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Klappentext: China's recent evolution is not only a story of extraordinary economic growth but also a story of great institutional change. Fan Zhang challenges traditional theory to explain the real origins of China's reform, the political and economic forces driving it, and the reasoning behind its stagnation. The institutional re-arrangement of government and market has been crucial in this marketization process. Using a wealth of documents and cases, Zhang provides a detailed analysis of China's institutional changes over the past 40 years, focusing on the government-market relationship. A theoretical framework is presented to explain the targets and incentives of government and business firms in a bureaucratic-market system, which promoted economic growth, but also fostered corruption and resulted in a re-centralisation of the system. Using an index of marketization in China since 1978, Zhang shows that overall, market expansion has continued but with diminishing marginal gains. The government control of financial resources that had previously been relaxed in the early years of reform has been enhanced to some extent as a result of the changing institutional environment. Policy makers dealing with China-related policies, researchers and postgraduate students in political science, economics and Chinese studies will find this book a compelling exploration of the current and constant cooperation and conflict between government and market.

'This book provides a fascinating perspective on why China will very likely continue to play a major role in world export at a time when it is losing its comparative advantage in labor-intensive manufacturing products as a result of rapidly rising labor cost and appreciation of its currency - the secret lies in the fact that China (as the most populous nation) can benefit from increasing returns to scale. However, the author also clearly outlines the enormous challenges ahead of China: to urbanize and integrate most of its rural population as a precondition for China to explore its potential advantage in scale economy through agglomeration effects.' (Guanzhong James Wen, Trinity College, US and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, China). -- 'This is an original reading by a Chinese economist on the grand topic of China's urbanization. Through gathering a vast amount of raw materials available in Chinese, the book deliberately maintains its indigenous flavour and introduces rich and timely information to the outside world, on topical issues such as household registration (Hukou) reform, fairness of land acquisition, housing price control, forced demolition, urban poverty, traffic congestion and many other topics. The attempt to consider the implications for the world economy, especially on issues such as energy and material consumption, is extremely valuable and much needed.' (Fulong Wu, University College London, UK). -- This innovative book places China's urbanization within a broader global context, including a detailed estimate of China's total domestic market and its impact on the world economy. -- Urbanization has become a new driving force in China's development. Through China's urbanization process, China's role in the world economy will change from the world's major workshop to one of the world's central markets. The increase in demand triggered by urbanization has created a tremendous impact in the international market, changing China's international trade patterns, foreign investment and exchange rate. The success of China's urbanization depends on a group of intertwined economic and political reforms, the vision and determinedness of the leadership, cooperation and opposition of the local government, and the attitude of society. This book focuses on the logic and contradictions of China's urbanization and its future, its impact on the world economy, and the policy tradeoffs the Chinese leadership face.

The standard pictorial formula of Fuxi and Nüwa, a pair of indigenous Chinese deities, started to absorb new motifs from Buddhist art during the early medieval period when Buddhism became more prominent in China. In this paper, I focus on the juxtaposition of Fuxi-Nüwa and cintamani, a magic Buddhist jewel, depicted on the ceiling of the corridor in the tomb of Lady Poduoluo, Pingcheng, Shanxi (435 CE). Through a detailed visual analysis, I explain the multiple meanings embedded in the combination of the Chinese mythological figures with the Buddhist symbol in the funerary space, thus challenging the previous studies that understand cintamani only as a substitute for the sun and moon. This paper furthers the discussion on the hybrid image by investigating the mural painting on the ceiling of Mogao Cave 285 in Dunhuang. Despite their different spatial and temporal contexts, both the tomb of Lady Poduoluo and Mogao Cave 285 present a similar pictorial formula, featuring the hybridization of cintamani and the Fuxi-Nuwa pair. This phenomenon invites us to explore the transmission of such motifs. I, therefore, situate the production of the syncretic scheme of Fuxi-Nüwa with cintamani within a broader historical context and examine the artistic exchange between Pingcheng and Dunhuang by tracing the movements of images, artisans, and patrons in early medieval China.