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This book examines the complex situation of ethnic Chinese Indonesians in post-Suharto Indonesia, focusing on Chinese in two of the largest Indonesian cities, Medan and Surabaya. The fall of Suharto in May 1998 led to the opening up of a democratic and liberal space to include a diversity of political actors and ideals in the political process. However, due to the absence of an effective, genuinely reformist party or political coalition, predatory politico-business interests nurtured under the New Order managed to capture the new political and economic regimes. As a result, corruption and internal mismanagement continue to plague the bureaucracy in the country. The indigenous Indonesian population generally still perceives the Chinese minority as an alien minority who are wealthy, selfish, insular and opportunistic; this is partially due to the role some Chinese have played in perpetuating corrupt business practices. As targets of extortion and corruption by bureaucratic officials and youth/crime organisations, the Chinese are neither merely passive bystanders of the democratisation process in Indonesia nor powerless victims of corrupt practices. By focusing on the important interconnected aspects of the role Chinese play in post-Suharto Indonesia, via business, politics and civil society, this book argues, through a combination of Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and field, that although the Chinese are constrained by various conditions, they also have played an active role in shaping these conditions.

The “ASEAN Way” is based on the principle of consensus; any individual member state effectively has a veto over any proposal it does not support. This book analyzes how China uses its financial power and influence to divide the member countries of ASEAN in order to prevent them from acting collectively to resolve their territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. Comparative case studies of China’s relations with Cambodia, the Philippines, and Myanmar illustrate that the regime type in the country with which China is interacting plays an important role in enhancing or constraining China’s ability to influence the governments of developing states within ASEAN and globally. Authoritarian institutions facilitate Chinese influence while democratic institutions inhibit that influence. The book argues that as long as ASEAN includes developing, authoritarian regimes, and given that the United States and other global powers are unlikely to risk any serious conflict over each push of China’s maritime boundaries, little by little, China will assert its sovereignty over the South China Sea. Nevertheless, the book contends that if China chooses to engage in more sophisticated bilateral politics with democratic states, such as providing incentives to a broader range of interest groups, then China will have more success in projecting its power globally.

The Chinese system is like no other known to man, now or in history. This book explains how the system works and where it may be moving. Drawing on Chinese and international sources, on extensive collaboration with Chinese scholars, and on the political science of state analysis, the author concludes that under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the system of government has been transformed into a new regime radically harder and more ideological than the legacy of Deng Xiaoping. China is less strong economically and more dictatorial politically than the world has wanted to believe. By analysing the leadership of Xi Jinping, the meaning of ‘socialist market economy’, corruption, the party-state apparatus, the reach of the party, the mechanisms of repression, taxation and public services, and state-society relations, the book broadens the field of China studies, as well as the fields of political economy, comparative politics, development, and welfare state studies.

In Strait Rituals: China, Taiwan, and the United States and in the Taiwan Strait Crises, 1954-1958, this book argues that the Taiwan Strait Crises could be understood as an evolution towards tacit accommodation. Exploiting new materials from mainland China, Taiwan and the United States, a reevaluation of the international relations of all three parties via a simultaneous presentation of their disparate perspectives is made. At the heart of its argument, this book proposes that conflict resolution had become ritualized progressively as the protagonists implicitly constructed a framework of understanding. An uneasy peace was thus a product of a ritualization of discourses and maneuvers, embodied in verbal signaling and symbolic gestures. These exacting understandings laid the groundwork for a substantive change in the nature of Sino-American relations - from hostile nuclear confrontation in 1954 to tacit accommodation in 1958. In particular, this book highlights relevant aspects of “culture” to better understand the intricacies of the Sino-US-ROC relations. This aspect complements existing scholarship on realism, strategy, economics, ideology and domestic aspects of the Taiwan Strait crises. Strait Rituals will show the significance of “ritualization” in explaining the transition of “tacit communication” to “tacit accommodation.” It will demonstrate how both parties engaged in ritualized actions that facilitated the process of conflict resolution. Strait Rituals will establish how the US and China achieved a limited but shared understanding of the modus operandi of the other party through their ritualized actions in terms of their use of public symbols, identity issues, cultural images and official discourses on one hand, and military posturing, diplomatic canvassing for international support, and negotiations on the other hand.