China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was just reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles. Just One Child situates these science- and policymaking practices in their broader contexts--the scientization and statisticalization of sociopolitical life--and provides the most detailed and incisive account yet of the origins of the one-child policy.

关于中国国家的治理逻辑，本书主要沿着两条脉络进行探讨：一是中央权威与地方政府之间的关系，这体现在各级政府体制的制度设施和行为方式；一是国家与民众之间的关系，这体现在国家与社会群体的相互影响上。本书从学术上推进了当前国内的国家治理研究，并为社会科学研究者提供了一种可以参照 的研究路径和视角。

Few doubt that China wants to be a major economic and military power on the world stage. To achieve this ambitious goal, however, the PRC leadership knows that China must first become an advanced information-based society. But does China have what it takes to get there? Are its leaders prepared to make the tough choices required to secure China’s cyber future? Or is there a fundamental mismatch between China’s cyber ambitions and the policies pursued by the CCP until now?
This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of China’s information society. It explores the key practical challenges facing Chinese politicians as they try to marry the development of modern information and communications technology with old ways of governing their people and conducting international relations. Fundamental realities of the information age, not least its globalizing character, are forcing the pace of technological change in China and are not fully compatible with the old PRC ethics of stability, national industrial strength and sovereignty. What happens to China in future decades will depend on the ethical choices its leaders are willing to make today. The stakes are high. But if China’s ruling party does not adapt more aggressively to the defining realities of power and social organization in the information age, the ‘China dream’ looks unlikely to become a reality.

As China is increasingly integrated into the processes of economic, political, social, and cultural globalization, important questions arise about how Chinese people perceive and evaluate such processes. At the same time, international communication scholars have long been interested in how local, national, and transnational media communications shape people’s attitudes and values. Combining these two concerns, this book examines a range of questions pertinent to public opinion toward globalization in urban China: To what degree are the urban residents in China exposed to the influences from the outside world? How many transnational social connections does a typical urban Chinese citizen have? How often do they consume foreign media? To what extent are they aware of the notion of globalization, and what do they think about it? Do they believe that globalization is beneficial to China, to the city where they live, and to them personally? How do people’s social connections and communication activities shape their views toward globalization and the outside world? This book tackles these and other questions systematically by analyzing a four-city comparative survey of urban Chinese residents, demonstrating the complexities of public opinion in China. Media consumption does relate, though by no means straightforwardly, to people’s attitudes and beliefs, and this book provides much needed information and insights about Chinese public opinion on globalization. It also develops fresh conceptual and empirical insights on issues such as public opinion toward US-China relations, Chinese people’s nationalistic sentiments, and approaches to analyze attitudes toward globalization.

Documentaries have recently become a favourite format for Chinese state-directed media to present an officially sanctioned view of history. Indeed, this is not confined to Chinese national history. In stark contrast to the earlier self-centred preoccupation with Chinese history, there has been an upsurge in interest in foreign history, with a view to illuminating China’s role not only in world history, but also on the global stage today, and in the future.
This book examines three recent Chinese documentary television series which present the officially sanctioned view of the rise of the modern West, the reasons for the end of the Soviet Union, and the legitimisation of the present-day Chinese government via a specific reading of modern Chinese history to argue for a ‘Chinese rise’ in the future. With a focus on these documentaries, Gotelind Müller discusses how history is presented on screen, and explores the function of visual history for memory culture and wider society. Further, this book reveals how the presentation of Chinese and foreign history in a global framework impacts on the officially transmitted views on Self and Other, and thus provides a keen insight into how the Chinese themselves regard their ‘global rise’.
Documentary, World History, and National Power in the PRC will be welcomed by students and scholars working across a number of fields, including Chinese studies, East Asian studies, media studies, television studies, history and memory studies.