Infl uence of China’s imperial examinations on Japan,Korea and Vietnam

China’s imperial examinations greatly influenced the East Asian world. Japan imitated it during the eighth to tenth centuries; its subjects include xiucai, mingjing, jinshi, mingfa, as well as medicine and acupuncture. Korean imperial examinations are the longest and most comprehensive ones among other East Asian countries. Vietnam was the last to abolish the imperial examinations. All three East Asian countries imitated China in their imperial examinations, which greatly raised their cultural levels.     

Russia’s energy relations with China: passing the strategic threshold?

This article examines Russian energy policies toward China over the past decade as reluctant engagement changed into a priority energy partnership. From 2008 to 2016 Russian and Chinese companies signed several major oil and gas agreements, a period in which Moscow reassessed China as a future energy consumer and lifted bilateral cooperation to a new level. The article utilizes the strategic partnership concept as an analytical framework and finds traditional realist concepts and hedging inadequate for this particular case. The study illuminates Russian geopolitical considerations and acceptance of vulnerability, which combined make long-term Russian energy policies more China dependent. Officially, Russia seeks diversification among Asian energy buyers, but its focus has increasingly been on China. Western sanctions imposed in 2014 for Russia’s role in Ukraine accelerated this trend. Moscow’s energy policies toward Beijing with its pipelines and long-term agreements are permanent arrangements that resemble strategic partnership policies. China is eager to increase energy relations with Russian companies, but Beijing also ensures that it does not become too dependent on one supplier. Russian concern over its increased dependence on China in the East is deemed secondary to expanding Russia’s customer base beyond the still-dominant European market.     

Geopolitical cultures,pragmatic patriotism,and Russia’s disputed islands

This paper draws on the notion of “geopolitical culture” as a conceptual tool for understanding debates over the formulation of foreign policy in contemporary Russia. To draw out the value of this concept, the paper explores the symbolism of territory as a means for restoring Russia’s status, respect, and power. However, in contrast to previous studies, it traces the ways in which a concession of territory has been promoted as a device for achieving Russia’s great power ambitions. More broadly, the paper seeks to stimulate a wider debate on reconceptualizing the relationship between territory and identity in Russia, at the same time as it places Russia’s Far Eastern borderlands at the heart of debates on the spatial imaginaries of the Russian homeland. By drawing on and advancing recent theoretical innovations in critical geopolitics, and recognizing the significance of the discourse of nationalism within these framings, the paper explores the nuanced and multiple story lines that constitute Russia’s geopolitical culture. Through this approach, intriguing and complex plot lines and unexpected twists are revealed, which have at times been obscured by nationalist-territorial-revanchist narratives on Putin’s Russia. It is suggested that such approaches can also provide insights for interpreting cases and contexts beyond Russia and Eurasia.     

Forty Years of Ming and Qing Research Following China’s Opening Up and Economic Reform

Increasingly, Chinese history is becoming a more significant component of academic international history. This is particularly true in light of the Chinese economic reform, whereby historical narrative has been able to go beyond more traditional standards of periodization, allowing, for example, Ming and Qing-era historical research to grow and develop qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In this sense, the field has greatly benefitted from the “ideological liberation” which followed in wake of the reform. However in a broader sense, this development is also closely related with academic exchange. Communications among domestic and international scholars of Ming and Qing history, as well as of international history, has normalized in the years following the reforms. This has not only led to a considerable influx of “overseas” historical research to China’s mainland, but has also allowed for a larger-scale access to and citation of Chinese historical research by these overseas scholars. Domestic and international scholars have, from this, established much closer academic relations with one another. This tremendous progress made within the field Ming and Qing-era historical research during the past forty years was established upon the foundation of Chinese scholars’ assiduous efforts as well as their increasingly frequent exchanges with international scholars and academics.     

Economic Transformation in Russia and China: How Do We Compare Success?

One of Europe's leading international economists compares the economies of Russia and China by tracing the evolution of their transformation from central planning to market-oriented systems. The paper singles out the respective structural and policy constraints and the importance of political decisions in moving ahead with reforms in crucial years when the dangers of reversals have materialized. It analyzes, inter alia, the reasons for present growth in both countries, which is robust in Russia and impressive in China. While macroeconomic performance indicators are commonly used to compare success and work out projections, the author argues that underlying structural and political contexts as well as institutional problems of a different nature in each country provide the key to our understanding of the respective obstacles to sustainable growth.     

Managing International News-Agency Relations under the Guomindang: China’s Central News Agency,Zhao Minheng,and Reuters, 1931–1945

During the Nationalist Era, China dealt with its relatively weaker position in the global geopolitics of news communication by forging and managing strategic collaborations with the world’s leading news agencies. This study analyzes the case of the bilateral contractual relationship between Reuters and the Guomindang (GMD) government’s official news agency, the Central News Agency (CNA). By doing so, the article reveals that in the course of developing useful cooperation with the leading international news agencies to open up inter-institutional and interpersonal channels and networks for disseminating the GMD government’s official news and viewpoints abroad, the GMD government and CNA were also confronted with a growing necessity to manage and control protracted contentions, disputes, and even conflicts arising from the party-state’s persistent attempts to assert news communication sovereignty. The study also highlights the vital role of Zhao Minheng (1904–61)—a US-educated Chinese journalist in the employment of Reuters—as middleman in the CNA-Reuters relationship. Zhao’s career provides us with an important means to analyze CNA’s international news-agency relations from transnational and transcultural perspectives.     

