This monograph offers an ethnographic exploration of the local organisation of consumer complaint processing and dispute resolution in the People's Republic of China - now the second largest consumer market in the world - and how the consumer, both ordinary and 'professional', experiences the local system. Drawing on detailed analysis of an impressive amount of empirical data, this book highlights local Chinese understandings and practice styles of 'mediation', as well as identifying a continuing sense of reliance in popular consciousness on the government for securing consumer rights in China. These are not only important features of consumer dispute processing in themselves, but also help to explain the failure of an ombuds system to emerge. By looking at the nature of and issues in China's distinctive consumer dispute resolution and complaints system, and the experiences of consumers with that system, this innovative book illustrates the processes available at the local level giving access to justice for aggrieved consumers and provides a unique contribution to comparative consumer law studies in Asia and elsewhere.
This book offers a socio-legal exploration of localised consumer complaint processing and dispute resolution in the People's Republic of China – now the second largest consumer market in the world – and the experiences of both ordinary and 'professional' consumers. Drawing on detailed analysis of an impressive body of empirical data, this book highlights local Chinese understandings and practice styles of 'mediation', and identifies in popular consciousness a continuing sense of reliance on the government for securing consumer rights in China. These are not only important features of consumer dispute processing in themselves, but also help to to explain why no ombudsman system has emerged. This innovative book looks at the nature of China's distinctive dispute resolution and complaints system, issues within that system, and the experiences of consumers within it. The book illustrates the access to justice processes locally available to aggrieved consumers and provides a unique contribution to comparative consumer law studies in Asia and elsewhere.
The evolution of Chinese design and the major shift in the culture of creativity in a post-Mao China. China is on the verge of a design revolution. A "third generation" of the People's Republic of China that came of age during China's "opening up" period of the 1980s now strives for fame, fortune, and self expression. This generation, workers in their thirties and forties, has more freedom to create--and to consume--than their parents or grandparents. In China's Design Revolution, Lorraine Justice maps the evolution of Chinese design and innovation. Justice explains that just as this "third generation" (post-Revolution, post-Cultural Revolution) reaches for self-expression, China's government is making massive investments in design and innovation, supporting design and creative activities (including design education programs, innovation parks, and privatized companies) at the local and national levels. The goal is to stimulate economic growth--and to establish China as a global creative power. Influenced by Mao and Confucius, communism and capitalism, patriotism and cosmopolitanism, China's third generation will drive the culture of design and innovation in China--and maybe the rest of the world. Justice describes and documents examples of Chinese design and innovation that range from ancient ceramics to communist propaganda posters. She then explores current award-winning projects in media, fashion, graphic, interior, and product design; and examines the lifestyle and purchasing trends of the "fourth generation," now in their teens and twenties. China's Design Revolution offers an essential guide to the inextricably entwined stories of design, culture, and politics in China.
This book examines, in a culturally and contextually sensitive way, the particularity of what it means to be young in post-Mao China undergoing rapid and dramatic transformation by comparing childhood and youth experiences over three generations. The analysis draws on life-history interviews with Beijing young men and women in their last upper secondary year, their parents and their grandparents. The book offers a comprehensive coverage of the various aspects of life pertinent to youth experiences and compares each of these across three generations, treating them as interrelated and mutually affecting processes – childhood, intergenerational relationships, education and future plans, gender and sexuality. By offering both men’s and women’s accounts of their childhood and youth experiences, which for the three generations combined extend over nearly a century, the book sheds useful light on how gender and sexuality have evolved in China. Fengshu Liu concludes that the young generation’s lives feature a ‘maximization desire’, in sharp contrast to the two older generations’ childhood and youth experiences. The book meticulously weaves rich ethnographic details and individual life stories into a larger and unfolding picture of historical, social and cultural trends, while providing critical insight into Chinese modernization and modernity against the backdrop of globalization. It can thus be an enjoyable read also for people beyond the academia interested in China’s social and cultural transformation and its children and youth.
