The supermarket revolution has arrived in China and is spreading as fast as or faster than anywhere in the world. As the demand for vegetables, fruit, nuts and other high valued products has risen, urban retailers are handling increasingly more of these high value commodities. The experience of many developing countries suggests that there could be serious distributional impacts of the emergence of supermarkets. And, in China, as elsewhere in the world, there is concern among policy makers and academics that poor, small farmers might be excluded from the market for horticulture commodities.

The main goal of our paper is to understand what types of farmers have been able to participate in the horticultural revolution, how they interact with markets and how supply chains affect their production decisions and incomes. We also want to understand if (and if so, then how) the rise of supermarkets have changed supply chains. Our analysis uses spatially sampled data from 200 communities and 500 households in the Greater Beijing area and supplemented by data collected in Shandong Province, China's fruit and vegetable basket. In contrast to fears of some researchers, we find small and poor farmers have actively participate in the emergence of China's horticulture economy. Moreover, there has been almost no penetration of modern wholesalers or retailers into rural communities. We also conducted surveys and interviews in wholesale markets and with procurement agents in Beijing supermarket chains and document the fact that supply chain shifts have only affected the downstream segments of food markets and China's wholesale markets (midstream in the food supply chain) are only being affected marginally.

The purpose of this paper is to present estimations of indicators of direct and indirect interventions of China's government in agriculture. In order to put these indicators in context, the paper reviews China's experience with policy reforms since the 1950s and the measures the effects of these reforms on the agriculture sector. Unfortunately, due to data constraints, we can only produce quantitative measures of distortions since the early 1980s, that is for the past 25 years. Due to the nature of China's agricultural experience over the last six decades, this review emphasizes the sectoral and macroeconomic policies and elements of the institutional framework that have influenced the incentive framework facing the sector and factor markets. The tradeand price/marketing-policy-related changes in incentives for different products are reflected in estimated rates of government assistance (Nominal Rates of Assistance, NRAs, Direct Rates of Assistances, DRAs and consumer subsidies).

China has been one of the leaders in agricultural biotechnology research and the adoption of transgenic plants. Despite this, critics argue that Chinese biotechnology policies could be improved to provide more benefits to farmers and more incentives to companies for greater research. The objective of the paper is to examine if policy changes could improve the welfare of producers and consumers and others in the cotton industry. The paper first reviews recent changes in laws and policies that affect China's plant biotechnology sector, IPR legislation, changes in bio-safety regulation and seed industry reforms. Next, using a primary data set collected from more than 1700 plots from a sample of farmers in northern China in 1999, 2000 and 2001, we econometrically estimate the effect of changes to intellectual property rights (IPR), bio-safety regulation and seed industry reform on farmer pesticide use and yields. The results are used as the basis of a simulation exercise designed to measure the size and distribution of the benefits (and costs) of reform. We find that improvements to the IPR environment, enhanced enforcement of China's bio-safety management regulation and greater commercialization of the seed industry positively affect the benefit of producers, consumers and technology providers.

Between 1979 and 1992, the Journal of Korean Studies became a leading academic forum for the publication of innovative in-depth research on Korea. Now under the editorial guidance of Gi-Wook Shin and John Duncan, this journal continues to be dedicated to quality articles, in all disciplines, on a broad range of topics concerning Korea, both historical and contemporary.

This edition's contents:

In Memoriam: James B. Palais

Special Section: Globalization and Korean Society

1. Introduction: Globalization and Transformation in Contemporary Korean Society - Michael Robinson
2. The 2002 World Cup and a Local Festival in Cheju: Global Dreams and the Commodification of Shamanism - Kyoim Yun
3. Consuming Visions: The Crowds of the Korean World Cup - Rachael Miyung Joo
4. Korean Medicine's Globalization Project and Its Powerscapes - Jongyoung Kim
5. The Politics of the Family Law Reform Movement in Contemporary Korea: A Contentious Space for Gender and the Nation - Ki-young Shin

Articles

1. Nation Re-Building and Postwar South Korean Cinema: The Coachman and The Stray Bullet - Kelly Jeong
2. Is the Samguk yusa Reliable? Case Studies from Chinese and Korean Sources - Richard D. McBride, II

Book Reviews

1. New Korean Cinema edited by Chi-Yun Shin and Julian Stringer
2. South Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema edited by Kathleen McHugh and Nancy Abelmann. Reviewed by Nikki Ji Yeon Lee, Yonsei University
3. The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong. Reviewed by Jin-kyung Lee, University of California, San Diego