Changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: The effects on China

The rapidly changing political, economic, and security policies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in late 1989 and 1990 have added to the complications faced by Chinese leaders since they decided to suppress the unprecedented large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in Chinese cities in spring 1989. These changes had an obvious “ripple effect” in China, encouraging prodemocracy forces and alarming Chinese leaders. They attracted strong positive attention from the developed countries of the West and Japan, and international financial institutions and businesses. This came at the indirect expense of China. And they accelerated changes in world politics (especially in U.S.-Soviet relations) and in the politics of government decision making in the West that promised to reduce China’s relative influence in world affairs in the 1990s. The prospect of reduced influence abroad and curbed economic contacts did not appear to be sufficient cause for Beijing leaders to markedly change existing policies. Chinese leaders in mid-1990 appeared focused on issues of internal political power at a time of leadership transition. Significant changes in policy appeared most likely to await leadership changes as Deng Xiaoping and other aged leaders die or are incapacitated.     

Toward the center: Implications of integration and democratization for Taiwan’s mainland policy

Two fundamental changes have taken place in Taiwan in recent years. One is its economic integration with the Chinese mainland and the other is political democratization in the island. Whereas the economic integration has led to the development of a new structure of interests favoring current relations between Taiwan and the mainland, the political democratization process has discouraged radical voices of the political extremes. These two developments have reduced Taipei’s choices on its mainland policy. While undermining such extreme positions as reunification or independence, they have increasingly favored more moderate policy options in between.     

“China in South America: Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela”

The growing presence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in South America highlights its domestic priorities. On the economic side, high levels of development, source of political stability and international recognition, exacerbate the need of importing natural resources and exporting manufactured products. Politically, the policy of national reunification, which is also an important provider of stability drawn from nationalism, demand strengthening relations with countries in areas attracted by Taiwan, isolating the island in the international arena. Beijing is actively working to increase its political leverage and shape the agenda of international politics giving South-South cooperation a strategic dimension well beyond mutual development. This fits South American objectives, namely the ones of Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, that aim at diversifying international partnerships and perceive China as an alternative to the traditional orientation towards Latin America, the US and Europe. Positioning itself as a stakeholder, China creates the basis for an alternative international order using persuasion. The Chinese soft power in South America may be a drop of water in a much broader strategy.     

The federal republic and the future of Europe: A reassessment

Speculation concerning a dominant or hegemonic role to be played by a unified Germany in a post‐cold war Europe is misplaced. The extent to which the Federal Republic of 1949–89 has been caricatured as an economic giant but a political dwarf has undermined an appreciation of the manner in which successive Bonn governments have used multilateralism in foreign policy to further Germany's political influence in Europe long before national reunification. At the same time, it is unlikely that reunification will bring a dramatic change in German foreign policy. The nature of the Federal Republic's domestic politics, as well as the relationship with the European Community, apply substantial constraints on the ability, or the desire, to bring about a radical reorientation. The principal architect of change in Germany's relationship with its neighbours will be the country's expansive corporate sector. The gap between the restrained nature of Germany's diplomacy and the extrovert dynamism of its industry, furthermore, promises to make the Federal Republic's adjustment to a new international role awkward.     

Taiwan’s Anti-Nuclear Movement: The Making of a Militant Citizen Movement

Social movement studies have constantly focused on research relating to movement strategy, without reaching a consensus on the most viable strategies for realising a movement’s goal. Instead of conceptualising movement strategy as merely a product of movement leaders’ rational calculations, this article analyses a case of strategy shift attributable to leadership replacement and unexpected events. This article examines the significant breakthroughs achieved by Taiwan’s anti-nuclear movement following Japan’s Fukushima Incident in 2011, as well as the 2014 Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. It argues that a militant citizen movement came into being because a new wave of activism employed non-partisan leadership and demonstrated a willingness to employ disruptive tactics. Mounting protests generated a split among members of the traditionally pro-nuclear Kuomintang political party, which was forced to halt the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in 2014. With the regime change in 2016 that brought the more environment-friendly Democratic Progressive Party to power, Taiwan is now on course to phase out nuclear energy.     

