CHINA: an International Journal

March 2005: volume 3, number 1

There is a critical need to accelerate the education of rural Tibetans. They see migrants from elsewhere moving in to take advantage of jobs for which they are poor competitors while they struggle to pull themselves out of poverty. Home, school and community factors all contribute to low attendance rates among the students.

Peasants angry at local governments are the main users of the Administrative Litigation Law (ALL). Scale is advantageous in collective action, but other factors come into play such as group solidarity, leadership structure and fear on the part of the courts that ruling in favour of ALL suits will encourage a massive filing of them.

The 1994 Foreign Trade Law of China was enacted when the country was at a critical juncture on the road to economic development. A decade later, it required updating in order to cope with new trade developments both at home and abroad. China's accession to the WTO made reforming the Trade Law particularly urgent.

The Hong Kong Government has long boasted its success in using the laissez-faire approach to economic development. Indeed, the citizens of Hong Kong enjoy a high GDP per capita. However, income inequality is high, has worsened in recent years and will likely become even more serious. All solutions discussed are inevitably highly political.

The focus of international humanitarian law is the protection of the victims of armed conflict. China has actively begun to accede to international instruments which regulate it, adopt domestic legislation which implements it and take steps to disseminate it.

Are Chinese online forums a promising sign of the rise of a reasoning civil society, or are they merely meeting places for the rash and politically extreme? It would seem that politically-interested citizens on the Chinese internet are indeed driving public opinion, and ultimately, policy-making.

Neither the US nor China trade imbalance figures are likely accurate. The overall trade imbalance is probably much smaller than what the US reports and much larger than what China reports. Its impact on the US is not as harmful as the official figures may suggest.

The Chinese Government urgently needs to improve the planning and administration of its provision of electricity. Shortages of electricity were first noticed in the spring of 2002. In the summer of 2004, they were acute and without question hindered economic growth.

compiled by TOK Sow Keat