New Development in Global Politics and Rethinking on China’s Multilateral Diplomacy

The new developments in global politics exert three systemic impacts on international relations. Global issues, vital to the survival of mankind, rise to the top agenda of national governments. The epicenter of global power is shifting from U.S. and Europe to the rest of the regions. The global "political excitement and zeal" is rolling on. All exact more on the competence of global governance. The current international multilateral mechanisms are in "competence deficit", worsening either in terms of adequacy, validity or legitimacy. The call for the reform of it is ever soaring. China by the way is at once engaging in the multilateral diplomacy transforming the international system and facing the growing pressure of assuming "leadership" and "international responsibility". China needs to continuously adapt to the changed national identity in the multilateral diplomacy, to reconcile the multilateral mechanisms that deal with regions and domains in China’s strategic planning and laying-out, to organically associate the short-term and long-term goals and to upgrade the concept of harmonious world in the practice of multilateral diplomacy.     

国际金融体系改革与中国的应对思路

The reform of international financial system is focused on the following aspects: international monetary system, international financial institutions (IFIs), and international financial regulatory system. The US, European Union, Japan, and the Emerging Market Countries all have different stances concerning the reforms in these fields. There is also an obvious deviation in the interests and demands of Emerging Powers and the US and EU. In addition, the G20 has become the major forum for economic coordination...     

Toward a New Decade:Research on the Sustainable Development of FOCAC

FOCAC is a successful and pioneering cooperation model jointly explored by China and Africa.The Forum has become an important platform for facilitating China-Africa relations since its founding 10 years ago.Within this framework the two sides have achieved great accomplishment through cooperation,and have created new development areas.Currently,the international system is experiencing deep adjustments,and the international political,economic and security situation is becoming increasingly complicated.Within such a context,the Forum continues to embrace new development opportunities as well as face new challenges.This paper will evaluate the achievements and the experiences of the Forum,and offer some proposals on promoting the sustainable development of FOCAC within the new context.     

Abstracts

＂Symbiosis of International Society＂ and IR Theory of Peace and Development
Symbiosis of international society is a proposition universally valid and impeccable. Both the two world wars and the general crisis occurred in the first half of the last century indicated that the change of lR theory was at the turning point of history and that the proposition of symbiosis of international society would inevitably replace the proposition of international anarchism, though it r has not been realized to date unfortunately. The post-war development of international society has all the more offered ample resources for establishing the leading position of the symbiosis o f international society in 1R research. By virtue of the momentum, it is the time to boost the Chinese traditional culture and Chinese wisdom of harmonious philosophy in the scientific explanation of the symbiosis of international society, which is particularly necessary for creating the IR theory of peace and development, sticking to the road of peace and development and contributing to the construction of a lasting peace, co-prosperity and harmonious world.     

The trend of relations between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean from the perspective of Bi-regional Summits

<正>Nowadays,multilateral consultative mechanism is gradually becoming a mainstream approach in the contemporary international system.As one of the most important international collective player,the European Union(EU) has been engaging in multilateral cooperation and consultation since its inception.It has also been promoting a plural world through advocacy and action.The EU and the Latin America/Caribbean(LAC) Countries summits are considered a stability mechanism for promoting bi-regional dialogues.Nevertheless,after 10 years of bi-regional strategic partnership construction,the EU and LAC relations are currently experiencing a difficult phase,suggesting it is time to reform.The purpose of this paper is to analyze the advantages as well as the challenges to EU-LAC relations from the perspective of bi-regional summits,and to assess the short-term trend of their relations in the near future     

Abstracts

Features of the Current International Situation and New Challenges to China＇s External Environment CHEN Dongxiao （1）
The current international situation is marked by the accelerating evolution of the international order remarkably characterized with ad hoc and transitional features. The configuration of the international powers is continuing with the momentum of multi-polarization and equalization, though remains basically as a trilateral structure consists of the United States, EU and emerging powers with the U.S., the only superpower, arching over. The profound evolution of the international system and the growing demand of global governance are contradicted with insufficient mechanisms of international governance, leading to the primary contradiction of the present international relations.     

