CAPITALISM,THE KOREA–U.S. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT,AND RESISTANCE

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have become an essential part of the corporate effort to establish a global infrastructure suitable to its contemporary accumulation dynamics. Because they establish and reinforce patterns of economic activity that are destructive of majority interests, they should be opposed. This article scrutinizes one agreement: the Korea–U.S. FTA. It examines the motivations that led to its negotiation, the content of the agreement, and the arguments U.S. government officials and institutions have made in support of its ratification. It concludes with a critical evaluation of the efforts of U.S. and Korean opponents of its ratification and a call for a new organizing strategy.     

中联重科vs.三一重工:商道,还是黑道?

在公开报道中,我们看到的满是黑色与罪恶,节操碎了一地。更严重的在于,连这些是真是假都还未弄清楚,口水就已经满天飞。说起商战,人们脑海中,常会浮现"波诡云谲"四个字。一般打法,都在台面之上。专攻下三路的,我也听闻过。比如曾经赫赫有名的A公司,对拥有更强研发能力的B公司,简直达到寝食难安的地步。曾买通监管单位头目,制造假...     

Urban change in China. Politics and development in Tsinan,Shantung, 1890–1949

Abstract

Over the last decade, in response to the metropolitan, heavily political concerns of the “China's response to” school in Western research on modern Chinese history, there has been a move toward local (regional, provincial, county and urban) studies. A focus on localities has meant increased emphasis on social and economic change and their linkages with political events. A new sub-field has emerged—Chinese cities. David Buck's ambitiously titled Urban Change in China is the first monograph to appear from the urban history sub-field. Its publication should, therefore, be an occasion for assessment of the parameters it assumes for the sub-discipline.     

Policing Shanghai, 1927–1937 by Frederic Wakeman Jr.

Abstract

Upon taking power in 1927, the Nationalists chose Shanghai to showcase their ability to govern and thus undercut the premise of foreign privilege in China. Bringing order to this famed metropolis with modern, professional policing would lend the new regime both domestic and international legitimacy. Frederic Wakeman's Policing Shanghai demonstrates the difficulty of undertaking such a task in a city as complex as Shanghai, with its heavy foreign and communist presence, permeable international port, and vulnerability to outside attack. An obsession with eliminating the communists (distracting police from normal police duties), the constant threat of the Japanese armed forces (leading to the militarization of the police), the corrosive participation in the opium trade and cooperation with criminal organizations (destroying the regime's domestic legitimization) sabotaged this effort. The Nationalists, Wakeman persuasively argues, failed by the standards they set for themselves.