Reflections on Environmentalism and the River Diversion Projects

In a companion paper to “Environmentalism in the USSR: The Opposition to the River Diversion Projects,” two geographers survey the current status of water transfer research after cancellation of the European and Siberian diversion projects and offer a different perspective on the debates leading to that cancellation. Implications of a demand-side approach to Centra! Asian water management problems are then assessed in light of (a) contradictory objectives of expanding irrigated hectarage and mitigating environmental deterioration in the Aral basin and (b) the problematic nature of projected water savings and costs involved in their realization. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 720.     

The Transition from Armed Opposition to Electoral Opposition in Central America

After the third wave of democratization swept much of the world during the late twentieth century, many armed opposition groups disarmed and transformed themselves into political parties. This paper explores the electoral performance of four Central American parties that have roots in armed opposition movements. It finds that the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, which achieved the greatest success during their revolutionary periods, have also had the most success in electoral competition. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit and the Democratic Unification Party of Honduras, which trace their roots to relatively less successful armed opposition groups, have struggled in elections. Organizational factors, especially the number of combatants and popular support during the conflict, tend to provide a better explanation than institutional factors for the initial success of these groups as political parties.     

The Heralds of Opposition to Perestroyka

A review and analysis is presented of substantive material published in the journals Nash sovremennik and Mohdaya gvardiya from Gorbachev's advent to power through roughly October 1989. The size of the journals' circulations is noted to assess the influence of writers who are in the vanguard of opposition to perestroyka. The article includes a section devoted to the tradition of Russian “thick journals.” It concludes by examining the popularity and power of Russian nationalism in relation to peresiroyka and the nature of the opposition to it as reflected in both journals. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Number: 052.     

Greening of the Chinese mind: Environmentalism with Chinese characteristics

Due to its enormous population, spectacular economic growth, and severe environmental degradation, China's environmental impact on the country and the world is difficult to assess. Knowledge of the environmental awareness and the growth of the environmental movement in China are critical to the understanding of the country's environmental future. Firstly, this paper examines the environmental awareness of Chinese people based upon two major surveys conducted in 1998. The findings contributed to our understanding of the environmental awareness of people in the following aspects: environmental literacy, prioritization of environmental problems, environmental governance, environmental ethics, and participation in environmental protection campaigns. Secondly, the paper scrutinizes the emergence of green NGOs in China in the 1990s. Chinese green NGOs possessed particular “Chinese characteristics” which distinguished them from those in the West. To date, the Chinese government is willing to allow more political space for citizen participation in environmental protection. Increasingly, green NGOs gained support not only from international communities but also from Chinese citizens who value a clean environment. Finally, the paper argues that the emergence of green NGOs offers a breakthrough in the conventional “government-reliance” attitude towards environmental protection. If these eco-activists can target non-sensitive issues, they may make profound contributions in enhancing environmental policy implementation.     

Computing in the USSR: A Comment

A specialist on Russian society and politics analyzes recent plans for reform of social policy in Russia. Based on documentary and interview evidence, case studies of housing and pension reform are presented. Prospects for the Putin government's social-sector reform program are considered.     

Support for and Opposition to Democratization in Hong Kong

It is not easy to say what proportion of Hong Kong residents support democratization. Although the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong people support universal suffrage of the chief executive, public opinion in Hong Kong is divided into two opinions about whether they should accept the Chinese-style of democracy in which candidates are selected before election by the Chinese Central Government to exclude pro-democracy camp candidates. The majority of Hong Kong citizens do not want a person from the pro-democracy camp who is not on good terms with the central government to become the chief executive, and the “Occupy” movement was not welcomed because of prolonged occupation of the major streets. It is not easy for the pro-democracy camp to persuade conservative ordinary people to support full-democracy, and even if they succeed in changing public opinion, the central government and mainland people will become the next obstacle. The future perspective of Hong Kong's democratization is not bright, but young people's demand for democracy is very strong and they may well change Hong Kong society. It may also be possible that a wave of political consciousness among the young could eventually also sweep mainland China.     