On the Features of Contemporary Regrouping of International Forces

<正>The co-relation of international forces is evolving in favor of developing countries with emerging powers as their representatives,which is unprecedentedly shaking the Western powers' dominance of world affairs.The regrouping of international forces is forming the Four Groups of gaining,defending,losing and weakening forces.The Four Groups are coping with the global problems on their respective and common positions,greatly enriching the connotation of peace and development with contemporary dimension,and giving historical task of building international system to regional and sub-regional cooperation.Although the Four Groups are still in dynamic development with proper adjustments of formation within and between themselves with different issues and at different times,the emerging powers are gaining on as world trends.While on the road towards a global power,China needs to take Emerging Powers as its strategic backup and strive for greater rights of discourse and leading roles.However,the international society should be fully prepared both intellectually and physically for the prolonged,complicated and uneven processes of regrouping of international forces and the transforming of international system in the context of peaceful conditions.     

Addressing Global Climate Change:The Need to Shape a Multidimensional Strategy for International Cooperation

<正>How to mobilize world countries to work together in addressing global climate change is now another focus of world attention.This is a major milestone in the history of human social development and progress in modern times and also a tremendous,complex and systematic project.Its success or failure depends not only on the transformation of the traditional old model of high-emission and high-growth development,which is formed in the industrialization process over a long period of time,into a new model of low-emission and high-growth development,which is adapted to the change of the times and the ecosystem.It also depends on the political will of countries around the world to jointly attach importance to and participate in tackling global climate change,and on more awareness and consensus among them to the importance and urgency to meet the challenge.Against this background,it is highly necessary to shape a multidimensional strategy for international cooperation and work out supplementary policies and practical measures.     

China’s Aid to Africa:Characteristics,Its Role and Challenges ahead

Started from 1956,China’s aid to Africa has been playing a very significant role for strengthening Sino-African ties as a whole.Generally speaking,take "the reform and opening-up" policy started from late 1970s as a line of demarcation,China’s aid policy to Africa can be divided into two periods in the half century.The driving force of China’s aid policy before the line was to strengthen the diplomatic and political ties with African countries.The focus of China’s aid policy after the line is to seek mutual economic cooperation and common development.Comparing with the Western approaches,the major characteristics of China’s aid policy to Africa are mainly three:the aid is provided with no strings attached,and emphasizing on bilateral aid projects rather than multilateral system,strong focus on "hardware projects" such as physical infrastructure construction rather than "software projects" like research and capacity building.In general,China’s aid to Africa has generated effective results and helped a lot for China’s involvement in Africa.However,it is also facing new challenges at the moment and future.     

A New Posture of International Arms Control and Disarmament

About one year on,international arms control and disarmament appeared to be rebounding to become an issue of great international attention,paralleling the issues of financial crisis and climate change.International nuclear disarmament re-dawned with high profile readjustments by the United States in its nuclear arms control policy and tactics.The US and Russia signed a new agreement of bilateral nuclear disarmament.Multilateral nuclear arms control has also softened,and the nuclear security issue loomed large.The Conference on the Review of Nuclear Non-proliferation was held,the main illustration of the adjustment by the US to its arms control policy and tactics.On balance,however,the US arms control and disarmament policies remain largely rhetorical,as its two strategic objectives of nuclear weapon policy--nuclear deterrence and non-proliferation--has been kept intact,and even intensified.     

