The Local China Project: An Introduction

This event is co organized with the University of Sydney as part of the EU-funded "China Horizons"project “Dealing with a Resurgent China” (DWARC)

The identification of ‘local’ China emphasises the importance of the variety of experience across China, within city regions, counties, cities, towns and villages, and in everyday life. 

The development of the PRC and its place in the world is shaped as much by localisation as by globalisation. China’s size and scale are such that by both policy design and practice domestic social, political, and economic development are highly localised. In a very real sense there are many Chinas and in order to understand the PRC’s international interactions as well as its domestic development it is crucial to appreciate the depth of variety of experience in and across localities as well as how those differences interact within the political system.

Research and expertise that understands the many dimensions of China’s local development is essential for interpreting and managing China’s global impact in politics and economics. This is not to discount the role and influence of the PRC Party-state nationally. Nor are the geopolitical environment, international relations or leadership politics of no consequence to understanding the PRC’s evolution, even at local levels. At the same time, there are limitations to analysis that approaches social, political and economic change without proceeding from or incorporating local China. 

The Local China Project is dedicated to examining and interpreting the variety of social, political and economic change in the PRC at and within the more basic levels of the state system in all its varied manifestations and from multi-disciplinary perspectives. 

Speakers: 

• Yingjie Guo, The Local Future
• Beibei Tang, Urban Neighbourhood Governance
• Minglu Chen, Local States and Traditional Chinese Medicine
• David Goodman, The origins of local entrepreneurs

Biodata of speakers: 

Minglu Chen is in the Discipline of Government and International Relations and a member of the Executive Committee China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, where she is also the Director of the Local China Project. Her research concentrates on social and political change in China, especially the interaction between entrepreneurs and the state, and women’s political participation. Her research has been published in The China Quarterly, The China Journal, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of East Asian Studies, and The Pacific Review. She is currently working on several projects, including China’s local governance, and (separately) Panda Diplomacy.

David S G Goodman is Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney, Director of the China Studies Centre, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia. His research is concerned with local social and political change in China. Recent publications include Local Governance in China: Structures, Variations and Innovations (with Ceren Ergenc) 2023; and Class and the Communist Party of China (2 volumes) (with Marc Blecher, Yingjie Guo, Jean-Louis Rocca, Tony Saich, and Beibei Tang) 2022. 

Yingjie Guo is Professor of Chinese Studies, a deputy director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His research is related to national identity and nationalism in modern and contemporary China and discourses of class during ‘Reform and Opening-Up’. He has a general interest in the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government’s cultural policies, and Chinese politics. He is the co-author (with Marc Blecher, David Goodman, Jean-Louis Rocca, Tony Saich, and Beibei Tang) Class and the Communist Party of China (2 volumes) (Routledge 2022).

Beibei Tang is Professor of China Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Honorary Professor of the China Studies Centre, University of Sydney. She has undertaken extensive ethnographic research across different localities in China, with particular focuses on local governance, social stratification, and state-society relations in urban China. She is the author of Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China (Cornell University Press 2023) and China’s Housing Middle Class (Routledge 2018), the co-author of Class and the Communist Party of China (Routledge 2022), the co-editor of Suzhou in Transition (Routledge 2021), and the winner of the 2015 Gordon White Prize (The China Quarterly). She serves on the editorial board of The China Journal and The China Quarterly.

Chair and discussant :
Jean-Louis Rocca, Sciences Po-CERI