Anxious Neighbour: Australian Opposition to Japanese Labour in New Caledonia, 1945 to 1960

In the late 1940s and the 1950s, in the context of the White Australia policy and strong anti‐Japanese sentiment, Australia mounted a successful diplomatic campaign against the use of Japanese contract labour in New Caledonia. Australia also campaigned, but with only partial success, against the use of Japanese labour in the nearby New Hebrides. These initiatives further illustrate Australia's traditional assertiveness, when it saw its interests threatened, in the South Pacific. Blocking the use of Japanese labour probably contributed, as Alan Ward has argued, to increased permanent migration to New Caledonia from the other French South Pacific territories and France, shifting the population and voting balance against the indigenous Melanesian nationalist movement which later emerged. But Ward overstates his case: immigration of this kind would have happened anyway, especially from resource‐poor and over‐populated Wallis and Futuna. In its campaign on the Japanese labour issue Australia profited from its strong relationship with France, which resulted from comradeship in the two world wars, and from the lack of contentious bilateral issues.     

The Energy System and Economic Imbalances in the USSR

This article examines the severe structural and geograpic imbalances imposed on the Soviet economy by the demands and priorities of the energy complex; it also deals with imbalances manifest within the energy system itself. The feasibilities of policy change and prospect for success in energy conservation under Gorbachev are briefly assessed. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 723.     

Computing in the USSR: Recent Progress and Policies

The paper evaluates a broad spectrum of Soviet computing capabilities ranging from the development, production and service sectors to applications in enterprise management, national security, education, and consumer products. Comparisons between Western and Soviet information technologies, summarized in tabular form, reveal gaps in Soviet computing and communications resulting from both technical limitations and administrative/political constraints in the economy. Programs designed to narrow these gaps are described in a final section. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 635.     

Price Reform in the USSR: Comment on Shmelev

An apparent shift and rethinking of earlier views on prices by one of perestroyka's most outspoken and visible architects prompts an analysis by a leading American specialist in the field. Problems of the three main components of the Soviet price system, namely industrial producer prices, agricultural producer prices, and state retail prices, are examined. Proposals and official plans for changes in the price system are discussed. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 052, 124, 227.     

Satellite Communications in the USSR

Satellite communications, specifically TV distribution, constituted the first commercial application of space technology in the USSR. Soviet comsat systems have been costly and technologically unsophisticated. The capacity of these systems is low. Little has been achieved in exploiting the potential of communication satellites for other tasks important for operation of the economy, such as telephony, facsimile transmission, or data exchange, due in part to competition with the military. The USSR has rejected membership in the International Telecommunications Satellite organization in favor of its own Intersputnik system, but has been an active member of the international organization Inmarsat. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 620.     

East Germany in 1956: Walter Ulbricht's Tenacity in the Face of Opposition

Why did East German leader Walter Ulbricht outlast other Stalin‐era Soviet allies in Central and Eastern Europe? This article considers this question, comparing Ulbricht's situation with that of the Hungarian communist leadership in 1956. The article examines different aspects of the question, from relations with the Soviet Union to the archival evidence for popular opinion in East Germany in the crisis year of 1956. It concludes that Ulbricht's relative longevity in power was due to a combination of factors, from the exposed position of the German Democratic Republic in the Cold War, and the support this elicited from the Soviet Union, to the legacy of the unsuccessful workers' uprising of 1956 and the weakness of Ulbricht's internal opposition.     

日汉互译中的不可译性和可译性的对立统一

随着文化交流的深入,日汉互译中的不可译性将会更多地、在更大程度上朝可译性方向发展.任何文本都是能够传译的,我们在翻译实践中通常采用"意译"或"注释"的手法,即解释的功能实现不可译性向可译性的转换.