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China's booming economy has provided various opportunities for international immigration, but current studies lack a focus on public attitudes towards immigration in China. Using a nationwide representative survey carried out in China, this article finds that most Chinese have positive attitudes towards international immigration, foreign workers and foreign spouses. This study also learns that more respondents believe that immigration should increase rather than decrease. In seeking the sources of these attitudes, this article identifies that non-economic factors play a significant role, and that both cultural tolerance and perceived threat are important sources of attitudes towards immigration. (China/GIGA)

This paper will study one of the unique population movements in modern history: the circular movement of students and trainees between China and the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1966. This population movement includes more than 38,000 Chinese who were trained by the leading Soviet Union industrial enterprises, research centers and institutions of higher learning. These returned students and trainees from the Soviet Union captured a considerable number of prominent positions in the Chinese leadership from the 1980s to the 1990s. The explanation of their political impact relies on the domestic country's politics and international context. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

To explain why Chinese agriculture has survived following WTO accession, this article examines both domestic and international factors. These include the high world market price, strong domestic demand and limited supplies, trade protectionism, and domestic policies such as government investment and taxation. The article summarizes how China's agriculture has been affected by accession to the WTO.

While much has been written about US–China strategic rivalry, no study to the authors' knowledge has conducted an empirical analysis of this rivalry. This article fills this gap by investigating whether and how this rivalry affects a country's response to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The findings of this article indicate that certain aspects of bilateral strategic ties indeed have strong effects on a country's reaction to the Chinese bank. More specifically, shorter distance to higher a level of partnership with, and more arms purchase from Beijing lead to faster accession to the AIIB, while the shorter distance to Washington results in slower accession, controlling for other factors. In addition, economically developed countries appear to be consistently more eager to join the Beijing-led bank than economically underdeveloped countries.(J Contemp China/GIGA)

AbstractSince the late 19th century many Chinese leaders have studied abroad, mostly in Japan, the US or the former Soviet Union. Recently, thousands are returning from studying overseas. Is this new cohort of returnees more internationalist than Chinese who do not study abroad? If their values differ and they join China's elite, they could influence China's foreign policy. Drawing on surveys of returnees from Japan and Canada over the past 15 years, we compare their views on "co-operative internationalism" and "assertive nationalism" with the attitudes of China's middle class drawn from a nationwide survey in 2006. Our returnees are both more "internationalist" than the middle class and less nationalistic. So they are likely to support China's increasing international role and perhaps constrain China's growing nationalist sentiment.