Elizabeth J.

Perry populist dream of

p905 The �minzhu� advocated by leading intellectuals
throughout the course of Chinese history, Xinhua tells us, derives from the
ancient political principle of �the primacy of the people� (yi min wei zhu ????).
This idea is traced back to the Book of History or Shujing ??with its pronouncement
that �the people are the sole foundation of the state; when the foundation is firm
the state
is peaceful� (min wei bang ben, ben gu bang ning ????, ????),

p908 The overwhelming majority (85 percent) preferred

a definition of democracy as �a system in which government leaders reflect
people�s interests, serve the people, and submit to supervision by the people.�

discourse
diskurs?�fra politikk, atferd, objektive materielle faktorer til mer abstrakte,
symbolske og subjektive, som f�lelser, holdninger og diskurs�milj� ? materiell
ressurs = kulturell, politisk symbol + diskursiv ressurs
endre fokus fra minoritetsgjeter og b�nder til urbane intellektuelle�milj�et ikke
et sp�rsm�l om levebr�d eller livsstil men mer et sp�rsm�l om etnisk identitet og
etnisk politikk�offisiell diskurs:�plasserer skylden for milj�krisen hos
minoritetsgjetere og b�nder som blir framstilt som tilbakest�ende, uvitende og
�deleggere av milj�et�menneskelig inngripen er n�dvendig for � l�se milj�problemer
og der er bruk �moderne� og �vitenskapelige� metoder, avansert teknologi og
markedsideologi �ser natur i utilitaristisk sammenheng: middel til �konomisk vekst
lite skrevet om diskurser som g�r imot den offisielle diskurs�Kinas minoriteter har
utviklet milj�diskurser som er klart annerledes enn de offisielle�disse har spredt
seg ut fra landsbyen og gresslettene, og enda ut fra minoritetsomr�dene til Kinas
nasjonale offentlige scene�del av en st�rre trend som stille sp�rsm�l ved han
praksis og statens milj�politikk i minoritetsomr�der

advocacy in authoritarian state. Jingyun Dai and Anthony J.Spires

p63
in the field of environmental protection some grassroots NGOs are now regularly
serving as watchdogs to government policies, calling for implementation of existing
regulations, critiquing and campaigning against undesirable policies, and
exerting pressure on government to solve environmental problems. That grassroots
NGOs have taken on this new role as active agents seeking to influence local
governments is empirically significant, especially given the recent intensification
of controls on Chinese civil society.

p70
in
the field of environmental protection some grassroots NGOs are now regularly
serving as watchdogs to government policies, calling for implementation of existing
regulations, critiquing and campaigning against undesirable policies, and
exerting pressure on government to solve environmental problems. That grassroots
NGOs have taken on this new role as active agents seeking to influence local
governments is empirically significant, especially given the recent intensification
of controls on Chinese civil society.

P73
Filing an administrative appeal (xingzheng fuyi????) is relatively common
when ENGOs apply for a local government to disclose information. A successful
appeal to a superior government agency would force the subordinate agency to
again review the ENGO�s requests. But none of the eight ENGOs regularly resorted
to administrative litigation (xingzheng susong ????), meaning to sue a government
agency in court. A leader of one group said they view litigation as their last
resort, yet they have been carefully watching the government to identify any law
violations in preparation for an administrative lawsuit if need be. In a to-date
rare
case, one group had filed an administrative lawsuit against a district-level bureau
for its failure to publicize environmental data. The ENGO refused the bureau�s
request for a private settlement, and despite lacking confidence in its chances of
winning, the leader emphasized the broader implications of the case��to let the
law become the most important criterion of national governance� and to clarify
the Regulation on the Disclosure of Government Information.35 The ENGO eventually
won the case and later organized a workshop to share its experience about
seeking information disclosure and administrative litigation.36

p65 merits and restriction of ngo influence

NGO efforts to alleviate
social problems can improve the state�s responsiveness and accountability,
ironically
strengthening favorable views of the state�s performance and legitimacy. As
Jessica Teets puts it, NGOs may be contributing to �better governance under
authoritarianism.�
13 In the environmental realm, the growth of environmental organizations
has been attributed to the state�s recognition of the many environmental
problems arising alongside economic development and to the weakness
of the state�s own environmental protection bureaucracy.14 Earlier research found
that grassroots ENGOs worked primarily on environmental education and nature
conservation, while they had not yet started to tackle underlying political and
social
issues and were �less successful in influencing government decisions and official
behaviors.�15

P65 SELV SVARKHET

In the environmental realm, the growth of environmental organizations
has been attributed to the state�s recognition of the many environmental
problems arising alongside economic development and to the weakness
of the state�s own environmental protection bureaucracy.