金融危机与美国霸权战略的调整

经济是政治的基础，金融是霸权的基础。金融危机削弱了美国综合实力，使美国霸权战略不得不进行一系列调整：在经济领域，实施经济优先的战略方针，推动霸权战略的“国内化”转向，夯实美国在世界政治经济中的霸主基础；在国际政治领域，加速推进“转型外交”进程，倡导多边主义和国际协作；在军事领域，采取相对收缩的军事战略，适时调整海外军事布局，全力应对国际金融危机。     

Employment,restructuring, and gender: The case of San José, Costa Rica

San José has been the territorial fulcrum of Costa Rica’s post-World War II socioeconomic exceptionalism relative not only to Central America but to the periphery of the world economy at large. Research on the contemporary reorganization of the world economy underscores the gendered aspects of widening socioeconomic inequalities on an international scale. From these standpoints, this paper analyzes change in San José’s labor market in terms of two basic questions. First, to what extent has the recent experience of very small countries on the periphery reflected the baseline features of restructured inequalities of employment and gender as portrayed in the literature on global transformation during the late twentieth century? And second, given that the aggregate prosperity of Costa Rica since its economic crisis of the early 1980s has been premised on neoliberal reforms, to what extent have shifts in the gender contours of San José’s labor market amounted to recovery or loss compared with its socioeconomic exceptionalism of the pre-crisis era?     

关于全球金融经济危机的若干思考

由美国次贷危机引发的世界金融危机和经济危机表明了美国金融霸权的衰落。这是美国经济霸权的危机，也是美国大力推行的市场原教旨主义即新自由主义的危机。这场经济危机显示出当代资本主义的最新特点，即金融产业脱离实体经济片面畸形发展，全球经济过分金融化，因而被称作“全球金融市场资本主义”。目前经济危机还在持续，与此同时，世界政治也开始进入一个动荡不安的高风险的历史阶段。     

二十国集团与国际金融体系改革

此次全球金融危机的根源是人类的系统危机。美国的金融衍生品市场为投资者创造了比发行者更低的风险,个体风险的最小化使潜在风险在系统层面体现,最终导致系统瓦解。美国和世界经济缺乏增长点,导致走出危机后的全球经济向着长时间的、严重的萧条方向发展。二十国集团因创建目的差异和内在的矛盾关系,无法解决当前世界金融体系的问题,该组织演变为国际争论中心的可能性甚至大于全球治理的模式,它需要被使用但不应被寄予厚望。当前,世界经济面临着从投机型到生产型的痛苦转型,核销投机性债务、实行金本位制度并确立新的全球储备货币是痛苦相对较小的转型方式。     

Generative sectors and the new historical materialism: Economic ascent and the cumulatively sequential restructuring of the world economy

The causes and consequences of inequality between national economies, the ascent to dominance within the world hierarchy of economies, and the dynamics driving the material intensification and spatial expansion of production and trade in the world economy have long been core questions in a wide range of fields concerned with economic change and development and with international relations. In this article, we propose that one of the fundamental mechanisms driving all three of these processes for at least the last 500 years has been a dynamic tension, or contradiction, between the economies of scale that reduce relative costs and drive national economic ascent to dominance in world production and trade, and the diseconomies of space that result from the increased consumption of raw materials that this expanded production entails. The four most rapid cases of economic ascent in the history of the world economy—Holland, Great Britain, the United States, and Japan—resolved this contradiction in similar ways that drove the ascent of these economies to the top of the system of global stratification. Stephen G. Bunker is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research examines how the world economy is driven by raw materials and transport, including the role of the Brazilian Amazon as a raw-materials periphery and the political economy and ecology of Japanese raw-materials access strategies. Paul S. Ciccantell is associate professor of sociology at Western Michigan University. His research examines the socioeconomic and environmental impact of raw-materials extraction in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela; the organizational sociology of raw-materials and transport industries; the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement; and the political economy and ecology of Japanese raw-materials access strategies.     

