Reform of World Financial Order Needs Strategic Thinking

正A new global financial order is essential in the rapidly changing global economy,and we need strategic dialogues and cooperation to reform the current system,international financial experts said at a forum in Beijing."The world today is facing a revolution.It is imperative to construct a new global financial framework and to formulate new rules for the global financial market     

还历史本来面目——重新审视日本明治维新

发生在日本近代的明治维新,一开始并不是所谓主张进步的维新志士企图推翻落后保守的幕府政权的革命,而是一场围绕着开国与锁国的政治斗争。对立双方的主角,一方是主张对外开放的幕府政权,另一方则是部分主张复古排外的雄藩武士。这批武士与大权旁落很久的朝廷结盟,最终逼迫幕府“奉还大政”,建立起中央集权的明治政权。由于没有治国经验,新政权建立后不久即派出级别很高的岩仓使节团对欧美各先进国家进行全面考察。使节团回国后,日本政府迅速调整政策,全面学习西方,终于走上了近代资本主义道路。     

Ending in Failure? The Performance of ‘Takeover’ Prime Ministers 1916–2016

When Theresa May became Prime Minister in July 2016, she joined a list of eleven previous UK takeover leaders in the past 100 years. While the popular image is of Prime Ministers arriving in power after a general election victory, more than half of the Prime Ministers who governed since 1916 have acceded as ‘takeover leaders’ through an internal party process. This article analyses how such takeover leaders perform, concluding that May is likely to face greater obstacles and enjoy fewer advantages than if she had been popularly elected. Takeover leaders have less time in power and less chance of winning subsequent elections, and are generally rated as worse‐performing.     

The Image of the Loyal African During World War II and its Postwar Use by the French Communist Party

In 1926, the United States (US) company Firestone Rubber in Akron, Ohio initiated a second practice of segregation in Liberia. The first practice began with the minority regime of the Afro-American settlers over 17 ethnic groups in the Republic of Liberia in 1847. Civil rights were unheard of in Liberia during either of these two periods. This changed when Liberian students travelled to the US on government scholarships, primarily to study in historical black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the 1940s and 1950s. When the Liberian students were exposed to the Civil Rights Movement, they fully understood the injustice of the situation in Liberia. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and others travelled to the Gold Coast for its transition into becoming the nation of Ghana on 6 March 1957. Meetings between King and Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah led to collaborative efforts towards ending colonial racism in Africa and segregation in the US. During the Cold War, segregation in the US and Liberia was a source of shame for both nations. Liberian students returning from the US began “sit-ins” in protest against segregated Firestone facilities. The Liberian government responded by enacting its first Civil Rights Act against Firestone in 1958 and ending discrimination, except in segregated schools. This article shows, however, that it took more than another 30 years for the first decolonisation process to end the minority regime after the Civil Rights Acts of 1958, and to end the original form of ethnic segregation, which began in 1847 and ended as a result of the violent civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s.     

A Capacity for Central Coordination: The Case of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

For the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) the year 1987 can now be seen as pivotal in marking a clear end to a period of transition in coordinating structures in the Australian Public Service (APS) that had lasted roughly 20 years. The abolition in 1987 of the Public Service Board, formerly a powerful coordinating agency, is the most obvious marker of the change. The PSB's departure left the Secretary of PM&C with a role that is now often described as ‘head of the public service’. More broadly, the 1987 changes to the machinery of government both formalised and enabled a sea‐change in PM&C's role. Before 1987 a large policy initiation and development project would usually have been considered as beyond PM&C's scope. Since then, extensive and direct policy development work by PM&C has become common. The continuing debates have been over whether PM&C actually delivers in these roles (an empirical question) and how far it should play them (a normative issue). In this article we itemise the capacity, both continuing and developing, which PM&C has to support policy development. Traditional coordination mechanisms are an important part of this armoury and PM&C has long experience of most of them. However policy initiation and development calls for other tools which PM&C has had to develop over the past few decades. There is scope for conflict between the coordination and initiation/development roles. Understanding how a central agency like PM&C carries out each of them and balances the two can potentially contribute to debates on organisational design. We also address the normative issue: whether the growth of prime ministerial impact is a result of an increase in public service support or a cause of its increase ( Walter and Strangio 2007 ) and whether it should be restrained. We accept that the new developments give prime ministers the capacity to oversee policy arenas where once they could not, but regard this as a consequence as much of demand from above as of ambition within the department.     

Advancing Fiscal and Tax System Reforms

正China Economic Weekly Issue No.33,published on August 25,2014On June 30,a plan for reforming China’s fiscal and tax systems was reviewed and adopted by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.Its priorities include improving management and supervision of government budgets,deepening tax system reform,and adjusting fiscal relations between central and local governments to make     

The Fallacy about China's Anti-Japan Sentiments

正THE term"anti-Japan"has been frequently used in Japanese media coverage about China over recent years,to label issues ranging from China’s protests against the Japanese government’s"purchase"of the Diaoyu Islands to condemnation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.Such terminology is misleading and provocative,since it could not be further from truth.