The multiple streams framework in a nondemocracy: The infeasibility of a national ban on live poultry sales in China

In response to calls to apply the multiple streams framework to nondemocracies, this article adapts the framework to an authoritarian context and applies it to a case study of live poultry sales in food markets in China, a key issue in epidemic prevention. Using a dataset consisting of Chinese policy documents, Chinese news articles, World Health Organization data, and secondary literature, the study shows that despite the public health threat posed by live poultry sales and despite high-level political support, a national-level permanent ban has not been adopted because it is technically infeasible, financially inviable, and inconsistent with existing norms and values. The study suggests that—despite the country's top-down governance style and lack of political pluralism—policy preferences expressed by members of the policy-making elite are not necessarily adopted in authoritarian China. Future research should test the proposed hypotheses in other policy areas and other authoritarian contexts.     

The move to preferential trade on the Western Pacific Rim: some initial conclusions

Since? ? Research for this project has been supported by the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project Grant No. DP0453077. View all notes the turn of the century the Asia-Pacific region has become the most active location for the negotiation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs)—a dramatic change from the period before the financial crises of 1997–98. Substantial variance in scope exists among the more than 80 PTAs currently being implemented, negotiated or which are under study in the region. Those involving the United States are by far the most comprehensive. At the other end of the spectrum are those involving ASEAN and China, which are largely ‘aspirational’ in their provisions. This variance points to the range of economic and political objectives that PTAs serve. Regardless of the comprehensiveness of their coverage, the overall economic effects of the new PTAs is likely to be small given the prevailing low level of tariffs, the intervention of other factors such as fluctuating exchange rates, the proliferation of agreements (which removes the advantages they accord individual partners), and the unwillingness of governments to liberalise ‘sensitive’ sectors. Few of the agreements move substantially beyond existing WTO provisions. The proliferation of PTAs not only has tended to shift attention and resources away from negotiations at the global level but also runs the risk of fragmenting the ‘pro-liberalisation’ coalition in countries that have signed multiple agreements.     

China and the “culture and trade” debate: a holistic approach

ABSTRACT

Over the past century, the ‘culture and trade’ debate has constantly evolved, particularly in the wake of rapid and still accelerating technological and scientific advances. These changes, manifest in an increasing convergence of many new technologies and industries, meant that the strict separation of culture from trade by means, for instance, of general or special exceptions in international trade agreements, such as the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) or the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), can no longer be sustained. It means that in light of the emergence of oxymoronic concepts like ‘the cultural and creative industries’, the debate can no longer be framed along binary modes of thinking that oppose the liberalization of international trade and the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultures. Instead a more holistic approach seems to be needed, which appears to coincide with the approach taken by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which joined the WTO in 2001. The present paper examines the holistic approach by the PRC, which seeks to combine rather than separate culture and trade in its domestic, regional and global law and policymaking.     

新中国成立前后日本与中国东北贸易的发展

1948—1950年,美国政府制订并实施了发展有限日中贸易的政策。中国东北作为日本传统的贸易对象,成为美国复兴日本经济的政策中对外贸易的一个重点。美国政策制订者认为,发展与共产党中国的贸易,不仅对重建日本经济十分重要,同时能减轻美国的财政负担,更有可能借此制造中苏分裂。日本与中国东北的贸易在这一政策下有所恢复。但是,随着朝鲜战争的爆发,这一政策匆匆收场。其原因首先在于政策本身就是自相矛盾的,美国国务院和军方之间始终存在着意见分歧。其次,东北解放区优先发展同苏联贸易的政策也决定了东北与日本的经贸关系不可能有大的发展。     

Donkey trade: Challenges to sustaining mutualism in rural Pakistan

The Pakistani government's decision to export thousands of donkeys to China to manufacture Chinese traditional medicine (ejiao) threatens the interdependence between donkeys and their keepers. This article seeks to unravel the mutualism between humans and donkeys in rural South Punjab and examines how forces of globalism and capitalism commodify the equine through parasitic disregard.     