The politics of consensus: al-Nahda and the stability of the Tunisian transition

Abstract

Tunisia&s transition away from authoritarianism has been shaped by a politics of consensus, which has brought together representatives of the former regime with their historic adversary, the Islamist movement al-Nahda. This article argues that consensus politics was a legacy of the authoritarian regime that was re-produced during a democratizing transition. The politics of consensus was encouraged and enabled by al-Nahda, which prioritized its inclusion within this elite settlement to provide political security for itself and the broader transition. However, this came at a cost, engineering a conservative transition, which did not pursue significant social or economic reform. The Tunisian case shows that historical legacies, such as consensus politics, can shape a transition as much as contingent, pragmatic decisions by political leaders.     

Building Coptic Civil Society: Christian Groups and the State in Mubarak's Egypt

Mubarak's Egypt is a relatively liberal regime which nonetheless retains relatively tight controls on civil society activity so as to pre-empt political activism, particularly that arising from Islamist or secular rivals to the regime. In spite of the constraints of Egyptian politics and their subordinate status as dhimmis under Islam, Copts have managed to create a wide edifice of civil society in Mubarak's Egypt. The explanations for this reside the internal strength and vibrancy of Coptic institutions themselves and in the non-threatening and moderating influence displayed by Coptic civil society.     

Balloon warriors for North Korean human rights activism: a critique of North Korean defector-activists’ post-humanitarianism

While the identity politics of North Korean defector-activists at home and abroad is revealed by unraveling the discursive complexity of their activism, little attention has been paid to the way in which that activism compromises the discursive dynamic of the defector community desiring to contest the power of a ruling paradigm within political culture. A critical analysis of North Korean defector balloon warriors who have crusaded against the North Korea regime through airborne leaflet drops at the South–North Korea border illustrates how their uncritical and unquestioned acceptance of liberal human rights can only leave the defector community vulnerable to charges of being politically-futile disparate citizens. The invocations of transnational liberal hegemonic norms obscure and undermine North Korean defectors’ agency of collective engagement in acts of liberal democratic citizenship. Understanding the propagandistic dimension of their dissenting voices can help expand the scope of analysis of liberal democratic posthumanitarian citizenship.     

Berlin's Republic: Parliamentary government in a German land

Berlin is the only German Land that has had to manage its own reunification and originally many hoped that it would turn into a model for east–west reconciliation. Yet 15 years later there is widespread consensus that Berlin failed to live up to the challenges of the time and adequately deal with the consequences of reunification. Instead of embarking on structural reforms Berlin produced its own version of a Reformstau. The article describes and examines some basic features of the party system in Berlin and the Berlin polity. It will thus give an answer to the question as to how unification affected the institutional setting in this Land. Overall it will be shown that the Reformstau in Berlin cannot be explained by a fragmented political system or powerful veto players. Political stagnation in Berlin rather was due to the combined effects of party system change, institutional stagnation, and constitutionally inhibited political leadership.     

Democracy and Taiwan-mainland China ties: A critique of three dominant views

The advent of democracy in Taiwan creates regime asymmetry between Taiwan and mainland China. Given that the size asymmetry so acutely favors mainland China, does democracy make Taiwan better or worse off? Taiwan’s principal opposition party posits that democracy presents a viable shortcut to an independent Taiwanese nation-state. A second perspective, held by proactive unificationists, emphasizes that Taiwan’s democracy, through a demonstration effect, can trigger or accelerate the long overdue political transformation of the mainland, and thereby contribute to the unification of the “greater China.” The third position, held by the mainstream ruling elites, highlights the corrosive and divisive effects that democracy may generate to undermine Taiwan’s political defense against her hereditary adversary. All three views are flawed. The first two are unwarrantedly sanguine and incorrectly assume risk neutrality as opposed to risk aversion for the majority of voters in Taiwan. The third perspective is an overstatement. Democracy permits subethnic cleavages to surface, but it also provides legitimate institutional devices to peacefully deal with intricate issues Taiwan faces, namely, her identity and her ties to the mainland.     

