EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Politics & International Relations 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 174 Wang Zhongyuan (Leiden University) From Cooptation to Exclusion: The Communist Party’s Changing Strategies in Governing Independent Candidates in Local People’s Congress Elections Key words: Local People's Congress, Chinese Communist Party, elections, independent candidates, authoritarian regime The 1979 Chinese Election Law with its follow-up amendments has opened up a great legal and political ground for semi-competitive elections, in which a lot of independent candidates have shown up and run for a campaign although facing tremendous obstacles and constraints. The past three decades has witnessed two basic trends of the development of PC elections. On the one hand, the Party has been tightening its control over the elections. On the other hand, the number of independent participants in PC elections is growing. Why did the one Party authoritarian regime change their policy against independent candidates from cooptation to exclusion, even though some of these candidates might actually be of significant help to the regime? Although the prospect of being elected becomes highly vague, why is there still a growing number of independent candidates trying to join in the elections? To understand the puzzle, this paper will take a closer look at independent candidates and the Party’s governing strategies on them: Who are they? Why do they run for the quasi-democratic elections? What are their opportunities and constraints? Why does the party-regime turn to exclude them, and how? What is the future of local people’s congress elec- tion in China? In answering these questions, this paper will also try to rethink the widespread wisdom of comparative authoritarian theories which suggest that authoritarian regimes always strategically consolidate their rule by using elections to divide oppositions or bring part of the oppositions to work within the system. Wu Lin-chun (National Dong Hwa University) Building the Engineering State: the Association of Chinese and American Engineers in Modern China, 1919–1941 Key words: Association of Chinese andAmerican Engineers, Chinese-American relationships, inter- national history Founded in 1919 in Peking, the Association of Chinese and American Engineers, symbolized a friendly cooperation between American engineers in China and the returning Chinese students graduated from the University of United States. Inspired by the Wilsonianism, the Chinese students who were supported by the Boxer indemnity scholarship, eagerly came back to China with firm belief that “engineering” was the key to save their country. The objectives of this Association were to advance the engineering knowledge and practice, to promote and foster the spirit of cooperation and fellowships among the engineering, and to be of real service to China in solving the engineering problems which would arise in the new era of construc- tion upon which the country was entering then. Most of the members of the Association got involved in building the infrastructures for the New China. They worked in the areas of the railroads, mining, telegraph, river conservancy, and so on. With spirit of cultural internationalism, the Association contributed in a great deal to the nation’s construction, specifi- cally in the period after WWI to make a better and peace world by way of intellectual development and technological introduction. The leaders of this Association were the most distinguished engineering experts in United States, and some of them were hired as the technology advisor for the Nanking government in the purpose of developing the national reconstruction, which were known as the “golden age of the Nanking Era” from 1927–37. The engineers of this organization worked across national boundaries to promote mutual understanding and help China to become an engineering state.Their official Journal was published since 1919 and suspended after the outbreak of the Pacific war. This paper tries to analyze the activities of The Association of Chinese and American Engineers in Modern China and their relations with development of modern China’s internationalization.