Seizing Opportunity to Improve China''''s Relations with the World

Iraq war reveals two basic features in current international situation. The first feature is disturbance. Terrorism endangering the world is a disturbance, weapons of mass destruction being proliferated over the world is a disturbance, great powers realigning is a disturbance,     

Why Is the Abe Government so Anxious to Improve Relations with China？-Why Is Shinzo Abe so Eager to Improve Relations with China？

Editor＇s Note： Sino-Japanese relations have been tense in recent years. In Jparticular, since Abe came to power, Japan has not only been ＂desperately struggling＂ with China on territorial and historical issues, but has also tried to set up an ＂encircling network＂ against China. Thus Sino-Japanese relations have emerged as the most risky bilateral relations in the Asia-Pacific region. As the two largest powers in East Asia, and the world＇s second and third largest economies, the continuing confrontation between China and Japan will have huge negative repercussions on regional and global peace. With the approaching of the APEC meeting, however, the Abe government has repeatedly expressed its hopes for diplomatic dialogue with China. The Abe government＇s shift in attitude towards China from ＂hard＂ to a new ＂moderate＂ position has attracted wide international attention. We cannot help but ask：     

Striving to Build a Constructive and Cooperative Partnership with India——Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Establishing of Sine-Indian Relations

April 1, 2000 is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Indiandiplomatic relations. At this important historical occasion, looking back atthe 50-year relationship between China and India and identifying the future de-velopment of their bilateral relations would be of great significance to promotingtheir good neighborhood and mutual trust and building a constructive and cooper-ative partnership between the two countries.     

Look at the Direction of US-Latin America Relations from Bush’s Visit to Latin America

From March 8th to 14th, 2007, US President George W. Bush paid an visit to five Latin American states of Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. This visit, with the largest number of Latin American states visited and the longest duration since Bush came to office, was an important diplomatic move that demonstrates the US's determination to regain its "backyard" as well as major policy adjustments of the US towards Latin America.     

Conforming to the Trend at An Appropriate Time——My Thoughts on the Building of the Silk Road Economic Belt

<正>During his state visit to Kazakhstan this September,President Xi Jinping made a concrete proposal to build a Silk Road Economic Belt(SREB for short in the following paragraphs)from the aspects of policy communication,road connectivity,     

Reflections on My New Experiences in China──Mr. Turkmen,the Former Turkish Foreign Minister and Columnist on His Visit to China

Editor's Note: At the invitation ofthe Chinese Association for InternationalUnderstanding, after visiting China fromthe 12th to 19th last March, Mr IlterTurkmen, former foreign minister ofTurkey and a columnist of Hurriyet, wrote3 articles for Hurriyet based on his experiences in China, giving an objectics accountof China's policy of reform and opening tothe outside world as well as the success ofthis policy. What follows is an excerpt ofthe translation of his article" Seeking truthfrom …     

At the Edge of the Modern? Diplomacy,Public Relations,and Media Practices During Houphouët-Boigny's 1962 Visit to the United States

Centred on the first post-independence state visit of Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny to the United States in May 1962, this article critically engages the recent scholarly attention that has focused on modernisation theory and international media scholarship as they apply to African diplomacy. Contrary to the pervasive post-war modernisation paradigm, it is argued that postcolonial African governments had appropriated a form of managing foreign public affairs that satisfied the logic of media performance of modern nations. If anything, the interwar and post-war nationalist upheavals in Africa provided a training ground for the likes of Houphouët-Boigny who readily appropriated Euro–American forms of political performance to advance their agenda in the public (transnational) sphere. Whereas Houphouët-Boigny and his envoys clearly displayed dexterity all along their American visit, the article demonstrates that mass communication outlets played an equally critical role in the performance of this singular moment in transnational statecraft. Analyzing the coverage of the media with historical hindsight, it appears that the Ivorian press particularly stood out because of its celebration of the African head of state and his visit. Bringing nuance to this seeming confirmation of the radical difference of African media practices and their complicity with the state, the article claims that journalists in all three countries subscribed to a “modernist” metaphysics that nurtured and was informed by the culturally chauvinistic logic of the nation-state. Thus, it concludes that the normative comparativism that has usually sustained the historiography of international media studies is more than problematic.     