Shifting Domestic Politics and Security Policy in Japan and Taiwan: The Search for a Balancing Strategy between China and the US

This article examines the impact of the changed domestic political environment in Japan and Taiwan in the second half of the 2000s, namely the arrival of administrations with a more moderate China policy, on their respective relations with Beijing and Washington. It seeks to find out the extent to which Japan under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Taiwan under the Kuomintang (KMT) may have attempted a policy shift towards accommodation of China at the expense of their respective security ties with America. The article also examines how much impact upon security policy can be traced to the changes in domestic politics in the two cases. The discussion suggests that, irrespective of the altered domestic political situation, the concern that China's growing military power may adversely affect national interests has largely trumped the political will for seeking accommodation, more so in the Japanese case than in the Taiwanese case. While both Tokyo and Taipei have avoided deferring to Beijing's interests, each has sought to strike a delicate balance between engaging China and maintaining defense ties with the US.     

A New Era in Taiwan Politics and its Implications

Taiwan faces an uncertain future after the electoral victory of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the January 2016 elections. The election results, which reflected growing pro-independence sentiments amongst a younger generation of Taiwanese, have set Taiwan on a collision course with China, which is increasingly impatient for reunification to occur. The new US president, Donald Trump, has also added to the tensions by openly questioning the “One China” policy. Another Taiwan Strait crisis today would be fraught with immense risks due to China's dramatic economic and military rise which has altered the regional power balance. Given the increasingly tense China-US strategic rivalry, the US is also not likely to sit idly by should China attack Taiwan. However, the key player in resolving the Taiwan problem is China. For various reasons, it is in fact in China's interest to be patient with the current situation, and maintain the status quo for the immediate and medium-term future, while it constructs a new strategy that could win over the people of Taiwan, since true reunification can only occur if the people on Taiwan willingly accept it.     

Global Crisis and Latin America

This essay examines Latin America's experience in the crisis and restructuring of world capitalism from the 1970s into the twenty‐first century, with particular emphasis on the neo‐liberal model, social conflicts and institutional quagmires that have engulfed the region, and the rise of a new resistance politics. The empirical and analytical sections look at: Latin America's changing profile in the global division of labour; the domination of speculative finance capital; the continued debt crisis, its social effects and political implications; capital–labour restructuring, the spread of informalisation and the new inequality; the passage from social explosions to institutional crises; the new popular electoral politics and the fragility of the neo‐liberal state. These issues are approached through the lens of global capitalism theory. This theory sees the turn‐of‐century global system as a new epoch in the history of world capitalism, emphasising new patterns of power and social polarisation worldwide and such concepts as a transnational accumulation, transnational capitalists and a transnational state. Finally, the essay argues that global capitalism faces a twin crisis in the early twenty‐first century, of overaccumulation and of legitimacy, and explores the prospects for social change in Latin America and worldwide.     

试析二战后英国对缅政策的改变

二战结束后,英国政府的对缅政策发生了令人瞩目的改变.在国内和国际政治形势的推动下,英国政府开始与缅甸民族运动领导人通过谈判解决缅甸独立问题,加快了缅甸本部与山区少数民族的统一进程.英国对缅政策的改变深刻地影响了缅甸战后的政治格局.一方面,以昂山为代表的反法西斯人民自由同盟抓住机会,以和平手段争取缅甸的独立建国;另一方面,自由同盟与缅甸共产党、少数民族的裂痕加深,终于在独立后爆发了内战.     

Sovereignty–Security Nexus,Domestic Constraints,and the Taiwan Independence Policy (1988–2010)

Abstract

This article explains the rise and fall of the so-called Taiwan independence policy during the period of 1988–2010. It defines the Taiwan independence policy as an internal political move by the Taiwanese government to establish Taiwan as a separate and sovereign political entity on the world stage. It reviews two existing prevailing theses – electoral politics and shifting identity – and points out their weaknesses, the former's being its indeterminacy and unfalsifiability, and the latter's being its inadequacy to explain policy change. A new explanation focusing on relative power shift (military balance, alliance strength, and diplomatic standing) and domestic constraints (resource and political constraints) is then proposed to explain the rise and fall of the Taiwan independence policy. A brief examination of the 1988–2010 cross-strait history lends strong support to the theory.     

