The Return of the Middle Kingdom in a Post-American World

Not long after the conclusion of the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, I was invited by my friend Eric Xu, an editor at Shanghai's largest paper, The Xinmin Evening News , to attend a seminar in Shanghai with some of China's top philosophers and scholars. They had gathered to assess the "powershift" in China's self-image and in global esteem as a result of such a successful execution of the games. The following short essay reports on their views and puts them in historical perspective.     

Post‐Olympic Powershift: The Return of the Middle Kingdom in a Post‐American World

In the minds of its leaders and intellectuals, China is more than just another successful emerging economy and a rising regional power. For them, what is going on today might be considered a renaissance that will bring a neo‐Confucian sensibility to a post‐American world. In this section NPQ editor Nathan Gardels reports on his recent visit to Shanghai. Wang Hui, China's leading new left intellectual and author of The Rise of Modem Chinese Thought, offers his, views on subjects ranging from modernity to Tibet.     

Modus Vivendi: Liberalism for the Coming Middle Ages

Going through a protracted period of transition since the end of the Cold War, the world order in the making is neither what was nor what it is yet to become. It is in “the middle of the future.” To get our bearings in this uncertain transition, we explore the two grand post‐Cold War narratives—“The End of History” as posited by Francis Fukuyama and “The Clash of Civilizations” posited by the late Samuel Huntington. Mikhail Gorbachev looks back at his policies that brought the old order to collapse. The British philosopher John Gray critiques the supposed “universality” of liberalism and, with Homi Bhabha, sees a world of hybrid identities and localized cultures. The Singaporean theorist Kishore Mahbubani peels away the “veneer” of Western dominance. Amartya Sen, the economist and Nobel laureate, assesses whether democratic India or autocratic China is better at building “human capacity” in their societies.     

神秘的英国王室

在英国人眼里,英国王室就像历尽沧桑遗留下来的文物,虽没太大的用处,但也是个宝藏.尽管走过数百年的风风雨雨,可王室的大本营--白金汉宫一切如旧,卫兵依然穿着过去的服装,所有繁文缛节也同从前一样.有关王室的一切在外人看来,还是那么神秘.     

The Coming Battle of the Atlantic: Euro vs. the Dollar

American‐led globalization has enabled the third great powershift of the last five hundred years—the “rise of the rest” following on the rise of the West and then the rise of the US as the dominant power in the West. When China, India, Brazil, Turkey and the rest sit at the table of global power with the West what will the world order look like? Will it be post‐American? Will it be culturally non‐Western, but play by the same rules of an open international order laid down by the American's after World War II? In the following pages, leading American and Asian intellectuals ponder these questions.     

The rise of risk assessment and risk management in the United Kingdom

This article examines the reform of the health care system in England in terms of the risk assessment and risk management. Three major health policies are examined, the Health of the Nation strategy, community care and the Patient's Charter. The article demonstrates that effective risk assessment and risk management is an important component of each initiative. The Health of the Nation strategy is based on epidemiological evidence on the nature of health risks and is linked to specific targets for the reduction of harm that require effective management of risks. Community care is a well established policy designed to provide long term and continuing support for vulnerable individuals in the community. With high profile incidents in the 1980s, there has been a greater emphasis on effective risk assessment and risk management, especially to protect the public. The Patient's Charter is designed to empower users of service.

Central to this strategy is informed consent. Effective empowerment depends of the provision of adequate information, especially on the risks of treatment. Although competent adults may formally be autonomous risk-taking decision-makers, their ability to assess risk and make decisions depends on having adequate information.     

世界杯的由来

现代足球起源于英国,后风靡世界.由于足球运动的发展,国际比赛也随之出现.1896年,第一届现代奥运会在希腊举行时,足球就列为正式比赛项目,丹麦以9:0大胜希腊,成为奥运会第一个足球冠军.因为当时奥运会不允许职业运动员参加,到了1928年(第九届奥运会)足球比赛已无法持续.     

