From Patrimonialism to Profit: The Changing Flow of Funds from the Chinese in Malaysia to China

ABSTRACT

Unlike the period before World War II, the Malaysian Chinese no longer look towards China as a home they will ultimately return to. This is seen in the flow of funds to China from the Malaysian Chinese. Before the war the motivation was patrimonial. The funds were in the form of patriotic bonds and collections and remittances that went to the home provinces of the Malaysian Chinese mostly in Fujian and Guangdong. Since the 1990s the funds flow has mainly been in the form of investment meant for gaining profit. This motivation was not different from that of business investors from other nations investing in China. It is important to demonstrate this motivation in order to allay suspicions by indigenous Southeast Asians that the Chinese who live in Southeast Asia are diverting funds meant for Southeast Asia to China.     

Notes on Contributors

'Constitutional environmentalism' has not been a prominent topic of political study, but in practice the phenomenon has been developing apace. It has become appropriate to ask, in a UK and European context, as elsewhere, whether constitutional environmental rights are valid, necessary, practicable or desirable. Accordingly, after clarifying the scope of a potentially feasible environmental right I assess the case for it in the light of four critical questions: whether environment protection can be considered a genuinely fundamental right; whether a new right is necessary for achieving that end; whether the right is practicable; and whether pursuing environmental ends by means of rights is democratically legitimate. While presenting arguments for an affirmative answer on each score, I also show that the strength of the case ultimately depends on a number of contextual issues. In the concluding section, I indicate issues which warrant further research by political scientists and theorists.     

Pictures at an exhibition revisited: reflections on a typology of images used in the construction of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in non‐financial corporate reporting

• Strategic corporate and public affairs communication about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a major component of corporate efforts to interact with their stakeholders and society at large. Non‐financial reporting, and CSR reporting in particular, is now seen as an essential corporate communication process by most members of a company's stakeholder community. This growth in CSR reporting has been driven by the need to increase corporate transparency and accountability concerning social and environmental issues. Arguably, the European Union is the most progressive region in adopting CSR reporting. Almost all of Europe's top 100 companies report on social and environmental performance, whilst figures for the USA and the rest of the world are much lower. The latest Accountability Rating concludes that ‘Europe leads, America lags’ after measuring companies' social and environmental impacts.
• The authors argue that visual communication is as important as words and numbers in creating meaning and assess UK and German Companies' non‐financial performance. Utilizing a range of research methods including content analysis and semiotic interpretation the authors propose a typology of images used in non‐financial reporting. This typology and associated conceptual development can used to more accurately define and interpret CSR and sustainability.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does price really converge among provinces in Canada？ A study using unit root tests for cross-sectional panels

This paper examines price convergences across different provinces in Canada using 1983-2006 data. We adopt the new panel unit root tests for analysis that can correct for cross-sectional correlation. Our findings are contrary to previous studies and we conclude that intra-national price convergence does not occur. We also briefly discuss the reasons for the absence of convergence within Canada.     

Mutual efforts for mutual trust: Impacts of citizens' knowledge and governmental communication channels on trust in participatory budgeting

Since participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated by both theorists and practitioners of public administration, its adoption has become a global phenomenon. As of 2017, all local governments in South Korea are legally mandated to operate a PB system as a policy for inviting citizen participation in local budget decision-making. Using an impact assessment tool completed by PB managers in local governments, this research tested two sets of independent variables—citizens' participatory capacity and the diversification of communication in the PB process—that could be associated with the dependent variables “citizens' trust in government (CTG)” and “government officials' trust in citizens (GTC).” The paper presents the three major findings on the common drivers behind CTG and GTC: (1) citizen participants' knowledge on budget and budgeting process; (2) local government's efforts in gathering citizens' inputs for PB; and (3) the mutual efforts to understand the needs and limitations of both citizens and the local government. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for the design and delivery of effective PB implementation.     

Carbon‐Based Fingerprint Powder as a One‐Step Development and Matrix Application for High‐Resolution Mass Spectrometry Imaging of Latent Fingerprints

Carbon‐based materials are often used as matrices for matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI‐MS) and its imaging (MALDI‐MSI). However, researchers have refrained from using carbon‐based fingerprint powder (CFP) as a matrix due to high background and contamination. In this work, the compatibility of CFP is reevaluated with MALDI‐MSI using a high‐resolution mass spectrometer (HRMS) and compared to traditional organic matrices. Relevant fingerprint compounds were easily distinguished from carbon cluster peaks when using HRMS. For fair comparison, half of a fingerprint was dusted with CFP while the other half was dusted with traditional organic matrices. All compounds studied had comparable, or higher, signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratios when CFP was used as the matrix. Additionally, chemical image qualities closely followed the trend of S/N ratios. CFP proved to be an effective one‐step development and matrix application technique for MALDI‐MSI of latent fingerprints, when carbon cluster peaks are well separated by a HRMS.