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WSPC-ZJUP Series on China's Regional Development-Vol.1 Interpreting Zhejiang's Development: Cultural and Social Perspectives

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This book explores the development of Zhejiang province, an eastern coastal province of China. Since China's reform and opening-up, Zhejiang has become one of China's farerunners in economic, social and political transformation. This province has prioritized and encouraged entrepreneurship, and the private sector has played an important role in boosting the regional economy. This book analyzes Zhejiang's transformation from an underdeveloped region to one of the richest regions in China with unique cultural and social perspectives. It also hightights the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on Zhejiang and its role in this initiative.

About the Author
Chen Lixu, Professor at Zhejiang Institute of Administration.
His research interests include cultural sociology, especially China's contemporary cultural development and regional cultural studies.
His research features interdisciplinary studies of philosophy, cultural studies, sociology and economics.
Table of Contents
Introduction

Chapter 1 Regional Culture and Spiritual Engine for the Economic and Social Development of Zhejiang Province
1.1 The Origin of the Problem
1.2 Characteristics of the Regional Development Pattern of Contemporary Zhejiang
1.2.1 Government-Improved Model of Regional Institution Innovation and Economic and Social Development
1.2.2 The People-Induced Model of Regional Institution Innovation and Economic and Social Development
1.3 The Marginal Area of the Planned Economy and People-Induced Spiritual Motivation
1.3.1 A Question that Needs Clarification
1.3.2 The Marginal Area of the Planned Economy and the Self-Entrepreneurial Spirit
1.4 Large Population with Limited Land and the People-Induced Spiritual Motivation
1.4.1Infiuence of the Natural Environment on the Spirit
1.4.2 The Contradiction between People and Land and the Spirit of Self-Entrepreneurship

Chapter 2 The Cultural Tradition of "Strving for Practical Results" and the Zhejiang's Economic and Social Development
2.1 The Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results" and the Contemporary Phenomena of Zhejiang Economic Society
2.1.1 The Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results" under the Planned Economy
2.1.2 The Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results" Since the Reform and Opening-up
2.2 Regional Great Tradition and the Cultural Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results"
2.2.1 A Dilemma That is Hard to Justify
2.2.2 The Confucian Cultural Tradition and the Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results"
2.3 Regional Folk Tradition and the Cultural Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results"
2.3.1 Practice of the Folk Industry and Commerce and the Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results"
2.3.2 The Folk Social Psychology and the Spirit of "Striving for Practical Results"
……

Chapter 3 The Cultural Tradition of Industry and Commerce and the Economic and Social Development of Contemporary Zhejiang
Chapter 4 Trust, Social Network and Zhejiang's Economic and Social Development

Bibliography
Sample Pages Preview
Another tendency regarding the infiuence of the natural environment on human society and human mentality came into being after Hegel. Ratzel discussed three questions in rus book, Human Geography, namely, these were the distribution and clusters on the earth surface; dependency of those distributions on the natural environment as a result of human migrations; and the natural environment's influences on individuals and society including the direct physiological effect, the psychological effect, the effect on human organizations and economic development, the effect on human migrations and their final distribution. Ratzel's thought was later extended to the political field, leading to his Political Geography In Geographical Environment, Semple expounded Ratzel's thought and reached a conclusion on the basis of comparing the cultural stages of typical nations living under the same natural conditions: If these nations share similar or related social and economic development, then it is safe to conclude that such similarity or correlation is caused by the environment rather than the race, Ellsworth Huntington also developed Ratzel's points in Civilization and Climate. He thought that people's daily life depended on geographical conditions. When meeting their material demands, people in different places on earth usually chose those professions with the most chances of success determined by the geographical environment. Every person's health and energy are mainly influenced by the occupied profession and material living conditions, which mainly depend on the geographical environment. Even human's high-level demands, like management, education, religion, art, and others, are also influenced by geography. Though these demands are mainly decided by racial features, accidental incidents in history and genius figures, the geographical environment would influence high level demands in five aspects, namely, population density, affluence, and closeness, regional differences in interests or resources, and energy level. Huntington believes that among the five elements of the geographical environment, namely location, type of territory, water body, soil and mineral, as well as climate, climate matters the most since temperature, humidity and weather changes are most infiuential on human health and energy.
Though different scholars hold different opinions, they all believe that the natural environment exerts an important influence on human society and human mentality. There is no doubt that the primordial natural environment plays an essential role in the divergence of culture. Besides infiuencing cultural traditions by means of securing livelihood, the environment also has a direct impact on people's personality. Just as Hegel said, 6'what we focus on is to understand the close connection between the natural type of the place and its people's character and type, instead of regard: ing the occupied land as the extemal land. The character is exactly the way every nation emerges in world history and its adopted status." Following the directions of the above opinions, we can draw the conclusion that the important element of land condition in the natural environment undoubtedly plays a big part in people's thinking.
In Chinese and world history, many examples demonstrate that local people would initiate a desire to make their living in the non agricultural field and thus form a cultural tradition of commerce due to limited or infertile land. The typical ones are found in Venice in medieval Europe, as well as Huizhou and Shanxi during the Ming and Qing dynasties of China.
The merchants ofVenice were good at commerce and had initiated a strong desire to make their living in the non-agricultural field. They formed a unique cultural tradition of commerce, which was largely made by the special natural environment rather than their inbom talent. Veruce was far away from the European continent with barren soils. Since there was no normal land or island, the soil was often immersed in salty water or marshes, causing Venice to have no arable land, quarries, iron to cast, wood for houses or even clean drinking water.
WSPC-ZJUP Series on China's Regional Development-Vol.1 Interpreting Zhejiang's Development: Cultural and Social Perspectives
$39.91