Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

‘A dog who I know quite well’: everyday relationships between children and animals

Adult discourses often represent relationships between children and animals as beneficial for children's psycho-social development or as reflecting a ‘natural’ connection between children and animals. In contrast, this paper draws on recent work in sociology and geography where human–animal relationships are seen as socially situated and where conventional constructions of the human–animal boundary are questioned. Focussing on children's own perspectives on their connections with animals, it is argued that these relationships can also be understood within the social and relational context of children's lives. It is argued that this ‘relational’ orientation to children's relationships with animals might significantly enhance our understanding of children's lives and also open up ways of thinking about the place of animals in children's (and adults') social lives.     

Epistemic Ignorance and the Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Righting the Wrongs of the Past and the Role of Faith Community

ABSTRACT

This study demonstrates how ignorance works in the Indonesian massacres of 1965–1966. This atrocity, which claimed roughly five hundred thousand lives, is one of the most forgotten human tragedies of the twentieth century. For many years, the massacres were hidden from public view. Ignorance was reinforced by the New Order under the presidency of Suharto. Drawing on contemporary political philosophers’ studies on the epistemology of ignorance, I contend that ignorance, like knowledge, has structures, criteria, and practices. Ignorance, thus, is not merely a “lack of knowledge” or a state of not knowing, but epistemic and political. By appropriating the epistemology of ignorance, I seek to show how the Indonesian people remember the historical wrongs and how Christian theology provides resources for right remembrance. To confront the epistemic ignorance of the Indonesian mass killings, I argue that the churches must assert their identity as the community of memory and lament.     

Soviet–Japanese relations and the strategic interests of the Guomindang and the CCP – Chiang Kai‐shek's planning of sanctions against the CCP in 1943

When in 1943 the Guomindang launched its third wave of anti‐communist campaigns, Mao Zedong considered that Chiang Kai‐shek had acted in the belief that Japan would soon invade the Soviet Union. Hitherto, Chinese historians have either ignored Mao's judgment or failed to provide convincing explanations for it. There are two reasons for this attitude: first, historians have failed to appreciate the strategic implications of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Japan for relations between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); and second, relevant evidence regarding the events has not been available in document on Chiang. This essay answers questions raised by both points. Most commentators have claimed that this third anti‐Communist push ended by the middle or late July of 1943. However, Chiang in fact continued to make plans to mop up Shaanbei (the Communist‐controlled northern Shaanxi area) and impose sanctions on the Communists. The formulation, revision and eventual abandonment of Chiang's plans are also addressed in this essay.     

Crisis,challenge and choice: recent theoretical trends of anti-modernism and Western studies in Chinese history

During the last three decades, so-called “postism” (a Chinese non-professional, invented referent to postcolonialism, postmodernism and poststructuralism) has powerfully criticized and challenged the hegemonic ideology of the long-standing Euro–American centralism and the authoritative discourse of modernism in Western intellectual and academic circles, albeit it with various different resonances in Chinese and other non-Western societies. By tracing the trajectory of Western conceptual ideas from classical “rational” interpretations of history, this article tries to construct the inner connections and evolution between these conceptions and ways of thinking, and to summarize their impacts on and reactions from the field of Chinese historical studies. This article suggests that these new trends have definitely cast light on macro ideological and perspective concerns but have been less fruitful in concrete historical studies.     

The return of Xinjiang to Chinese central control during the late period of the Sino–Japanese War: a reappraisal based on Chiang Kai-shek's Diary

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, while considering taking back the Japanese-occupied areas, the Nationalist government also started to think of recovering the frontier regions, which had been somewhat out of China's control under the influence of a major ally of China, the USSR. For a long time, Xinjiang had a very close relationship with the Soviet Union under the rule of Sheng Shicai, and the central government of China had little direct control. In April of 1942, Sheng Shicai, suspicious of a Soviet conspiracy to overthrow his rule, conducted mass arrests in Xinjiang, causing a sudden deterioration in the relationship between Xinjiang and the Soviets. At first, the Soviet Union attempted to intimidate Sheng in order to prevent him from turning to the central government, but failed. Paying no heed to the alienation policy of the Soviets, the Nationalist government soon decided to buttress Sheng in an effort to place Xinjiang under centralized control. The Nationalist government first set out to take back the diplomacy of Xinjiang, followed by expropriation of formerly Soviet-controlled enterprises and forced removal of Soviet military advisors, experts, technicians and army personnel from Xinjiang. In the meantime, a large number of party, government, economic, cultural and educational personnel were dispatched by the central government to Xinjiang to infiltrate various sectors. With the weakening of his own power and increasing conflicts with the central government, Sheng Shicai planned another turn of events. By executing a new round-up, this time to cleanse Xinjiang of the central government's forces, Sheng re-oriented his regime towards the Soviet Union. Yet his gesture was turned down by the USSR because of his loss of credibility. Well prepared militarily, the Nationalist government eventually forced Sheng Shicai to leave Xinjiang, which then was almost fully restored to the authority of the central government.     

Being(s) in relation at home: socio-natures of patio ‘gardens’ in Managua,Nicaragua

Human–nature relations of home have been gaining more attention in geography, especially in the study of gardens. This article contributes to this growing literature, but in contrast to much research, it examines human–nature relations in the patios (garden) of homes in a marginalized barrio (slum) of Managua, Nicaragua. I suggest that the human–nature relations in these patios need to be understood differently than those in North American and European gardens. Based on research carried out in Managua, I argue that such relations are at the centre of everyday domestic activities and are critical in producing home as a liveable space in the city. The article draws on feminist geographic understandings of home and current work around human–environment relations, and identifies three different sets of socio-ecological relations: corporeal, aesthetic and economic. It argues that these three different relations between humans and the plants and trees in their patios are critical in the imaginaries around home and in the production of habitable spaces in cities, as well as to our understanding of urban natures.     

Cheating the Censor: Romanian Writers under Communism

Abstract

The Romanian Communist Party enjoyed considerable success in exploiting literature for its own ends. This article asks why those writers who challenged censorship were few in number, and why, even in the final year of Nicolae Ceau?escu’s rule, the chorus of protest was weak. Most Romanian writers failed to oppose censorship, and were deeply marked by it even when they believed that they were ‘cheating’ the censor. In some ways self-censorship proved to be more damaging to creativity than overt repression. The exceptions nevertheless comprise an important category, deserving examination and recognition. The fall of Communism in Romania has allowed a discussion of these themes to be more fully informed and to this end English translations of open letters from a number of writers are appended. Some of these were passed to the author for dissemination in 1989.     

中英界碑的现状与保护

中英界碑包括陆路界碑、海关关碑和海域界碑,是英殖民主义者侵略和瓜分中国领土的历史见证.中英街上的陆路界碑是英国"展拓香港界址"并在"新界"北部地区实施勘界后,至今保留下来的最具有历史价值的文物.由于时间长久和自然、人为等因素的影响,中英街界碑遭受了不同程度的损伤和破坏.为了研究界碑的保护方法,对中英街上1～8号界碑的地理分布情况,风化、生物病害、表面污染与变色、机械损伤等病害主要类型和形成病害的相应原因进行了详细的调查、分析和研究,针对界碑保存现状和病害特征提出清洗、表面防护、防水、排水和环境整治等有效方法对界碑进行保护,以恢复其原有面貌,延长其保存寿命,使之更好地发挥爱国主义教育作用.中英街界碑的保护方法对中英海关和海域界碑的保护具有借鉴作用.