enemies in these areas, were generally dominated by Emperor Yuan’s court. After the boundary between East Jin and Zhao moved to the south of the Huai River, the newly formed border areas between the Huai River and the Yangtze River were actually connected to the protective supporting areas west of the Yangtze River, and the refugee generals, for their ethnic, national and family interests, usually obeyed the command of Emperor Yuan’s court and became an external military support when Wang Dun occupied the capital. The occupied areas, once the central part of West Jin, were still the nominal territory of East Jin because of the existence of the resistant forces of the Han nationality. With the fall of the resistant forces, the nominal territory eventually faded out of the sight of the Jiangdong regime. As the political manipulator of Jiangdong regime, the aristocratic group did nothing but hypocritically shed a few tears over the areas occupied by ethnic barbarians in North China. These immigrant aristocratic families from the north were resettled in special districts and their homesickness was therefore comforted by these special districts’ same names as their hometowns in North China. After Wang Dun’s rebellion was suppressed, this spatial structure of political geography, which was a result of the political struggles between Emperor Yuan and Wang Dun, was adjusted to be advantageous to the imperial rule in 324 A.D. when Emperor Ming took efforts to strengthen his imperial power.

In the 1950s, to establish new production relations and to promote the productivity, China made collectivized changes in handicraft industry. In the process of collectivization, fundamental technology, fund and raw materials were provided to support the handicraft industry. What changed most was the production relation in handicraft industry. With the development of socialist and the improvement of the productivity, China determined to improve the production of collectivized community (or group) through sharing experience, promoting procedure, optimizing management and implementing semi-mechanization and mechanization. By the mode of socialized large-scale production, China attempted to improve the productivity of the handicraft industry and to strengthen socialist economy. In Zhejiang, some collectivized community could accelerate the development of mechanization and semi-mechanization through power equipment, but the equipment only provided limited support. Therefore, several years after the completion of transformation, the mechanization and semi-mechanization even stayed backward. On the other hand, community members with little education were not good at technology and machinery operation, which restricted the mechanized and semi-mechanized production. This paper analyzes the production efficiency before and after the collectivization, and finds that without the implementation of labor advantages, the adding of the labor number couldn’t produce good effect in terms of marginal benefit. Compared with those family workshops (or family handicraft workshops) which were of small investment, flexible running and simple management, the profit of the collectivized community was gradually declining due to the cost of management and salary. What’s more, the personal value of those handicrafts men who acquired good techniques and possessed high efficiency could not be motivated in this system of salary, and this greatly decreased their enthusiasm over production. To stimulate the profit rate, more investment had to be made (including technology) and the industry scale had to be expanded, which again dragged the national resources into the ″fund swamp″. With the background of national industrialization, the limited fund and raw materials would definitely go to the industry construction. The government had no more fund to give support to handicraft industry. All those problems arising at the end of collectivization exposed that only when the production relations fundamentally adapt to the productivity could the productivity be effectively promoted. However, with poor technology and short fund, the complicated socialist reformation of the handicraft industry was carried out smoothly, which pushed the handicraft industry to the development of semi-mechanization and mechanization. This was really a profound reform of historic significance.

Based on a systematic analysis on the evolution of contract economics, combining with China’s status quo of contract economics research, this paper aims to explore the issues over its application of contract economics in China. Beginning with the evolution of the contract conception, an analysis on the causes of incomplete contract is followed by an examination on the issue of incentive mechanism design under information constraints. Having originated in the religious thoughts of the rights-based contract, the evolution of the connotation of the contract has experienced a transformation from the debtor-creditor agreement in legal contracts, to the norms and informal arrangements in political contracts, and then to the paradigm of transaction analysis in economic contracts. The contract had also become an important category in economic research from the ″outdated legal concept″ in the 1870s. The economic contract lies in taking a step towards repairing the paradigm of the general equilibrium in neoclassical economics, which can be broadly divided into formal and informal contracts, explicit and implicit contracts. Formal contracts and informal contracts tend to be parallel in practice. The choice of contract arrangement is essentially determined by the signing and enforcing costs. The economics of contracts is broadly divided into three main branches: principal-agent theory, transaction cost theory and the property rights theory. These three branches provide explanations for the contract arrangements from the perspective of symmetric allocation of rights, economization of transaction costs and internalization of externalities and risks, respectively. Modern contract is the governance structure regarding contracting parties’ rights and responsibility under the constraint of transaction costs, uncertainty and risks. Bonded rationality and incomplete rationality inevitably lead to contract incompleteness. The matching of exchange and residual rights in incomplete contract is the prerequisite for the achievement of economic efficiency. Comprehensive research of economics of contracts have been conducted in China covering the issues of contract incentive mechanism, connotation of transaction cost, risk allocation and property rights distribution in incomplete contracts. Localization and further development of the economics of contract is facing with the difficulty in the measurement of transaction cost, the lack of research on contract enforcement mechanism, and function of trust and reputation in self-enforcement contract. A market economy is in essence a contract economy, the contract is the institutional foundation to ensure that the market transaction is predictable, stable and reliable More attentions should be given to the issue how to ensure the implementation of the contract through the coordination of formal and informal institutional arrangements, which is the major obstacle to the healthy and orderly development of China’s market economy.