Fezzes in the river: identity politics and European diplomacy in the Middle East on the eve of World War II

This article analyzes how the Poles and Jews who disappeared from the western Ukrainian city of L'viv as a result of the Second World War are remembered in the city today. It examines a range of commemorative practices, from monuments and museums to themed cafes and literature, and analyzes how these practices interact to produce competing mnemonic narratives. In this respect, the article argues for an understanding of the city as a complex text consisting of a diverse range of mutually interdependent mnemonic media produced by a range of actors. The article focuses in particular on the ways in which Ukrainian nationalist narratives interact with the memory of the city's “lost others.” The article also seeks to understand L'viv's memory culture through comparison with a range of Polish cities that have faced similar problems with commemorating vanished communities, but have witnessed a deeper recognition of these communities than has been the case in L'viv. The article proposes reasons for the divergences between the memory cultures of L'viv and that found in Polish cities, and attempts to outline the gradual processes by which L'viv's Polish and Jewish pasts might become more widely integrated into the city's memory culture.     

阿拉法特逝世与中东局势

阿拉法特的病逝对中东时局的发展具有举足轻重的影响,他的去世使巴方内部和本已动荡不定的中东时局面临诸多变数.阿拉法特的去世,标志着一个时代的光荣和梦想走向终结,一个新的时期,也可以说是巴勒斯坦和中东地区的后阿拉法特时代来临.     

The Great Convergence and the Logic of One World

A great historical transition is underway from American‐led Globalization 1.0 to Globalization 2.0—the interdependence of plural identities where no one power or alliance of powers dominates. The G‐20 is floundering as the immediate global financial crisis has receded. The United Nations and the old Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO—have lost their vigor and are struggling to adjust to the global powershift with the rise of the emerging economies. While Europe is paralyzed as the historic project of integration stalls, the world's two largest economies—the United States and China—are as yet unable to figure out how to share power. The danger now is that the geopolitical vacuum will invite assertions of national self‐interest that will unravel the rules‐based order that enabled stability and prosperity over recent decades. America's leading geopolitical strategist, China's most outspoken strategic thinker and one of Asia's leading global thinkers from Singapore offer their reflections on this state of affairs.     

技术轴心时代(下)--《后工业社会的来临》1999年版前言

五社会地理学材料革命和全球化在历史上 ,每个社会都由三类基础设施维系 ,它们是民族间贸易和交往的枢纽和途径。首先是交通 :河流、道路、运河 ,在当代是铁路、高速公路和航空。其次是能源系统 :水力、电网、石油和天然气管线等。第三是通讯 :邮政系统 (沿交通干道而设 ) ,然后是电报 (通讯史上的首次突破 )、电话、无线电 ,现代的从微波到人造卫星等整套的新技术手段。交通是最大最古老的系统。当道路的修筑使各地相通从而使贸易和交换得以进行时 ,社会各方面的孤立状态开始被打破。人们聚居于道路枢纽或河流交汇和湖湾处 :商人携货物驻足…     

The challenge of the creative Third World

This article is a contribution to recent literature on the shape of the polycentric world order. It argues that the Third World remains a valid concept for describing the interests and ideas that shape the foreign policies of many key non-Western states. However, the Third World has changed in a fundamental way. The article describes the historical emergence and contemporary manifestations of a ‘creative’ Third World in contrast to the ‘protest’ Third World of the past. It describes the nature of this shift and how it is reshaping Western leadership. It argues that the main challenge for the West is to create a coherent pluralism in international order that embraces this creative Third World.     

Winners of Globalization: The Rich and The Chinese Middle Class. Losers: The American Middle Class

The double whammy of job‐displacing technological advance and wage‐deflating globalization has demoted the American middle class, even as the rich get richer from access to global markets and from their slice of profits from managing massive global financial flows. The specter of growing inequality is haunting free‐market capitalism as never before since the early days of the Industrial Revolution. What is happening? What is to be done? Top economists take a hard look at a hard reality.