‘One Belt,One Road’ and China’s emerging Afghanistan dilemma

This article argues that China’s approach to Afghanistan since the end of the Cold War has been shaped by the desire both for security in Xinjiang and for geopolitical advantage in Central Asia. While Beijing’s Xinjiang calculus was ascendant from 1991 to 2001, since 2001 a broader geopolitical calculus has emerged. This latter factor has been encapsulated in President Xi Jinping’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy, which, at its core, is an outgrowth of Beijing’s decades-long agenda to integrate Xinjiang and utilise this region’s unique geopolitical position to facilitate a China-centric Eurasian geo-economic system. While China’s Xinjiang calculus determines that it shares an interest with the USA in combating radical Islamism in Afghanistan (and Central Asia more broadly), the geopolitical calculus of the ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy points to a fundamental incompatibility between US and Chinese interests.     

East German pragmatism,China’s policy of differentiation,and Soviet miscalculation: Hermann Matern’s 1961 trip to China revisited

This paper shows that Hermann Matern’s 1961 visit to China was mainly a trade mission whose connection with political affairs was minor and who had only an indirect influence on the Berlin Crisis. It further demonstrates that there was no Sino-East German rapprochement during Matern’s visit, but quite the contrary –relations between the two countries actually deteriorated, resulting in the East German delegation failing to achieve their goals. Yet, Soviet miscalculation and misunderstanding of China’s policy led them to substantially increase their economic assistance to East Germany, so as to ‘win their German comrades back’ to the Soviet side.     

‘Missing girls’ in China and India: trends and policy challenges

Child sex ratios plateaued in China between the censuses of 2000 and 2010, a major change from decades of sharp rises. In India they rose by 1.4 per cent during the intercensal period 2001–2011, which is a much slower rate of increase than in previous decades, and reported son preference is falling. In both countries, the largest declines are in regions that had the highest child sex ratios earlier, while some surrounding regions show rises. State policies to reduce sex-selection through offering financial incentives or banning the use of sex-selective technology show limited evidence of effectiveness. In China, the overall level of sex-selection remained stable, while the census data show a sharp shift towards sex-selection at the first birth—likely related to the mode of implementation of the program to reduce sex-selection. Studies indicate that media outreach can be very effective at changing norms and behaviors, including reducing son preference. Reducing the demand for sex-selection may offer the most effective long-term solution.     

Australia's ‘special strategic relationship’ with Japan: another ‘China choice’?

In July 2014, Australia's new Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzō Abe, elevated the status of bilateral ties to a ‘special strategic relationship'. Both sides also agreed on intensifying their defence technology cooperation, including in the submarine space. As well, Prime Minister Abbott called Australia a ‘strong ally’ of Japan. Yet, the prospect of a further strengthening of Australia–Japan defence relations has led to criticism by Australian strategic commentators. In particular, critics argue that closer strategic relations with Japan could damage Australia's ties with a rising China. In a worst-case scenario, Australia might even become ‘entrapped’ in a Sino-Japanese conflict. However, this argues that a closer defence relationship is in Australia's strategic interests in the face of China's increasing challenge to the rules-based order in the region. China's uncompromising position in the South China Sea and its more assertive behaviour have led to a greater congruence of threat and risk assessment between Australia and Japan. Indeed, Australia and Japan are increasingly facing a security dilemma vis-à-vis China, albeit to varying degrees. Therefore, for Australia, promoting Japan's ‘security normalisation’ contributes to regional stability. As well, the article points out that closer strategic ties with Japan do not automatically come at the expense of Sino-Australia relations. China's leverage to ‘punish’ Australia for unwanted strategic behaviour is limited, and concerns about ‘entrapment’ in a Sino-Japanese war are exaggerated. However, the more China exerts coercive diplomacy, the closer Australia–Japan defence relations are likely to become.     

Russia’s Natural Resources in the World Economy: history,review and reassessment

Abstract

Russia’s role in the global economic system today, and the Soviet Union’s in the past, is dominated by the export of natural resources, particularly oil and gas. The rents earned from these exports are both a source of strength and weakness, as they link the fortunes of Russia’s domestic economy to the volatility of global resource markets. This paper returns to a major research project conducted through the offices of the Association of American Geographers that resulted in Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, published in 1983. The project was first conceived in the aftermath of the resource crisis in the 1970s and concluded in the early 1980s as the Soviet Union sought to increase resource exports to support a failing domestic economy. This paper examines the origins, evolution, and management of this seminal work and presents a re-reading of the book in a contemporary context. We develop some of the key themes of the original project and conclude that it has contemporary relevance, as a reliance upon the resource sector remains a defining characteristic of Russia’s political economy and continues to shape Russia’s role in the global economy. We find that the regional dimension that was so important in the original project remains critical as Russia seeks to extend the resource frontier into new regions in the Arctic and the East and, at the same time, reduce its reliance on European markets – that are both stagnant and hostile – by developing new markets in Asia.