My Memorable Trip to Africa——Sidelights on the Visit to Africa by Mr.Wan Guoquan,Vice-Chairman of CPPCC and Vice-President of CAFIU

InthemiddleofFebruarythisyear,Iwashon-oredtobeamemberoftheCAFIUdelegationledbyMr.WanGuoquan,Vice-ChairmanoftheNationalCommitteeoftheCPPCCandVice-PresidentofCAFIUtovisitthreeAfricancountries,namelyMauritius,ZimbabweandSouthAfrica.Iwassode-lightedtohavethisopportunitytoappreciatetheancientandmysteriouscharmofAfricaandtoexpe-riencethepassionatefriendshipoftheAfricanpeo-pletowardstheChinesepeople.BringingwithprofoundaffectionandconcernoftheChinesepeoplefortheAfricanpeople,westartedou…     

ETA: From secret army to social movement – the post‐Franco schism of the Basque nationalist movement

Under the Franco dictatorship, post‐Civil War generations of Basques grew up in a climate of physical violence and symbolic repression. Through the imposition of controls on all manifestations of Basque cultural and linguistic expression, the Spanish state transformed even the simplest of actions into defiant symbols of Basque identity. Rejecting, as ineffectual, attempts by the existing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to defend Basque culture, the more militant members of the PNV's youth organization attempted to stimulate a radical ethnic movement through a new organization, Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna [Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA)]. From its founding in 1959, ETA's principal goals have been the achievement of Basque independence and the revival of Basque culture and language. Its principal strategy has remained armed resistance to Spanish rule. To date, ETA has been responsible for approximately 600 deaths. In this article, we focus on the strategic and organizational evolution of ETA from secret army to social movement in the post‐Franco era. In particular, we seek to clarify the role that violence plays in the symbolic conflict of Basque/Spanish collective identities and to identify how the democratization process has influenced the strategies and tactics adopted by ETA as well as by those political organizations which have emerged from ETA and its numerous factions.     

Strengthen Youth Exchanges in the New Era to Promote China-Japan Relations——Speech at the seminar commemorating the 40~(th) anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the People's Republic of China and Japan

正Distinguished Vice-President Liu Hongcai,Distinguished Mr.Yoshida Shin,Distinguished guests from China and Japan,Dear friends,Good morning.Many thanks to Chinese Association for International Understanding(CAFIU)for inviting me to attend the seminar.I want to talk about youth exchangs which is of vital importance to the future of China-Japan relations.The signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship is a milestone in the history of     

The Greater Menace to the Peace of Nations? The 1877 Mills Mission and Direct Canadian–American Diplomatic Relations

In 1877, employing the unwanted presence of armed Sioux in western Canada as a useful mechanism, Canada’s Cabinet, represented by Minister of the Interior David Mills, unhappy with perceived British indifference to Canada’s concerns, sought to initiate direct diplomatic relations with the United States. That effort failed, and British opposition to this endeavour was so sharp that Canada made no similar initiative for half a century. Although he failed, Mills’ effort marked the birth of the Functional notion that Canada’s voice should matter more in Imperial foreign policy formulation when its direct interests were at stake, especially when dealing with the United States.     

Learning to Pull the Strings after Suez: Macmillan’s Management of the Eisenhower Administration during the Intervention in Jordan, 1958

This analysis re-instates the importance of the 1958 British intervention in Jordan within the study of Anglo–American relations and the revisionist literature on Suez. It does so by challenging the idea of British subservience to American foreign policy after the 1956 crisis, and it reveals two key lessons learnt by London: that Britain’s economy, power, and influence were in decline and that Britain could no longer intervene in the Middle East without American support. Having learnt these lessons, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan proved to be a shrewd political actor who used the opportunity of the Jordan intervention to turn the policy of the Dwight Eisenhower Administration to British ends, regaining Britain’s maximum power and prestige for the minimum loss of resources.     

