Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital: The Case of Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway

The article explores the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses borders, and the specific ways that contradictions of accumulation in China are relocated through the improvised hybridity of SOEs. In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation, the main SGR contractor, shifted and adapted its strategies as the pursuit of economic productivity gave way to political priorities in China, simultaneously responding to changing socio-political circumstances in Kenya and across East Africa. Analysing these dynamics, we highlight the contingencies of, and limitations to, structural reorganisation of actually existing forms of state capitalism in China and beyond.     

What can supraspecies richness tell us?

Biogeographers, ecologists, palaeontologists, and conservation managers often deal with checklists in which not all individuals have been identified to a species level, or the accuracy of species identification is questionable. Is it possible and credible to investigate species richness based on such checklists? Studies on macrofauna in the Far Eastern seas, eastern Arctic seas, and adjacent waters of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans suggest that in different habitats and for diverse taxa, species, and higher taxa richness strongly correlate with each other and increase with an expansion in the study area and sample size according to the species–area law. Such an increase is higher in the bottom zone than in the pelagic. Species and higher taxa richness also show a decrease from lower to higher latitudes, which is in line with the Humboldt–Wallace’s law. According to Willis’ law and self-similarity in the organisation of taxonomic levels, species richness can be assessed based on the genus, family, and order richness. In other words, supraspecies richness itself can tell us the same as species richness and therefore certain global patterns revealed at the species level may also be revealed at the supraspecies level. Such a concordance in general trends among richness parameters at different taxonomic levels in practice implies that species richness can be studied based on lists that lack species identifications or lists with doubtful species identification. We suggest bolder use of supraspecies richness in science and practice, discussing the disadvantages and advantages of this approach.     

中日邦交正常化与台湾问题

台湾问题是影响战后中日邦交正常化的主要障碍 ,中国政府提出了对日政治三原则 ,为后来中日复交三原则的产生奠定了基础 ,并采取了原则的坚定性和策略的灵活性相结合的方针。与此同时 ,日本朝野有识之士也为消除这一障碍付出了不懈的努力     

Labour Relations and the Transfer of Knowledge in Industrial Clusters: Why do Skilled Workers Share Knowledge with Colleagues in Other Firms?

Industrial clusters are held to offer competitive advantages to firms that accrue from the transfer of tacit knowledge between skilled workers co-located in spatially bound regions. This paper argues that informal knowledge transfers between skilled employees working in spatially bounded industrial clusters might have an association with the labour relationship between employers and employees. In the literature on industrial clusters general knowledge is readily traded through codified texts and collegial networks but high value, tacit knowledge transfers occur less frequently but are critical to the success of firms located in clusters. Tacit knowledge transfers are held to occur when workers move to other firms because of firm death or poaching but less frequently through contacts between colleagues from other firms. Industrial clusters are said to offer labour market advantages for skilled workers in the form of ample job opportunities and rising wages, which engender firm loyalty and discourage the transfer of tacit knowledge of competitive value to other firms. However, the limited empirical evidence available on actual working conditions for skilled workers in regional industrial clusters indicates that this argument is contestable. Some evidence suggests that there are limited wage premiums accruing to the industrial districts, a limited role for geographic proximity, and weak localised returns on seniority and education. We argue that in such circumstances high value knowledge between workers in different firms might be traded as an act of epistemic solidarity or sociability that disregards the interests of employer organisations. Such actions might vary by region and country in relation to the prevailing system of labour relations. Australian labour relations are offered as a case in point.