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This article addresses some of the most important mechanisms and instruments in the Communist Party of China's (CPC) management of key officials and administrative personnel: Party and state cadres in administrative organs and institutions. These mechanisms include control over the administrative layout in terms of organs and positions (bianzhi), the authority to appoint leading personnel (nomenklatura), as well as a sophisticated cadre transfer system - which also involves rotation between big business and the political world. The article not only emphasises the crucial importance of cadre management in understanding the fundamentals of the Chinese power system, but it also points to a number of challenges in studying this particular Chinese form of personnel management. It shows the elaborate nature of cadre and personnel management in China and argues that in recent years the Party has strengthened rather than weakened its role in managing the cadre corps. Finally, the article draws on theoretical insights provided by the existing body of literature on elites in general and in relation to China in particular. (China/GIGA)

As a result of economic reform and administrative restructuring in China, a number of powerful state-owned business groups ("national champions") have emerged within sectors of strategic importance. They are headed by a new corporate elite which enjoys unprecedentedly high levels of remuneration and managerial independence from government agencies and which derives legitimacy from symbolizing China's economic rise. However, through the nomenklatura system, the Party controls the appointment of the CEOs and presidents of the most important of these enterprises and manages a cadre transfer system which makes it possible to transfer/rotate business leaders to take up positions in state and Party agencies. In order to conceptualize the coexistence of the contradicting forces for further enterprise autonomy and continued central control that characterizes the evolving relationship between business groups and the Party-state, this paper proposes the notion of integrated fragmentation. (China Q/GIGA)

Thirty years ago contemporary China studies in Scandinavia was largely an unknown phenomenon. Most sinologists worked on aspects of traditional sinology such as historical phonology, classical religion, philosophy and linguistics, and contemporary studies were seen as a rather shallow preoccupation which could be left safely in the hands of journalists and diplomats. However, as the public interest in contemporary China studies in Scandinavia grew and as development economists, political scientists and sociologists began to encroach on the China field, it increasingly became difficult to limit Chinese studies to classical pursuits. Today the contemporary China field in Scandinavia has grown strong and active and consists of approximately 90 active scholars. In most Scandinavian institutes classical studies occupy a dominant position in terms of faculty staff, but new positions are increasingly established within the contemporary field, where one also finds the majority of new Ph.D. projects.