China

JCC — pp. 1-18 2026-04-21 Original Diplomatic Bifurcation: China’s Dual Narratives on the Russia–Ukraine War in Global Times

PAR — 2026-04-21 Original Conditional Embeddedness: Local Government Attention Under Institutional Incentives Jiali Wang, Junming Zhu, Huibin Du Abstract ABSTRACT Government attention is crucial to policy change and outcome. For local agents, their attention is explained by various factors, and a thorough understanding is needed to integrate diverse perspectives. Combining vertical, horizontal, local, and personal influences, we formulate a conditional embeddedness framework for local agents. The framework explains that agents' attention is primarily directed by principals, but this directed shift is horizontally and locally shaped by political and economic contexts, conditional on agents' traits. Empirically, we test attentional responses of 328 prefecture‐level governments to an environmental reform in China. Results corroborate our hypotheses, showing that local government attention generally increases following a reform, but the increases vary due to promotion competition and firm dominance and are further moderated by mayors' education and work experience. The findings demonstrate the importance of interactions between contextual and individual features in the shifts of local government attention and their responsiveness in a principal‐agent relationship.

JCC — pp. 1-15 2026-04-21 Original China Plans for ‘Total War’: Developing the Capacity to Defeat the ‘Strong Enemy’ of the United States

PAR — 2026-04-16 Original Do Performance Budgeting Reforms Reduce Corruption? Evidence From a Quasi‐Experimental Study

PMR — pp. 1-25 2026-04-15 Original Shaping watershed collaboration: how government attention transforms informal interaction into formal cooperation Jing Cui, Yichen Tang Abstract This study adopts a public value perspective to examine how government attention allocation influences watershed collaboration. Based on the panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2020 to 2024, we employed negative binomial regression. Results show that attention allocation significantly enhances both formal and informal collaboration, with informal collaboration mediating this relationship. The expected positive moderating effect of digital governance is not consistently supported. Furthermore, by distinguishing between formal and informal collaboration, this study deepens the understanding of the dynamic processes within the collaboration continuum. It provides evidence from Chinese river basins for understanding cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

CQ 266 pp. 365-384 2026-04-15 Original Governing through Visibility: Local Government Experimentation with Internet Celebrity Cities in China Lu Liu, Yahua Wang Abstract Abstract The rise of internet celebrity cities has become one of the most striking phenomena in China since 2021. How do local governments respond and harness this trend to advance their development goals? This study focuses on local experimentation in creating such cities, drawing on the case of the Village Football Super League ( Cun chao 村超) in Guizhou. We identify policy entrepreneurship as a key driver of local experimentation and highlight three core strategies for creating internet celebrity cities: crafting local symbols, co-producing viral content and mitigating public opinion risk. Further analysis shows that this experimentation, by attracting massive public attention, simultaneously promotes economic growth, strengthens social cohesion, reinforces state narratives and projects China’s national image onto the global stage. Overall, the findings suggest an emerging model in which public attention becomes a core resource for local development and governance in China’s digital era.

PA — 2026-04-13 Original What Works for Whom? Exploring the Determinants and Hierarchical Tensions of Public Network Effectiveness: A Configurational Analysis Yulong Jie, Shuigen Hu

PMR — pp. 1-27 2026-04-13 Original Taking the reins or taking the ride: the impact of online interactions on citizens’ perceptions of equity in public services

PMR — pp. 1-31 2026-04-13 Original How NGOs facilitate value co-creation through multilevel and processual mechanisms: evidence from China Shuang Tan, Yu Du, Xiaonan Wang Abstract This study traces the evolution of nongovernmental organization (NGO) actions in China’s waste incineration risk governance through a longitudinal analysis of the Incineration Issue Strategic Group. Findings show that NGOs facilitate value co-creation (VCC) through continuous value awakening, co-design, co-production, co-experience, and co-construction. We propose multilevel and processual mechanisms: spatially, NGOs optimize actor networks and resource integration within public service ecosystems; temporally, they enable sustained co-creation through dynamic iterations. This study expands VCC phase models, clarifying the unique role of NGOs in facilitating VCC within public service ecosystems. It also provides a replicable model for NGO engagement under state-dominated regimes.

CQ 266 pp. 385-399 2026-04-13 Original From Contention to Clientelism: Evidence from the Ten-Year Fishing Ban in China Jingping Liu Abstract Abstract How do ordinary Chinese people circumvent unpopular state policies? The existing literature primarily focuses on resistance against local bureaucrats. Drawing on ethnographic research on the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River Basin, this article finds that fishermen (clients) continue to fish by maintaining patron–client relationships with the enforcers of the fishing ban (patrons). Ordinary fishermen seek the protection of enforcers through bribery. Enhanced state monitoring under the fishing ban facilitates bribery-based clientelism by weakening the fishermen’s everyday resistance, but it also constrains the power of enforcers by increasing the risk that their corruption will be discovered by upper-level authorities. For extremely poor fishermen, who are barely able to afford to pay bribes, their daily acts of resistance are morally justified by the need for subsistence safety, presenting enforcers with a dilemma: they must fulfil their law enforcement duties while also ensuring the survival of these individuals to maintain social stability. Therefore, cultivating a clientelist relationship with impoverished fishermen enables enforcers to manage their noncompliance, thereby balancing these conflicting goals. While clientelism protects people from unpopular policies to some extent, it more fundamentally strengthens the power of local bureaucrats, creating the potential for greater exploitation and larger-scale popular grievances in the long run.