Jae Ho Chung is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Institute for China Studies at Seoul National University, Korea. His recent publications include: Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Charting Chinas Future; and Cities in China: Recipes for Economic Development in the Reform Era (the latter also published by Routledge). Tao-chiu Lam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He currently administers the university's MBA program in Xian and Shenzhen. He has published on local government and public sector management in China.

This book presents a comprehensive survey of China's local administration. It considers all kinds of local government units and their administrative functions, both historically and in the present day: ranging from the provinces, centrally-administered municipalities and autonomous regions to prefectures, counties, townships and urban districts.

1: The Evolving Hierarchy of China's Local Administration: Traditions and Changes - Jae Ho Chung 2: Provinces: Paradoxical Politics, Problematic Partners - John Donaldson 3: Centrally-Administered Municipalities: Locomotives of National Development - Tse-Kang Leng 4: Ethnic Autonomous Regions: A Formula for Unitary Multiethnic State - Hongyi Lai 5: 'One Country Two Systems' and Special Administrative Region: The Case of Hong Kong - Ray Yep 6: Deputy-Provincial Cities: Embedded Yet De Facto Players - Jae Ho Chung 7: Prefectures and Prefecture-level Cities: Political Economy of Administrative Restructuring - Shiuh-Shen Chien 8: The County System and County Governance - Tao-Chiu Lam 9: Chinese Township Government: Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Yang Zhong 10: Urban District: A Half or a Full Level of State Administration? - Tao-chiu Lam and Carlos Lo