Attempting to Revise the Treaty of Lausanne: Greek Foreign Policy and Italy during the Pangalos Dictatorship, 1925–1926

In June 1925, General Theodoros Pangalos imposed his dictatorship on Greece. During his 14-month rule, he set as one of his basic foreign policy goals the revision of the territorial settlement imposed on Greece and Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Wanting to secure Eastern Thrace and possibly even part of Western Asia Minor for Greece, Pangalos sought the backing of at least one Great Power with interests in the region, in this case Italy, as its dictator, Benito Mussolini, remained equally hostile and aggressive toward Turkey. Pangalos tried to reach an understanding with Mussolini concerning the possibility of joint Greco–Italian action against Turkey. The first signs of closer co-operation came in early July 1925 when the Italian under-secretary of foreign affairs, Dino Grandi, visited Athens for discussions with Pangalos. However, a more important initiative involved the official visit of two Greek ministers—Loukas Kanakaris-Roufos, the foreign minister, and Anastasios Tavoularis, the transport minister—to Rome in early March 1926. They met with Mussolini who, because of British pressure, now seemed reluctant about Pangalos’ ambitious plans for joint action against Turkey. The Greek leader’s hopes to revise Lausanne ended.     

The Politics of China’s Aid to North Vietnam during the Anti-American Resistance, 1965–1969

Behind the public display of Sino–North Vietnamese unity in the anti-American resistance during the height of the People’s Republic of China’s Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1969, Beijing’s insistence on Hanoi’s acceptance of Maoist ideology coupled with its assertive demand for Hanoi to denounce Soviet revisionism politicised its economic and technical assistance to North Vietnam. Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects. The fragmentation of Chinese bureaucratic institutions and the political chauvinism of some radical Maoists at the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, who oversaw Chinese aid to North Vietnam, further hindered Beijing’s ability to exert significant influence over Hanoi.     

Looking Backward to Look Foward, Learning New Things by Reviewing Old—A Glimpse of Global Issues over the Past Century

The 20th century has come to an end in the twinkling of an eye. It is an extraordinary century which experienced vicissitudes and brilliance, cast traumas and miracles and left regrets and hopes. Human race is now marching with great passion and eagerness into a new millennium and a new century which is believed to be also full of changes and glorious events.History is a mirror. People can predict the future by reviewing the past. Of course it is impossible to go through all the events of the…     

From “War-in-Sight” to Nearly War: Anglo–French Relations in the Age of High Imperialism, 1875–1898

The 1904 entente has cast a long shadow across the twentieth century. As a political “myth,” the notion of an entente cordiale between the two longstanding European enemies and overseas rivals France and Britain has overtaken the event itself, in so far as its historical importance is concerned. In this way, the notion of the entente has tended to obscure important aspects of a more complex and ambiguous history of cross-Channel relations. Using a range of British and French diplomatic, naval and private papers, this chapter examines the tensions in Anglo-French relations, caused by balance-of-power considerations in Europe and overseas imperial competition, between the “War-in-Sight” crisis of 1875 and the 1898 Fashoda stand-off.     

Hit the Core or Weaken the Periphery? Comparing Strategies to Break the Circle of Violence with an Embryonic Terrorist Group: The Case of Galician Resistance

This article studies whether the action-reaction model holds on an “embryonic” terrorist group like Galician Resistance (REGA). After presenting an overview of REGA’s history, structure, financing, terrorist campaigns, and the police measures adopted against them, the text empirically contrasts whether deterrence is an efficient measure in reducing an incipient terrorist group’s actions. Our results show that deterrence does in fact reduce the number of attacks when aimed at the group’s periphery. However, it causes a backlash of new attacks when aimed at the group’s core. In addition, we prove that an increase in the number of attacks also causes a reaction by police forces and a higher number of detentions of core members. Our results give some meaningful insights into the design of counter-terrorism strategies aimed against “embryonic” groups.