P66-67
But this focus on a few famous, elite-led organizations has obscured the larger
picture of advocacy by
grassroots ENGOs.

p71-72
The government cannot deny the legitimacy of using institutional channels and
is generally obligated to follow official procedures when making responses. ENGOs
publish research reports and open letters, submit proposals to the city-level
People�s
Congress or Political Consultative Conference, apply for information disclosure,
and make use of channels that the local government has established to show its
commitment to communicating with citizens, such as government �office visiting�
days ( jiefang ri ???), the Committee of Public Consultation and Supervision
( gongzhong zixun jiandu weiyuanhui?????????), and the �mayor�smailbox�
in Guangzhou.
STerndfeld
p6 The public debate on air pollution gained traction
when the documenta1y U11der the Dome produced by the prominent TV anchor woman,
Chai
Jing, was viewed by several hundred million viewers in a matter of days.

grassroots
p111 proactive repression
Reactive repression seeks to contain social unrest by demobilizing protestors after
the outbreak of mass incidents, while preemptive repression seeks to contain
contention
before it occurs. There has been no shortage of reactive repression under
Xi�s administration, as evidenced by the examples above. However, a more insidious
form of repression is proactive, with the goal of cutting emergent threads between
networks of activists and civil society organizations. If reactive repression is
akin to putting out small fires of dissent, then proactive repression is akin to
ensuring
that the disaffected do not possess the wood chips needed to kindle a fire.
p109
From Sporadic Harassment to Criminalization
The second shift under Xi is from sporadic harassment to the criminalization of
contentious participation. Ever on guard against the ideological perils of a
growing
civil society, Xi�s government has a propensity for criminalizing contention,
which includes mass arrests of activists and staging of public confessions. As a
result, a number of individuals and organizations across different sectors that
had been tacitly tolerated by local states became targets.

p105 red face white face

The discretion afforded to local authorities in governing civil society resulted in
fragmentation: conflicting strategies of control across bureaucracies at the local
levels.
32 While state security apparatuses sought to repress labor organizations, the
official
labor union attempted to co-opt these groups. This fragmented approach created
opportunities for collaboration between local states and civil society groups
such as environmental NGOs and service provision NGOs.33 Driven by the need
to minimize political uncertainty and secure their own political power, local
authorities
often collaborated with civil society groups, offering protection in exchange for
support,34 even as other branches of the local state engaged in repression.

p113 institutionalized zongkuo

First, government agencies, Party organizations,
and legislative bodies used information technology to lower the difficulty
for citizens to make direct appeals to political authorities, establishing channels
like the �Mayor�s Mailbox.�77 Second, government transparency regulations
were introduced locally and later formalized nationally by the 2008 �Regulation
on Open Government Information.�78 This statute obligated government agencies
to respond to �Freedom of Information� requests from ordinary citizens. Third,
throughout this period, citizens took government agencies to court by filing
administrative
lawsuits in the Chinese justice system.

p101-102 We divide grassroots participation into two modes: contentious and

institutionalized.
Contentious participation entails using disruptive methods�protests,
petitioning, strikes, and forming illegal associations�to influence officials or to
make a symbolic statement. In contrast, institutionalized participation uses
statesanctioned
channels such as local elections, government hotlines and mailboxes,
and courts to influence policy, to handle and resolve complaints, or to adjudicate
disputes that arise between the public and government entities. Institutionalized
participation is not a recent innovation. Such participation dates to imperial
China, when ordinary people presented petitions to officials,7 yet new institutions
of participation have emerged in the early twenty-first century.
Contentious participation occurs outside of official institutions. Rather than
relying on formal processes to shape the actions of government, contention drives
change through the disruption of ordinary activities and by creating a public
spectacle.
A large body of literature examines contentious activities taken by Chinese
villagers,8 workers,9 pensioners,10 lawyers,11 religious groups,12 and
journalists.13
In addition, studies have examined NGOs� contentious participation in environmental
activism,14 and in labor mobilization.15
Although we analyze contentious and institutionalized participation separately
in this study, it is important to recognize that they are not strictly exclusive.
Contentious
activities often make use of participatory institutions to achieve their ends.16
In some cases, publicmobilization shapes the actions of nominally impartial public
institutions.

p120
Administrative Lawsuits
Finally we briefly examine a third institutionalized channel of political
participation:
administrative lawsuits, colloquially known as �folks suing officials� (???
??).102 Although the courts tend to defer to core regime interests,103 every year
judges rule on many thousands of claims against government authorities. This
reflects a combination of the willingness of citizens to invest their time and
money
and the capacity of courts to process and rule on their claims.
If Xi�s clampdown on participation extended to administrative lawsuits, we
might expect such lawsuits to decline under his leadership, through increased
barriers to entry or reduced judicial resources. Instead, we observe broad
continuity
in the popularity of administrative lawsuits across the two administrations.
Total administrative lawsuits heard by Chinese courts declined slightly in the
first year of Xi�s administration, followed by a rebound in 2014. Administrative
lawsuits increased dramatically in 2015, reaching a per capita level almost 50
percent
higher than any of the previous fifteen years. The increased volume of cases
heard suggest the institution is attracting increased public interest or is the
recipient
of additional resources, or both (fig. 3).

