Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at the NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, and Zhao Yusi, Project Assistant of NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, write, “Noting the tension between migrant workers and cities under the household registration system, civil society in China has worked to protect the basic rights of migrant workers and resolve the conflicts involved in their residence in cities to make the migrant population function more harmoniously during China’s urbanization process.”

Yongsheng Zhang, contributor to the East Asia Forum, writes “the most essential element for good economic performance is preventing governmental opportunism. To achieve this, the government needs to be limited by rule of law and civil society. A better institution for long-term economic prosperity can thus gradually evolve in a civil society.”

Peter M. Beck, Professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and Yonsei University in Seoul, notes “several suggestions that would greatly increase the chances of successful negotiations” with the DPRK including insisting “that any deal reached between Pyongyang and Washington incorporates improved North-South relations… If the North follows through with its threat to close border crossings between the two Koreas, it would completely undo the rapprochement of the past decade. Washington should make it clear that this is unacceptable.”

Read a discussion of this article here.