Book Reviews (PDF version)

Pitman B. Potter, China’s Legal System

Marching In: China’s Cultural Trade in Official and Press Discourse

 ABSTRACT: This essay analyses the official and media response to the WTO cases related to cultural products, which China lost. It aims to contextualize both the official discourse and the press discourse in terms of domestic politics and China’s trade priorities. It concludes that in the official discourse, China and the US are working at cross purposes, as they have fundamentally divergent concepts of trade in cultural products. The newspaper discourse is more moderate and emphasises developmental and commercial issues, but is also subject to the priorities of Chinese politics.

The Pivot in Chinese Cybergovernance: Integrating Internet Control in Xi Jinping’s China

ABSTRACT: During the first two years of the Xi administration, a series of successive measures were taken to restructure the way that the Chinese Internet is governed. New institutions were created to centralise governance over a sphere that had hitherto been fragmented, while the pursuit of ideological and technological security led to greater efforts to control the circulation of online information and prevent harm, particularly originating from foreign threats. This paper analyses this process, and discusses implications for the future of the Chinese and global Internet. KEYWORDS: Internet governance, political reform, media, security, ideology.