p114 xinfang
Written Appeals to Officials
Contacting public officials through letters and visits has a long history in
China.80
In its modern form, petitions (xinfang ??) to political authorities are managed
through the National Administration of Letters and Visits, as well as similarly
named departments within administrative, Communist Party, legislative, and
justice organs.81

p115 xinfang
Our estimates based on this survey put the overall prevalence
of direct appeals to upper level authorities through any channel�not just
formal petitions�at roughly one in every 60 persons.

MORTON
P359
The majority of
protests are still highly localized and limited to rural areas. However, large-
scale
demonstrations in urban areas, facilitated by the spread of mobile communications,
are gaining momentum. Mass protests against chemical factories producing
paraxylene-a toxic petrochemical used in the manufacture of polyester, paints,
and plastic-took place in the coastal cities of Xiamen in 2007, Dalian in 2011, and
again in Ningbo in late October 2012, just before the Eighteenth Party Congress.
Seen by many as a victory for people power, the demonstrations caught the attention
of the central authorities in Beijing, leading to production suspensions and
factory relocations.

routledge handbook of env

p5 social media
The widening arena for non-state advocacy groups and their impact on environmental
policy
is examined in two contributions: Shapiro (chapter 4) describes how the strategies
of China's
civil environmental movement have developed along with the reform process from
simple
symbolic actions, such as tree-planting and garbage collection, to more creative
tactics, such as
using the mass media and social media for networking, whistleblowing, information-
sharing and
undercover investigation.
p9
China has come a long way since the Maoist era, when
the official media was so tightly controlled that major disasters could be
concealed, such as a
dam collapse in 1975 with approximately 170,000 casualties, up to the present day
when
activists are able to access and spread information through the mass media and
social media.
Nonetheless, as Geall points out, despite the progress made since the Maoist era,
transparency
and public participation are still contested areas.

ADVOCACY
P76 SOCIAL MEDIA.
the ENGOs they now belong to choose to mobilize social support
via the mass media and the internet to bolster their influence, to expose
problems, and to exert pressure on the government when necessary
P76
For instance,
an ENGO once phoned a government official to report that the red mud produced
by subway construction was directly poured into a river, but an investigator
from the Bureau of Environmental Protection commented, �do not call us over
such a trifle.� So the group �made it a big deal, We put this information online,
and the mass media followed up. Because of this incident, the government adjusted
its policy to �guard the river� and reinforced its implementation. . . . Later, the
construction
company was penalized.�45
P83
Especially when the mass media gets involved, the local government sometimes
responds in a way that shores up an ENGO�s legitimacy and the evaluation
of its performance in the eyes of the public (and, surely, in the eyes of local
officials�
superiors).
GRASSROOTS
DAIBU
P110
Qualitative research also suggests that the Xi administration has criminalized
a wider range of activism. A case in point is the 2015 mass arrest of labor
activists
who had been previously tolerated under Hu. Between 2009 and 2011, local
authorities
in Guangdong Province had periodically harassed labor activists and
shuttered organizations from time to time, but the fragmented nature of local
state control had allowed activists to resurrect their organizations in other
localities
and to �mobilize without the masses��coordinate contention without rallying
large-scale collective action.58

ECOLOGICAL
P185 TENGGEER
The soft singing that dominates the first part of the song further enhances this
idyllic
image. However, when Teng Ge�er sings the refrain, �I love you my home � my
paradise,�
his singing becomes more like a scream, suggesting that perhaps there is something
wrong with his paradise (Baranovitch 2009a, 193�95). Indeed, when one watches the
video clip of the song (Teng Ge�er 2003 in discography), it becomes clear that this
singing is actually an expression of tragic lament and angry protest over the
destruction
of Teng Ge�er�s paradise.

back to future
colonize
From its beginnings, Buddhism transcended all boundaries of kinship and nation.
However, most of the Buddhism practiced by the Han Chinese in Mainland China is
closely identified with Han Chinese culture and its leaders have accepted guidance
from the state. But during the past fifty years Tibetan Buddhism has broken through
the boundaries of Tibetan and Mongolian nationality and become a world religion,
with enthusiastic devotees in America and Europe, as well as other continents.
Since going into exile, the Dalai Lama has become a global celebrity, received and
respected as a great spiritual leader by Popes and presidents around the world.
Both his office and his charisma bring him great respect from most Tibetans.
Tibetans have plenty of non-religious reasons to resist Han Chinese colonialism.
But their allegiance to a faith, whose most revered leader is outside of Chinese
government control, makes their resistance even more threatening to the Chinese
government.