为什么要研究“国际社会共生性”——兼议和平发展时代国际关系理论

国际社会共生性是普遍有效的理论命题，具有无可辩驳性。上世纪前半期发生的两次世界大战和大危机，都表明国际关系理论的变革已处于历史的转折点上，用国际社会共生性命题取代国际社会无政府状态命题势在必然，可惜至今没有实现。第二次世界大战后国际社会发展更加充分地为确立国际社会共生性命题在国际关系研究中的主导地位提供了丰富的资源，凭借这种发展势头，弘扬中华民族传统文化和谐哲学的智慧，科学认识国际社会共生性，是创立和平发展时代国际关系理论的需要，是中国坚持和平发展道路的需要，也会为建设持久和平、共同繁荣的和谐世界作出贡献。     

Global Capitalism and the Transformation of State Socialism

The article outlines the footprint of international economic interests under state socialism, and considers in more detail the economic integration of the postcommunist countries into the world system in the post-1989 period of the building of capitalism. The focus of the article is on the extent of economic globalization of countries and their economic corporations. It is contended that the globalization of capitalist companies and the direct role of global economic forces had little importance under state socialism. Since 1989, policy in the former state socialist countries has been geared to “joining” the world system, optimistically its core. Important differences have developed between the postsocialist states with respect to economic penetration and exposure to the world market. The outcomes have not fulfilled the expectations of early advocates of transformation and entry to the world economy. Although the new member states of the European Union have entered the world economy as formal members of the “core,” they are not economically equal to the dominant “old” members of the EU. In all the postcommunist countries, there is an absence of large scale global companies, of comparable levels of innovation, research and development. Russia is a resources rich country, a “hybrid” social formation containing elements of state economic control, national capitalism, and global capitalism. I conclude that the semi periphery is not a transient category in the world economy; it has potential for persistence and renewal.     

The capitalist conjuncture: over-accumulation,financial crises,and the retreat from globalisation

This article argues that the key crisis that has overtaken today's global economy is the classical capitalist crisis of over-accumulation. Reaganism and structural adjustment were efforts to overcome this crisis in the 1980s, with little success, followed by globalisation in the 1990s. The Clinton administration embraced globalisation as the ‘Grand Strategy’ of the USA, its two key prongs being the accelerated integration of markets and production by transnational corporations and the creation of a multilateral system of global governance, the pillars of which were the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The goal of creating a functionally integrated global economy, however, stalled, and the multilateral system began to unravel, thanks among other things to the multiple crises created by the globalisation of finance, which was the main trend of the period. In response partly to these crises, partly to increasing competition with traditionally subservient centre economies, and partly to political resistance in the South, Washington under the Bush administration has retreated from the globalist project, adopting a nationalist strategy consisting of disciplining the South through unilateralist military adventures, reverting to methods of primitive accumulation in exploiting the developing world, and making other centre economies bear the brunt of global adjustments necessitated by the crisis of over-accumulation.     

国际政治研究与中国的粮食安全(代序)

一、粮食供应稳定：中国的敏感 像诸多国际政治研究中的非传统安全课题一样,粮食安全是审视中国与外部世界的关联及互动的重要课题。2007-2008年间,全球出现了又一轮粮食危机。其显著表征是国际市场的玉米、大米和小麦的平均价格翻了两番甚至三番。由于在谷物品种中,玉米、大米和小麦与满足人类的日常营养需求的相关度更高,所以,其价格超常规波动对一些高度依赖进口的国家造成了冲击,     

Embedded mercantilism and open regionalism: The crisis of a regional political project

This paper advances the argument that moves towards regional integration need to be understood as 'regional governance projects' undertaken by domestic actors and coalitions. Regional political projects--such as open regionalism--have roots in domestic structures, and it is this which defines the broad configuration of the regional political economy. On the basis of this framework the paper suggests, first, that the strategy of open regionalism was contingent on a particular configuration of power and interests in the domestic and external economy (embedded mercantilism). Second, this system of embedded mercantilism depended on a set of domestic coalitions between tradeable and non-tradeable sectors of the economy. The non-tradeable sector in Southeast Asia was entrenched within a particular system of political patronage. Third, the Asian crisis and other structural changes in the international economy have made these domestic coalitions less sustainable, thereby creating opportunities for new forms of regional governance projects.