Reading the Trump Administration’s China Policy

The policy toward China under the Trump Administration is a rare combination of the toughest part of that of the Democratic Party, which is trade, and of the Republican Party, which is national security. The National Security Strategy by the Trump Administration defined China and Russia as competitors. It is the first time for the US Government to be harsh against both China and Russia (the Soviet Union included) since the late 1960s. Though trade is by far the most salient aspect of President Trump’s confrontational China policy, it is in fact a whole-of-the-government approach or pushback that the US government is taking with China, which means that not just the White House but various Departments and the Congress are tough with China, dealing with many issues from trade to human rights to national security. The President might actually be the softest link, almost exclusively focusing on trade. This might be a historic turnaround in US policy toward China.     

Polarization and ideological congruence between parties and supporters in Europe

The relationship between parties and their supporters is central to democracy and ideological representation is among the most important of these linkages. We conduct an investigation of party-supporter congruence in Europe with emphasis on the measurement of ideology and focusing on the role of party system polarization, both as a direct factor in explaining congruence and in modifying the effects of voter sophistication. Understanding this relationship depends in part on how the ideology of parties and supporters is measured. We use Poole’s Blackbox scaling to derive a measure of latent ideology from voter and expert responses to issue scale questions and compare this to a measure based on left–right perceptions. We then examine how variation in the proximity between parties ideological positions and those of their supporters is affected by the polarization of the party system and how this relationship interacts with political sophistication. With the latent ideology measure, we find that polarization decreases party-supporter congruence but increases the effects of respondent education level on congruence. However, we do not find these relationships using the left–right perceptual measure. Our findings underscore important differences between perceptions of left–right labels and the ideological constraint underlying issue positions.     

Receiving information about rice seeds on mobile phones in eastern India

This article examines how farmers use mobile phones to obtain information about rice varieties in eastern India and investigates if this contributes to rice varietal replacement. The findings show that farmers located farther away from the market were more likely to pay for the calls. Moreover, about 26% of the farmers who had to pay to receive calls purchased seeds of at least one rice variety that they had never planted before, while less than 16% of farmers who received no calls did so. Regression results confirmed that paying charges to receive rice varietal information is associated with varietal replacement.     

Health behavior stage and the prevalence of health risk behaviors in inner Mongolian secondary school students: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

This study evaluated stages of health behavior change and the prevalence of physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, poor stress management, alcohol consumption, and smoking in Inner Mongolian secondary school students. The relationship between engaging in health risk behaviors and demographic characteristics was also explored. In total, 2,794 students, largely in the contemplation and preparation stages, were enrolled. The prevalence of physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, poor stress management, alcohol consumption, and smoking were 31%, 33%, 46.8%, 18.6%, and 8.4%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis identified differences according to school grade, sex, ethnicity, residence areas, and school. Poor stress management in students is a serious health concern in Inner Mongolia.     

日本刑法中对责任能力的认定

在日本刑法中,责任能力的判断是法律判断。通说是将规范责任论具体化,以反对动机形成可能性、他行为可能性为基础的非难为基本内容来把握责任能力。行为人是否可能具有规范意识(辨认能力),是否可能控制自己的行为(控制能力),是进行责任能力判断的核心内容。因此,在司法实务中,当行为人基于精神障碍而犯罪时,需要对其辨认能力、控制能力...     

Are there any theories of international relations in Japan?

This article argues that there are theories of internationalrelations (IR) in Japan and that these theories are mostly ofmiddle range type. I first give a brief survey of IR studiesin Japan and its disciplinary backgrounds. On that basis, thenI focus on the three outstanding cases of fledgling theoriesof IR as developed in the 1920s and 1930s, namely Nishida asan innate constructivist, Tabata as an international law theoristpresupposing the natural freedom of individuals, and Hiranoas an economist placing regional integration higher than statesovereignty, to develop the argument that there are indeed theoriesof IR in a fledgling form already before World War II. Received for publication May 16, 2006. Accepted for publication June 27, 2007.     

Politics in Indonesia: Current State and Future Outlook

Indonesia's sixth and first directly elected president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his vice president, Jusuf Kalla, symbolically represent the social power of the military and business elite who was nurtured during the Suharto era. The “Unity Cabinet” of the new administration reflects not just the division of labor between the president and vice-president, but the division of power among contending parties that make up the still-mutating ruling and opposition alliances. The subsequent neutralizing of the leading Muslim social organization Nahdlatul Ulama, the collapse of the opposition alliance, and personnel changes in the military have given the current administration a measure of stability, even as the challenges of implementing a lasting solution to the conflict in Aceh and of putting Indonesia back on the track of viable economic growth depend on the as-yet untested leadership of the president.     

Preliminary study of post mortem identification using lip prints

Identification using lip prints was first performed in the 1950s and was the subject of much research in the 1960s and 70s, leading to the acceptance of this technique as evidence in the criminal justice system. Previous research has focused on identifying lip print types or on methods of obtaining hidden lip prints left at the crime scene. The present study aimed to clarify characteristics of lip prints from cadavers with various causes of death (including drowning and hanging) and to determine the effects of fixation on post mortem changes in lip impressions.