Bond Market Integration: the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong

This paper seeks to examine the integration of the evolving bond markets in the Chinese Mainland (CM) and Hong Kong (HK). To tap the international pool of capital, the CM government and CM enterprises have issued foreign currency bonds in HK and other developed markets. Since 1998 offshore CM bonds offered to the public have not been denominated in HK dollars probably because of concerns over the stability of HK's linked exchange rate and the differential credit ratings of the two economies. Even though HK has become increasingly well equipped to handle the clearing, settlement and custody of local and foreign currency bonds across its borders, it needs to continue to lobby for and attract CM government and corporate issues of foreign currency bonds (and Rmb bonds, if this were to be permitted) if it is to establish itself as a regional bond centre in Asia.     

Social Support and Disclosure of Abuse: Comparing South Asian, African American, and Hispanic Battered Women

Sixty-two battered women who had accessed domestic violence services were asked to whom they disclosed the partner abuse, the responses they received, and how supported they felt by kin and nonkin network members. The findings showed that older women and those who had resided in the United States longer were more likely to make disclosures to kin members. Older women, those who had higher levels of perceived social support, and those who reported lower frequency of physical violence were more likely to disclose to nonkin members. The findings suggest that those women experiencing more severe abuse may be the least likely to disclose to others. As a group, the South Asian women were older and more educated, and greater proportions were or had been married to the abuser. In contrast to the other groups, a greater proportion reported having been burned or scalded and fewer reported being sexually coerced. In greater proportions, they disclosed the abuse to brothers and fathers and were advised to stay in their marriages. Service providers working with minority battered women must be knowledgeable of cross-cultural differences in the experience of abuse and disclosure patterns. Culturally appropriate and aggressive outreach within specific ethnic communities may be required to reach battered women in the community. Service providers must consider working with members of women's informal support network to provide both emotional and instrumental support.     

Coastal Land Management in Florida

During the 1970s, the Florida legislature enacted some of the nation's most innovative and comprehensive state and local land-planning and regulatory programs. The Environmental Land and Water Management Act of 1972 adopted large parts of an early draft of article 7 of the ALI Model Land Development Code, thereby asserting a state regulatory role in areas of critical state concern and for developments of regional impact; Florida's Local Government Comprehensive Planning Act of 1975 introduced planning and regulatory innovations that, if ever fully implemented, could place Florida in the vanguard of land regulatory reform at the local governmental level. This study, which is the concluding part of a study of the evolution of federal, state, and local regulatory roles in the management of coastal land resources, examines the intergovernmental, interagency, and separate-branch tensions that have emerged as Florida moves to implement its new laws. Included, inter alia, is an analysis of the Florida Supreme Court's controversial nondelegation decision in Askew v. Cross Key Waterways. Although Florida can claim some limited successes in program implementation, its land management systems are still not adequately integrated and coordinated, and they have not been implemented as successfully as their proponents thought possible. For example, the state has several alternatives for complying with the federal requirements for an approved management program under the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972—the comprehensive land management system examined in this study being only one of the available ones. Yet Florida still has been unable to obtain federal approval, and, if it ever does, will be one of the last of the major coastal states to do so. Much of Florida's difficulty in forging a well-integrated coastal land management process is attributable to substantial disagreements on two basic propositions: because of Florida's unique ecological characteristics, coastal land management should not be divorced from comprehensive land management for other purposes; and because of substantial regional diversities within the state, coastal land management in Florida should include a significant planning and regulatory role for local governments as well as for regional and state agencies.     

Contributors to this issue

Contributors to this issue     

The plight of universal social services.

In the early 1960s, the motivating theme of social services in the American welfare state was reduction of economic dependency. At that time services were highly selective, aimed mainly at poor people. Between 1960 and 1980 there was a drift toward univeralism, as the welfare state expanded to serve an increasing number of middle-class groups. This expansion of the welfare state was related to several social and demographic trends, and was accompanied by basic changes in the scope and purpose of social services. As the welfare state has moved toward universal entitlement to social services, a number of contradictions between the theory and practice of universalism in a capitalist society have surfaced. These contradictions lend a degree of support to the resurgence of selectivity which the welfare state is currently experiencing.     

South Korea and Sino-Japanese rivalry: a middle power's options within the East Asian core triangle

Abstract

South Korea is a middle power in a region where its scope of action can rise and fall quickly and diplomatic flexibility is needed. Neither realist responses to threats nor idealist trust in integration meet its needs for adjusting triangular ties with China and Japan, as their relations become the principal great power divide in Northeast Asia. Its optimal choice is as a facilitator biding its time when tensions over both security and national identity clashes are intense, while preparing for opportunities. Four conditions would give it a favorable environment: forward-looking foreign leadership; security challenges brought under some control; subsiding preoccupation with national identities; and its own strategic planning with care not to overreach. Multiple possibilities emerge if it can rebuild ties with Japan as part of a triangle with China as well as one with the United States and also synchronize ties with China to other ties. Even amidst recurrent tensions, the core East Asian triangle offers Seoul a chance to take advantage of changing dynamics in the world's most ascendant region.     

Chinese National Identity and Its Implications for International Relations in East Asia

This article traces the evolution of heightened Chinese expectations and the resultant spike in national identity in 2010, using a six-dimensional framework: 1) ideological, 2) temporal, 3) sectoral, 4) vertical, 5) horizontal, and 6) intensity. A hybrid ideology rose to the forefront. Forceful historical arguments covered three distinct periods. The triad of economic, cultural, and political identity raised sectoral identity to an unprecedented level. The leadership kept pressing the case for vertical identity in contrast to the West. Above all, it put the spotlight on horizontal identity to draw a sharper contrast with the United States and neighboring states as well. If at the time of the Hu-Obama summit the tone softened somewhat, China continued its risky wager on widening the identity gap. Regardless of whether China's foreign policy is currently assertive, its national identity narrative remains a driving force for divisiveness in the regional and international order.