How do ordinary people access justice? This book offers a novel socio-legal approach to access to justice, alternative dispute resolution, vulnerability and energy poverty. It poses an access to justice challenge and rethinks it through a lens that accommodates all affected people, especially those who are currently falling through the system. It raises broader questions about alternative dispute resolution, the need for reform to include more collective approaches, a stronger recognition of the needs of vulnerable people, and a stronger emphasis on delivering social justice. The authors use energy poverty as a site of vulnerability and examine the barriers to justice facing this excluded group. The book assembles the findings of an interdisciplinary research project studying access to justice and its barriers in the UK, Italy, France, Bulgaria and Spain (Catalonia). In-depth interviews with regulators, ombuds, energy companies, third-sector organisations and vulnerable people provide a rich dataset through which to understand the phenomenon. The book provides theoretical and empirical insights which shed new light on these issues and sets out new directions of inquiry for research, policy and practice. It will be of interest to researchers, students and policymakers working on access to justice, consumer vulnerability, energy poverty, and the complex intersection between these fields. The book includes contributions by Cosmo Graham (UK), Sarah Supino and Benedetta Voltaggio (Italy), Marine Cornelis (France), Anais Varo and Enric Bartlett (Catalonia) and Teodora Peneva (Bulgaria).
"A history of Chinese law and justice from the imperial era to the post-Mao era, the book addresses the evolution and function of law codes and judicial practices in China's long history, and examines the transition from traditional laws and practices to their modern counterparts in the twentieth century and beyond. From the ancient times to the twenty-first century, there has been an enduring expectation or hope among the Chinese people that justice should and will be done in society, which is expressed in a popular Chinese saying, "Heaven has eyes." To the Chinese mind in the imperial era, justice was, and was to be achieved as, an alignment of Heavenly reason, state law, and human relations. Such a conception did not change until the turn of the twentieth century when Western-derived notions--natural rights, legal equality, the rule of law, judicial independence, and due process--came to replace the Confucian moral code of right and wrong, which was a fundamental shift in philosophical and moral principles that informed law and justice. The legal-judicial reform agendas since the beginning of the twentieth century (still ongoing today) stemmed from this change in the Chinese moral and legal thinking, but to materialize the said principles in everyday practices is a very different order of things that is much more difficult to accomplish, hence all the legal dramas including tragedies in the past one century or so. The book will lay out how and why that is the case"--
While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.
Of all the issues presented by China’s ongoing economic and sociopolitical transformation, none may ultimately prove as consequential as the development of the Chinese legal system. Even as public demand for the rule of law grows, the Chinese Communist Party still interferes in legal affairs and continues in its harsh treatment of human rights lawyers and activists. Both the frequent occurrences of social unrest in recent years and the growing tension between China’s various interest groups underline the urgency of developing a sound and sustainable legal system. As one of China’s most influential law professors, He Weifang has been at the forefront of the country’s treacherous path toward justice and judicial independence for over a decade. Among his many remarkable endeavors was a successful petition in 2003 that abolished China’s controversial regulations permitting the internment and deportation of urban “vagrants,” bringing to an end two decades of legal discrimination against migrant workers. His bold remarks at the famous New Western Hills Symposium in 2006, including his assertion that “China’s party-state structure violates the PRC Constitution,” are considered a watershed moment in the century-long movement for a constitutional China. With In the Name of Justice, He presents his critical assessment of the state of Chinese legal reform. In addition to a selection of his academic writings, this unique book also includes many of He Weifang’s public speeches, media interviews, and open letters, providing additional insight into his dual roles as thinker and practitioner in the Chinese legal world. Among the topics covered are judicial independence, judicial review, legal education, capital punishment, and the legal protection of free speech and human rights. The volume also offers a historical review of the evolution of Chinese traditional legal thought, enhanced by cross-country comparisons. A proponent of reform rather than revolution, He believes only true constitutionalism can guarantee social justice and enduring stability for China. "He Weifang has argued for two decades that rule of law, however inconvenient at times to some of those who govern, must be embraced because it is ultimately the most reliable protector of the interests of the country, of the average citizen, and, in fact, even of those who govern."—from the Foreword by John L. Thornton, chairman, Brookings Institution Board of Trustees and Professor and Director of Global Leadership at Tsinghua University "What struck me—and shocked me as a foreign visitor—was not only that the entire discussion was explicitly critical of the Chinese Communist Party for its resistance to any meaningful judicial reform, but also that the atmosphere was calm, reasonable, and marked by a sense of humor and sophistication in the expression of ideas."—from the Introduction by Cheng Li, director of research and senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings
