Reluctant collaborators: Argentina and Chile in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, 1957–58

This paper suggests that Argentine and Chilean participation with the Antarctic section of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–58 can be characterized as ‘reluctant collaboration.’ It then reflects on the implications of the nature of South American involvement for the history of the Antarctic section of the IGY, especially as it led to the negotiation of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. During the initial planning stages of the IGY, both Argentina and Chile worried that proposals for widespread scientific research in the Antarctic continent would interfere with their contested claims to political sovereignty in the region. Yet despite their initial skepticism, Argentina and Chile found themselves swept along by the current of international scientific co-operation of the IGY, which persisted into the Antarctic Treaty negotiations of 1959. Within the limited options available, Chile and Argentina were able to negotiate an outcome that was not altogether unfavorable to their political interests. At the same time, their collaboration helped to legitimize both the IGY and the subsequent Antarctic Treaty.     

Union Jack or Yellow Jack? Smallpox,Sailors, Settlers and Sovereignty

In 1877 the flagship of the Royal Navy’s Australia Station, HMS Wolverene, was quarantined in Sydney Harbour. It marked a curious moment in which the dreaded disease smallpox arrived in the city aboard three different vessels within the space of a month. With cases appearing among merchant seamen, naval sailors and local residents, this event exposed numerous antinomies in the health governance of New South Wales. If the colony’s legislative authority over the imperial warships tasked with its protection proved uncertain, so did the extent to which civic power could be exerted over the movements, property and bodies of individual citizens. Exploring the conjoint histories of the naval and medical defence of the Australian colonies, this article argues that 1877 saw these tensions playing out on different scales of sovereignty. Marking a critical point before colonial defence and quarantine strategies turned markedly against ‘Asiatics’, this incident encapsulated the uneasy state of colonial self-government amid a technological transformation of the seaways.     

Australia’s engagement with the European Union: partnership choices and critical friends

ABSTRACT

This article examines the development of Australia’s relationship with the European Union (EU) by focusing on drivers and obstacles. Underlying the relationship are the burden of memory and common interests and values. It argues that, although the past still resonates, the changes to the range and depth of interests and values have resulted in a more fruitful engagement. It suggests that a history of a negatively framed context of engagement, characterised by Australian critiques of the EU and, in turn, by EU neglect of the relationship, has contributed to distance between the two interlocutors. It is only in recent years that this distance has been bridged and perceptions have changed. Australia has chosen partnerships with the EU that enhance its economic and political choices. Links with a long-term partner, the UK, are being recast as Brexit presents a new challenge at a time of Australia’s stronger engagement with the EU through a key agreement and trade talks. Finally, the article argues that Australia and the EU are critical friends.     

Australian defence policy and the concept of self-reliance

Since the Vietnam War, Australian defence policy has been based on the concept of self-reliance—the ability to defend Australia without allied combat forces. Self-reliance arose from concerns about US support in conflict with Indonesia. It has implications for Australian foreign policy, force structuring, joint operations and the defence industry, which were most coherently laid out in the 1987 White Paper. Later White Papers adapted this framework, but the 2013 White Paper seems to move towards a new approach to defence policy and strategy, which continued use of the term ‘self-reliance’ obscures rather than elucidates.     

“澶渊之盟”以前宋辽战争交通道路考

在北宋建立至“澶渊之盟”期间(960-1005年),北宋与辽国为了实现各自的战略意图,曾利用渤海与黄海海路、河北平原道路、太行山间道路、河东山地道路、麟府路地区道路等交通线展开军事行动.宋辽边疆地带的地理环境与宋辽两军的战略意图,是影响这一时期宋辽战争中诸道路利用频率的主要因素.     

传杨邦基《聘金图》的创作背景和辱宋寓意

美国大都会博物馆所藏《聘金图》卷无标题及画家款识,虽然学界一般认为是描绘宋金交聘的历史政治画,但作者和画意并无定论。本文根据画中山水风格和人物服饰、宋金交聘礼仪和使节往返路线,以及当时社会政治环境,论证此画可能为仕金汉人杨邦基(约1110-1181)为金主海陵王(1149-1161年在位)所创作,时间为1150年代晚期。其创作目的是借南宋国使在金境备受轻慢的现象写宋廷之不堪,默许海陵统一中国的野心和女真政权在中国历史上的正统性。该画在以宣扬国威、中兴为主旨的历史政治画传统中地位独特。     

二十世纪二三十年代“上海模式”对重庆的冲击

民国重庆城市现代化起步于刘湘“军人干政”时期。而川江航运的繁荣,城市精英的觉醒以及刘湘政权的若干举措,为“上海模式”输入重庆提供了重要条件。作为后发外生型条约体系城市,重庆的现代化不仅依靠西方现代性要素的刺激,而且更直接地受到“上海模式”的辐射和拉动。“军人干政”的负面效应致使以“上海模式”为蓝本的重庆城市现代化呈现畸变态势。在“上海模式”的冲击下,在本社会还缺少现代性因素积累的情况下,重庆城市现代化于20年代末期启动。     

From Old Practices to New Governance Models: Contractual Schemes in Africa’s Political Development

Drawing on various historical documents, the article uses process tracing methods and analytic narratives to establish a relationship between historical contractual practices and state formation in nineteenth-century East Africa. I trace the process through which local political leaders historically sought to secure monopolistic deals over trade with foreign entrepreneurs through incomplete contracts for tangible economic goods (arms and slave trades, manufactured goods) and intangible political goods or services (security, knowledge, independence). By showcasing agents’ bargaining strategies in contractual agreements, the article sheds light on notions of sovereignty and independence articulated through public contracting in Africa’s political development. Historical understandings of notions of independence and sovereignty by procurement practitioners in East Africa provide seeds for thought in controversial debates about government outsourcing today. Is outsourced sovereignty always threatening? Can we outsource sovereignty and remain independent? These are perhaps the most important conceptual queries that make East Africa’s historical contractual experience pertinent today as new public-private partnerships for development, including government outsourcing, increasingly call for the use of private means to solve public problems in the developing countries.     

South African Nuclear Development in the 1970s: A Non-Proliferation Conundrum?

ABSTRACT

The 1970s is often argued to be the era marking the beginning of the overall transformation of the international system and the nuclear order, following the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) entering into force in 1970. South Africa challenged this nuclear order from the outset. In addition to regarding the NPT as inherently discriminatory and hypocritical in allowing a difference between nuclear weapon ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, the South African apartheid regime felt threatened by Soviet expansionism into Southern Africa. Facing international condemnation and isolation due to its repressive domestic politics of racial segregation, and gripped in a war against Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces in Angola, the apartheid regime was quick to move from a decision to build one peaceful nuclear explosive device in 1974, to a formal decision in 1978 to design and develop a secret strategic nuclear deterrent. Using knowledge and skills acquired during a period of techno-nationalism and Western collaboration during the 1960s, South Africa was able to cross this threshold in a relatively short space of time, thereby signaling a clear departure from the nuclear non-proliferation regime that the five nuclear powers of the NPT were trying to establish.     

Relationships of tristichopterids (osteolepiform lobe-finned fishes) from the Middle–Late Devonian of East Gondwana

Wang, Z-B., Gao, J-H., Wang, G-H. &; Kang, Z-H., June 2018.2018. Foraminiferal biostratigraphy and facies analysis of the Permian Longge Formation in the Rongma Area, Tibet, China: implications for the palaeogeography of the South Qiangtang Block. Alcheringa XX, x–x.

The Permian Longge Formation in the South Qiangtang Block, Tibet, is overwhelmingly composed of carbonate rocks with various skeletal (brachiopods, foraminifers, gastropods, echinoderms, ostracods, corals, bivalves, algae, and bryozoans) and non-skeletal (intraclasts and ooids) components. Three stratigraphic sections of the Longge Formation in the Rongma area of north-central Tibet—known as South Yibug Caka, Niushan and East Yibug Caka—were selected for this study, which examined both sedimentary facies and foraminiferal assemblages. The foraminifers in these sections consist of at least 38 species belonging to 18 genera. Based on the distribution of the foraminifers throughout the composite section, two foraminiferal assemblages were established, and the age of the Longge Formation was determined to be late Kungurian to Capitanian. During lithological studies, ten microfacies were identified using depositional textures, petrographic analysis and faunal content: mudstone, bioclast wackestone, bioclast perforated-foraminifera packstone, bioclast crinoid grainstone, intraclast wackestone, breccia, intraclast grainstone, ooid grainstone, fine crystalline dolostone and residual-grain dolostone. These microfacies are interpreted to represent four depositional environments—restricted lagoon, open marine, shoal and slope—which together suggest a shoal-rimmed carbonate platform. The non-fusuline foraminifers show transitional palaeobiogeographic affinities (Tethyan Cimmerian subregion), and the assemblage is considered to be influenced by the northward drift of the South Qiangtang Block, the climatic warming after the Late Paleozoic Ice Age and warm-water oceanic currents caused by the newly formed Neotethys Ocean. This indicates that the South Qiangtang Block was located in a relatively warm-water, low-latitude area during the middle Permian. The Permian depositional sequences in the Rongma area were also influenced by the palaeogeographic evolution of the South Qiangtang Block.

Zhong-Bao Wang [zbwang@cugb.edu.cn] and Zhi-Hong Kang [kangzh98@cugb.edu.cn] School of Energy Resource, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), 29 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100083, PR China; Jin-Han Gao* [wang_zhongbao@126.com] and Gen-Hou Wang [wgh@cugb.edu.cn] School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), 29 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100083, PR China.