China Review 1995 (review)

i86 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 Lo Chi Kin, Suzanne Pepper, and Tsui Kai Yuen, editors. China Review 1995. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995. xxxv, 731 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 962-201-677-4. Reading China Review 1995 from cover to cover impresses upon the reader just how far the study of China has come and how much more documentation is available compared to the days oflimited information from refugee interviews in Hong Kong. The editors and most ofthe authors are based in Hong Kong, living in close proximity to their subject matter. This volume demonstrates the "Hong Kong advantage" in the ease of access these authors have to China and in the prompt publication oftheir work by the Chinese University Press. It is the fifth in an annual series that provides timely contributions and comprehensive coverage, which make the volume unique in its abdity to bring the reader up-to-date on a rapidly changing China. China Review 1995 actually covers 1994, the "Year offhe Dog." It is recommended that the volume's useful Chronology of1994 by Willy Wo-lap Lam be scanned first to put the entire year in perspective. The chronology sets the general frame in which sporadic events and more specialized topics can be situated. The first chapter by Jean Philippe Beja covers the post-Deng succession, the legitimacy crisis, and the elite factional struggles that continue because a legitimate process for leadership succession was never successfully put in place. The year's most noted publication, the book Looking at China through the Third Eye, seemed to propose a neo-Maoist revival as a remedy for all fhe social ills and dislocation spawned by the economic reforms. Subsequent chapters cover various specialized areas of the economic reforms, utilizing field research data and the burgeoning amount ofmaterials and publications being distributed in China and Hong Kong. The chapter by Jean Hung examines the changing family status ofwomen, drawing on two surveys done in China and on her own field trips to eighteen villages. Helen Siu made numerous field trips around the Pearl River Delta for her study on community festivals. For others, the Hong Kong advantage provides access to an enormous array of Chinese publications in specialized areas that provide the technical detail we always hope for. Suzanne Pepper uses China Education News and China's Education Reform to assess educational reform. The Epstein and Cho chapter on legal reform draws extensively from such sources as China Law & Practice and China Lawyer.© 1997 by University Deborah Davis makes extensive use of specialized Chinese yearbooks in her chapofHawai 'iPresster ^0 document the increasing inequality and stratification that have been created by the reforms. She identifies nine emerging patterns ofsocial stratification that differentiate late-Deng society from the late-Mao era. Ka Po Ng's chapter on de- Reviews 187 fense budgeting uses Military Economics Studies and books from China's Military Science Publisher. Tao-chiu Lam and Hon S. Chan draw on the Encyclopedia of State Civil Service System in their work oudining the creation ofa civil service system . Others may rely too heavily on favorite journals such as The Nineties because they are "au courant." Still others do extensive research in fhe Far Eastern Economic Review and the South China MorningPost, hardly primary sources from field research but definitely a venerable Hong Kong tradition. Ofcourse, some topics are more amenable to field research than others. The reader doing business with China will find several chapters worth reading . Ho Yin-ping's chapter on China's foreign trade and accession to the GATT/ WTO gives some indication offuture opportunities in China's liberalizing domestic markets. Henry Mok oudines the evolution of China's stock markets, an understudied topic. Maurice Brosseau writes an important chapter on the individual Chinese entrepreneur and the effect ofentrepreneurship on fhe societal environment. This chapter should be useful for a cross-cultural understanding of Chinese and Western views ofentrepreneurship. David Peetz writes on China's new labor laws that will have ramifications on joint venture management. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath assesses Chinese regional business cycles, finding each macroregion's cycle different from the others. Christine Wong covers the...