Constructing free trade: from Manchester boosterism to global management

The free trade doctrine, now global common knowledge, has followed a complex spatio-temporal path of knowledge production from its origins in Manchester at the turn of the nineteenth century. While grounded in normative and cognitive claims, its transformation from local self-interest to global doctrine was a result of the scale-jumping tactics of the Anti-Corn Law League, combined with the popularity in Western Europe of private property liberalism and the hegemonic global positionality of early nineteenth-century Britain. Corn Law repeal in 1846 in London was constructed as the point in space–time where doctrine became practice, and Britain's subsequent prosperity was seen as proof of its validity. After 1880, except in Britain until 1914 and the colonies, performance belied the doctrine as progressive liberalism became influential, and import-substituting industrialization an effective catch-up strategy, for other nations. The free trade doctrine was reasserted, however, with the emergence of US hegemony, as a rationale for breaking up non-US colonial preference systems and, more recently, neoliberalism. The free trade doctrine is now performed routinely under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. Nevertheless, it remains a local epistemology, whose truth-like status is kept insulated from rigorous challenge by alternative epistemologies and practices.     

Exploring trade globalization in the long run: The RICardo project

Initiated in 2004, the RICardo project focuses on bilateral trade data of all the world's countries from the early nineteenth century to the eve of the Second World War. The project includes the construction of a database and the creation of a website. It is a pioneering work in the field of historical trade statistics that aims at providing easy-to-access research material to the scientific community and at attracting a wider public to the history of trade relationships. The article emphasizes the originality of the project and sums up its various aspects by reviewing previous trade databases, clarifying the main features of historical trade statistics, and describing the construction and use of the RICardo website.     

Free trade in mad cows: how to kill a beef industry

Australia is the world's second largest beef exporter, dominating the highest value beef markets of Japan and Korea. Australia's competitiveness is underpinned primarily by its freedom from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)—better known as ‘Mad Cow’ disease—thanks to strict animal feeding and importation regulations adopted in 1966. Why then would the Australian beef industry appear to agree to soften prohibitions on beef imports from BSE-affected countries, which would have the effect of opening Australia to BSE and potentially destroying its BSE-free status, along with its prime Asian markets? Our analysis begins with commitments that appear to have been made under the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement. If our interpretation is correct, these commitments would compel Australia to accommodate US trade goals by recognising and adopting the weaker international standards on meat trade. To understand why the US would want Australia to abandon its stringent BSE safeguards, we consider wider US policy on BSE and beef exports, and its strategy for re-entering the valuable Japanese and Korean markets. To explain why the Australian beef industry might allow its interests to be sacrificed to serve US trade goals, we examine institutional and ownership features of the industry. Government pre-emption or ‘capture’, we suggest, explains industry subservience. The apparent willingness of the Australian government to sideline its country's economic interests in order to serve those of a foreign power raises the question of Australian exceptionalism.     

The Varieties of Cultural Perception: Multiculturalism after Recognition

Doubts about the enterprise of cultural recognition have helped to fuel a backlash against the politics of multiculturalism in Europe during the last decade. Such doubts are well-founded. Charles Taylor's seminal discussion of the politics of recognition neglects serious difficulties that arise for the activity of recognition when the objective and subjective dimensions of cultural identity diverge. Narratives of cultural “passing” help to highlight these difficulties and demonstrate that recognition can sometimes contribute to identity-based oppression. However, this conclusion does not commit us to a politics of cultural indifference or assimilation: the rejection of recognition does not entail the rejection of perception in general. Iris Murdoch's notion of “attention” provides a corrective to our understanding of recognition and thereby supplies a potentially superior ethical and perceptual basis for European multiculturalism in the twenty-first century.     

Salmon and fruit salad: Australia's response to world trade organisation quarantine disputes

The introduction of new quarantine disciplines under World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements has given rise to tensions within the Australian federation over quarantine measures. This paper examines WTO disciplines and rules as they affect trade in agriculture and food products. It highlights the significance of risk assessment in the policy process relating to quarantine, identifies key issues arising from the WTO Australia—Salmon case and outlines the cases currently tabled at the WTO for settlement with Australia named as respondent. The paper concludes by identifying the lessons from the salmon case in terms of intergovernmental interaction and policy learning within the Australian federation.