Editorial: China, change & collaborative research

China’s impact on world politics, national economies, and financial markets means that the questions emerging around its commitment to continued liberalization and to the preservation of harmonious relations have global urgency. The speed of urbanization and modernization alone create a range of issues for China. For outsiders, speculations about the transparency and stability of its political culture and the censorship of its media are as enduring as the conflicting forecasts about what its new political leadership is likely to signify for the rest of the world. Can China’s rapid growth and opening up continue, and what are current party political attitudes to ‘the market’, geopolitical influence, structural reform, and democratization? The call for this collection of papers, simply titled China, invited submissions on the dynamics of external and internal relations, a theme timely and relevant for ‘China watchers’ and the journal’s regular readers. Singly and together, the articles in this issue provide fresh insights into China’s diversity and vitality, and the contradictions and challenges of the momentous change it is undergoing. They make rarely accessible topics available for western academics not located in Asian, international or political studies. China’s pragmatism in the making of common ground internally, and with other countries, is prominent in discussions in this selection. This emphasis is not only present in the themes highlighted by contributors but also in what the reports themselves reflect about ‘doing’ research on China, and on partnerships more generally. All but two of the articles are the result of research collaborations. The collection includes articles directly addressing China’s soft power and cultural diplomacy; and others dedicated to understanding how increased popular access to communication technology and social networking are affecting the modus operandi of centrist power. The two themes converge: as power shifts of an unprecedented kind are shown to be emerging in China, the developing uses of the Internet by Chinese citizens can also be regarded as exercises in soft power.