corruption
merit
p10
In fact, anticorruption efforts are expanding with the assistance of citizens
through online reporting. Despite the crackdown on civic groups and Internet
discussion
of corruption, Beijing has acted on online whistleblowing reports and encouraged
citizens
to report on official wrongdoing through the CCDI website. From 2008 to 2012, for
example, investigating agencies received over 300,000 online public tip-offs.13 As
the
CCDI continues to act on these tips, and the public recognizes the utility of this
service, it could become an important front in the anticorruption campaign.
advocacy p83
engo legitimacy
Especially when the mass media gets involved, the local government sometimes
responds in a way that shores up an ENGO�s legitimacy and the evaluation
of its performance in the eyes of the public (and, surely, in the eyes of local
officials�
superiors).

good transition
p63-64 While many scholars have recognized
that improving the government�s performance and responsiveness helps
stabilize and legitimize authoritarian rule, we argue that such ENGO advocacy
ultimately implies another possibility�the opening of new pathways for robust
civic engagement.

merit
advocacy
p64-65
In general, however, many of the Chinese civil society groups outside the
environmental
realm have been perceived as service providers as opposed to advocates,
and as �helpers� to whom the state looks when trying to meet social welfare
responsibilities and to conduct policy implementation. Though Chinese civil society
is growing and making changes on the margins, it is weak, not rebellious,
and lacks the capacity to promote larger social change.12 NGO efforts to alleviate
social problems can improve the state�s responsiveness and accountability,
ironically
strengthening favorable views of the state�s performance and legitimacy. As
Jessica Teets puts it, NGOs may be contributing to �better governance under
authoritarianism.�
13 In the environmental realm, the growth of environmental organizations
has been attributed to the state�s recognition of the many environmental
problems arising alongside economic development and to the weakness
of the state�s own environmental protection bureaucracy.14 Earlier research found
that grassroots ENGOs worked primarily on environmental education and nature
conservation, while they had not yet started to tackle underlying political and
social
issues and were �less successful in influencing government decisions and official
behaviors.�15

yang red black

falungong
p111-112
Among the largest qigong groups, Falun Gong came in late. Soon after its launching
in 1992, however, it swept the country. Its fast spread was partly because of its
quasireligious
nature and its increasingly religious overtones in a receptive culture (Leung 2002;
Lu 2005). Initially, it registered with the China Qigong Scientific Research
Council.
However, its religious overtones quickly caused concerns, and Falun Gong was
subsequently
deregistered in 1996. Some Falun Gong leaders then sought to affiliate with the
China Buddhist Association, but failed. At this time, Falun Gong had gained
millions of
followers all over China, and had spread globally to the United States, Australia,
and other
countries as well. In 1999, Falun Gong made a bold move by gathering over 10,000
followers
to surround Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the CCP and the central government,
to demand official legalization of Falun Gong. The authorities responded with a
determined
crackdown, and banned it as an �evil cult� (xie jiao). Following this, Zhong Gong,
Xiang Gong, and other large qigong groups were all tagged as evil cults and were
banned.
Their key leaders were prosecuted, properties confiscated, and practices
prohibited. In
fact, all qigong groups were disbanded or deregistered. Finally, the China Qigong
Scientific
Research Council was officially deregistered by the State Civil Affairs Department
in
summer 2003. The group practice of qigong in the park in the morning, once a
universal
scene all over China, has disappeared.

wellens
p13 religion help gov
In governing this huge and increasingly complex country, the CCP is
cautiously enlarging the space for religious organizations (as well as other
societal
organizations) to help it with challenging tasks such as disaster relief, poverty
reduction, tackling environmental threats, and taking care of the handicapped,
orphans, and the elderly. Being extremely concerned with keeping its monopoly on
power, the party tries to keep as much control as possible over these
organizations.5
As Susan McCarthy (2013) has shown in a seminal article, for religions this new
social task also provides opportunities for discreetly filling some of the
designated
space with religious content. Since these organizations are not supposed to bring
religion into their social work, McCarthy defines such mild insubordination as a
form
of resistance to the state, albeit of the loyal and evasive sort. Again, in view of
the
concerns held by the party relating to loss of its power monopoly and influence by
foreign forces, if Buddhists manage well in filling up the space, there is less
need and
room for Christian organizations. It is certainly no coincidence that the first
overseas
NGO to receive permission from the Ministry of Civil Affairs to set up a nationwide
charity foundation in August 2010 was the Taiwanese Buddhist charity Tzu Chi.6 The
meeting in 2013 between Xi Jinping and Hsing Yun from Fo Guang Shan, the
international Taiwan-based Buddhist charity, was a further official acknowledgement
of the increasingly important role Buddhism is being allowed to play in today�s
China.
Conclusion