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.     

Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk

ABSTRACT

This article is adapted from the dissertation ‘Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at Dundalk’, completed by Siobhan Osgood for the MPhil in Art History: Art + Ireland, where it was awarded a distinction. The study provides an historical analysis in the context of architectural development and broader railway culture in Ireland to provide an interpretation and understanding of the use of polychromatic yellow, red and black brickwork to create a visual identity for railway architecture. The use of accented colours to pick out key features is repeated across a series of buildings, thus creating a distinctive style of ‘brick-branding’. These are most prominent in the town of Dundalk, where the GNRI had its central engineering works at the halfway point on the Dublin to Belfast mainline and at the point where the Irish North line extended west and north. The buildings were each intricately designed by the GNRI's first chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills, a second-generation railway engineer who merged the roles of architect and engineer using an amalgamation of architectural designs from his earlier career in Derby, Scotland, Mexico and Spain. Mills thus created his own ‘Millsian’ style of industrial architectural design.     

Localizing the Reynolds case: a comparison of two American military atrocities in the Far East in Cold War 1957

ABSTRACT

This paper’s main focus is the case of the killing of Chinese citizen Liu Ziran by the American soldier Robert G. Reynolds in Taipei on March 20, 1957. Following this unfortunate event, a United States court-martial was inappropriately held in Taiwan. Reynolds’ acquittal provoked a violent response from the Chinese people. The riot on May 24, 1957, is best interpreted within a framework of nationalism rather than Cold War discourse. That same year, in the Girard case, another American soldier killed a Japanese woman in Japan. Due to the unequal positions of Taiwan and Japan in US Cold War strategy, these two killings were handled differently and led to dissimilar reactions. Washington viewed Taipei as somewhat of a troublemaker rather than a reliable ally and expressed great suspicion of Chiang Kai-shek and his eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo. The US government had already declined to support Chiang Kai-shek’s plan for parachute raids in China. Meanwhile, Chiang’s authoritarian regime created a hotbed for the outbreak of nationalism. The people of Taiwan experienced a “pawn complex” and, in the Reynolds case, gave vent to accumulated ideological and social pressures.     

Seeking evidence: The 1984 visit to Nanjing by a Japanese investigative team and its significance

ABSTRACT

In December 1984, a private Japanese academic organization, the “Nanjing Incident Research Committee” (Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai), sent a survey team to visit Nanjing, with the aim of obtaining more evidence on the Nanjing Massacre to counter the internal debate within Japan. Through the coordination by the “Office of the Leading Team on History, Museums and Monuments for the Nanjing Massacre” during the visit, the survey team was able not only to gather historical materials, meet with survivors, and tour historical sites, but also to engage in exchanges with Nanjing researchers and students of Nanjing University. This visit to Nanjing further publicized Japan’s internal debate on the Nanjing Massacre in China, while also representing an unprecedented effort for collaboration between China and Japan in research on the Nanjing Massacre.     

执政府与沪案交涉的失败

沪案交涉是由执政府担当的,但执政府为延长其政治生命,只知利用五卅运动中的"民气"以对内,并没有真正谋划沪案交涉,导致交涉主张不统一,交涉策略不明朗,交涉步骤不一致;同时,各外交官员在开展外交时也进行"内争",相互推诿卸责,导致沪案交涉延宕;江苏地方官员和各派军阀也以外交之名,与中央一起争夺上海地盘;此外,沪案发生时,上海无军政大员负责的现状也影响到了沪案交涉的开局.这些才是沪案交涉无功而终的主要原因.     

花马礼:16-19世纪中缅边界的主权之争

本文系统研究了明代后期和清代困扰中缅关系的中国部分边境土司给缅甸王朝送“花马礼”的问题 ,认为花马礼起源于 16世纪后期缅甸东吁王朝的扩张 ,到清代 ,送花马礼的土司主要是车里和孟连 ;花马礼之废 ,则在缅甸雍籍牙王朝灭亡时。从清王朝和土司的态度来说 ,花马礼主要是中央王朝对边疆地区的控制不严和缅甸王朝对中国边疆土司事务的干涉而沿袭下来的 ,但花马礼的存在 ,并不意味着边境部分土司的“两属” ,而是反映了清代国家观念和周边国家传统观念的不一致所产生的主权争端。     

博弈论视角下的卢沟桥事变

本文主要运用博弈论模型对卢沟桥事变从一个"地方性"事件演变为中日两国之间的全面战争这一过程进行分析.本文认为,卢沟桥事变发生伊始,中日两国都不同程度地想避免卷入全面战争,但是由于双方在卢沟桥事变后所采取的对策使得他们陷入了"谁是懦夫"的困境中,最终导致了全面战争的爆发.     

1939年秋-1940年夏国民党的南调命令及其影响——对皖南事变起源的新分析

抗战初期的南调命令是国民党在发展和维护它的华中敌后利益,尤其是大别山根据地利益的过程中提出来的.由于抗战的新形势,国民党对在失去大举"剿共"手段之后的策略选择和反共部署,其实并没有多少及时而深入的考虑,尤其因为共产国际五月指示以来共产党在华中采取攻势策略,国民党更显缺乏心理和策略准备,南调命令最终在国民党内外重重阻力下不了了之.但是,这并不意味着它在国共关系史上没有产生实际的影响.在皖南,国共都因为南调命令而发生了策略变化,两党由此不可避免地开始积累矛盾,直至事变发生.     

Pillars and perspective: demarcation of the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary

From 1911 to 1914 an Anglo-Belgian boundary commission demarcated the 885 km boundary between the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia along the watershed of the Congo and Zambezi rivers with a total of just 46 markers. Such low-density boundary demarcation with widely spaced pillars was typical of early British boundary-making in southern Africa. Less than fifteen years later, a second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission was created to re-demarcate the boundary. Not only was it unique for a colonial boundary in southern Africa to be re-demarcated, this second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission worked for six years with a budget that exceeded any previous British boundary commission in colonial Africa. This commission marked the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary on the ground with nearly five times the number of pillars as the first commission, literally etching the boundary in the African landscape. Its techniques of survey and boundary demarcation set a new standard, serving as a model for later British colonial boundary commissions and influencing boundary-making theory through the present day.