The Rise and Fall of Hasan Abdallah al-Turabi: A Unique Chapter in Sudan's Political History (1989–99)

Since its independence in 1956 until September-October 2013, at the completion of this study, Sudan has had seven civilian or military regimes. All of them, excluding the military regime headed by General Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Hasan Siwar al-Dahab (1985–86) and the current Bashir regime, were overthrown. These regimes focused only on remaining in power and did little to relieve Sudan's desperate hardships. This study, which surveys the decade (1989–99) under the two-headed leadership of Bashir and Turabi, will explore the truth of this claim. The Bashir-Turabi regime marked a unique and important chapter in Sudan's political history and had crucial ramifications for Sudan's politics in the twenty-first century.     

Producing and Reproducing the 1992 Consensus: The Sociolinguistic Construction of the Political Economy of China-Taiwan Relations

Abstract

In the study of China-Taiwan relations, scholars view the so-called “1992 consensus” as essential to economic ties across the Taiwan Strait. However, such an argument overlooks the fact that the 1992 consensus was initially coined as a political formula concerning what “one China” meant. It was not until after 2008 that an economic logic was attached in a sociolinguistic way to the 1992 consensus by proponents of the 1992 consensus. Specifically, “1992ers” argued that China might sever cross-Strait economic ties should Taiwan reject the 1992 consensus. I thus argue that scholarly understandings about cross-Strait politics and/or economics are not unaffected by 1992ers’ interpretations. When 1992ers (re)interpret the 1992 consensus in economic terms, their discursive practices may change the intersubjective understandings about the cross-Strait political economy.     

特朗普政府的极限“台湾牌”:表现、意图与影响

特朗普政府上台以来,打破中美多年来的外交惯例,频频出台公然背离一个中国政策的法案,有悖一个中国政策的动作不断,将"台湾牌"打至极限。特朗普政府"以台遏华"的战略企图十分明显,借此争取在与中国的博弈中占据主导地位,为中国稳步推进国家发展制造麻烦。此举会形成强大的反噬力,不仅无法干扰中国实现国家统一和民族复兴的既定目标,相反只会加剧台海紧张局势,并可能导致两岸冲突,使台湾面临巨大的经济损失和两岸局势失控的双重风险。美国也将陷入进退两难的尴尬处境,既有悖于其国家利益和全球战略,不符合打"台湾牌"初衷,也可能助力其他次级大国趁机崛起,对美国的霸主地位形成挑战,使美国谋求自身利益最大化意图更加难以实现。     

Liberal Democracy and the Politics of Criminal Justice in Australia

Liberal democratic states like Australia manage criminal justice issues in ways which reflect an inbuilt tension between liberal and democratic values. Liberal democracies are responsive both to liberal claims and to democratic claims. As a result, policy debates and strategies can oscillate between (on the one hand) liberal sensitivity to individual rights and opposition to enhanced state capacity and (on the other hand) democratically legitimised community norms and collective values. Four crime-related policy debates — about the creation and operation of the National Crime Authority, about strategies for combating drug-related crime, about gun control legislation and about identity systems to counter money laundering, tax evasion and public benefit fraud — illustrate the characteristic liberal democratic mode of politics in operation. The spectrum of policy responses to crime issues within liberal democratic political systems corresponds to an analogous spectrum within criminology which encompasses individualistic and structuralist conceptions of the nature and causes of crime.     

俄罗斯数字化转型与网络公共领域的生成

数字技术的快速发展在全球范围内掀起了一场剧烈的变革,深刻地影响着经济、政治、社会、文化等各个领域,这一进程被称为数字化转型。俄罗斯积极应对数字化浪潮,将数字化转型作为国家的发展战略,构建数字化转型的基础设施,推动数字经济发展。而在政治和社会领域,数字化转型的基础设施在网络空间促进了网络公共领域的生成,对政治参与和社会交往的方式、路径产生重大影响,推动了民主政治、市民社会、社会自组织的发展。与此同时,数字化转型也带来诸多风险,包括网络空间的无政府主义以及外部势力和政治反对派对现政权的威胁。在俄罗斯,网络空间建立秩序和规避风险的需求推动国家权力进入网络空间。数字化转型带来的机遇和挑战,是包括中国在内的世界各国和地区面临的共同性议题,俄罗斯的数字化转型无疑为我们提供了一个生动的案例。