I. ORIGINS
China's Quest For Modernity
Dwight, Perkins. "History, Politics, and the Sources of Economic Growth: China and the East Asian Way of Growth." In China in the Twenty-First Century: Politics, Economics, and Society. Edited by Fumio Itoh. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1997, pp. 25-41.
Xun, Lu. "Preface" and "The True Story of Ah Q." In Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1978, pp.1-6, 65-112.
Recommended for additional historical background:
Fairbank, John K. The United States and China. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1982, Chap. 1-3, 7-8.
The Communist Revolution
Edgar, Snow. Red Star Over China. New York: Grove, (1938): pp. 35-85.
Esherick, Joseph W. "Ten Theses on the Chinese Revolution." Modern China 21.1 (Jan. 1995): 45-76.
Lieberthal, Kenneth. Governing China. New York: WW Norton, 1995, pp. 27-56.
II. CHINA UNDER MAO
Planners and Dreamers
MacFarquhar, Roderick, ed. The Politics of China. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993, Chap. 1-2, pp. 5-116, skim pp. 117-147.
Optional: Becker, Jasper. "Mao's Secret Famine." In Hungry Ghosts. New York: Henry Holt, 1996, pp. 58-149.
The Cultural Revolution
MacFarquhar, Roderick. Ch. 3 and first half of Ch. 4, pp. 148-305.
III. THE POST-MAO TRANSITION
Reform: Unleashing the Winds of Change
Kornai, Janos. "What the Change of System from Socialism to Capitalism Does and Does Not Mean." Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, 1 (Winter 2000): 27-42.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kornai/files/wtcosf.pdf
Perkins, Dwight. "Completing China's Move to the Market." Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, 2 (Spring 1994): 21-46.
Oi, Jean. "Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism." World Politics 45, 1 (October 1992): 99-126.
Social Upheaval and Political Change
Calhoun, Craig. Neither Gods nor Emperors. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1997, skim entire book.
Metzger, Thomas A. "Sources of Resistance." Journal of Democracy 9, 1 (1998): 18-26.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/
IV. CHINA IN THE 1990s
State and Market in Contemporary China
International Finance Corporation. China's Emerging Private Enterprises. Washington: IFC, 2000. (available online at www.ifc.org/publications/ use "search" function to find).
Steinfeld, Edward S. "China: The People's Republic at 50." The Far Eastern Economic Review 7 (Oct. 1999). (available online through Dow Jones Interactive database)
Tenev, Stoyan, and Chunlin Zhang. Corporate Governance and Enterprise Reform in China: Building the Institutions of Modern Markets. Washington: World Bank/IFC, 2002, Chap. 2. (available online at www.ifc.org)
State and Society
Blecher, Marc J. "Hegemony and Workers' Politics in China." The China Quarterly, 170 (June 2002): 283-303.
Cai, Yongshun. "The Resistance of Chinese Laid-off Workers in the Reform Period." The China Quarterly, no. 170 (June 2002): 327-344.
Kaufman, Joan, and Anthony Saich. "Financial Reform, Poverty, and the Impact on Reproductive Health Provision: Evidence from Three Rural Townships." Paper presented to the conference on Financial Sector Reform in China, Sept. 2001.
Tang, Wenfang. "Political and Social Trends in the Post-Deng Urban China: Crisis or Stability?" The China Quarterly, 168 (Dec. 2001).
Law and Party
Alford, William. "The More Law, the More . . .? Measuring Legal Reform in the People's Republic of China, Center for Research on Economic Development and Policy Reform." Stanford University. Working Paper, no. 59, August 2000.
Ding, X. L. "The Quasi-Criminalization of a Business Sector in China." Crime, Law & Social Change 35, 3 (April 2001): 177-202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1011294000877
Peerenboom, Randall. "Seek Truth From Facts: An Empirical Study of Enforcement of Arbitral Awards in the PRC." 2001. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=344900
Nationalism and the Taiwan Issue
Campbell, Kurt M., and Derek J. Mitchell. "Crisis in the Taiwan Strait?" Foreign Affairs 14 (July 2001). (available online through Dow Jones Interactive)
Gries, Peter Hays. "Tears of Rage: Chinese Nationalism and the Belgrade Embassy Bombing." The China Journal 45 (July 2001): 25-43.
Chu, Yun-han, and Jih-wen Lin. "Political Development in 20th-Century Taiwan: State-Building, Regime Transformation and the Construction of National Identity." The China Quarterly 165 (Mar. 2001).
Elite Politics and Succession
Fewsmith, Joseph. "Is Political Reform Ahead." China Leadership Monitor (Winter 2002): Issue One.
Miller, H. Lyman. 
"The Road to the Sixteenth Party Congress." (PDF - 30 MB) China Leadership Monitor (Winter 2002): Issue One.
MacFarquhar, Roderick. "Demolition Man." New York Review of Books (27 March 1997).
"Passing the Baton in Beijing." New York Review of Books (18 Feb 1988).
Wither China?
Lardy, Nicholas R. "The Economic Future of China." Speech to the Asia Society (29 April 2002).
Minxin, Pei. "China's Governance Crisis." Foreign Affairs (Sept/Oct. 2002).
(available online from Dow Jones Interactive.)
Xiaoying, Wang "The Post-Communist Personality." The China Journal (Jan. 2002): 1-18.
Yizi, Chen. "The Road from Socialism." Journal of Democracy 9, 1 (1998): 6-10.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v009/9.1chen.html