EXHIBITING CHINESENESS: THE TAIWAN PROVINCIAL EXPOSITION OF 1948

Abstract

During the immediate postwar years, visual propaganda served as constitutive and instrumental means for the Nationalist government to “decolonize” the minds of people in Taiwan. The 1948 Taiwan Provincial Exposition highlighted the impact of politics on exhibitions during the critical period in Taiwan’s history. Unable to hold it in the national capital of Nanjing as initially planned, the Provincial Exposition Committee nonetheless maintained the core mission, “enhancing the mainlanders’ understanding of Taiwan,” and strove to mobilize official and individual participants from the mainland. Financed mainly by state-run enterprises, the Exposition delivered a spectacle in serving conservative interests, as encoded in the Exposition’s slogan, “Ensuring Prosperity through Stability.” The Exposition may be seen as an illuminating case to review postwar Taiwan at the threshold of a new era. This paper aims to reveal the complex, and perhaps paradoxical, narrative structures and competitive cultural forces behind the Exposition in redefining Taiwan as a part of China.     

Bracing for Cold Peace. US-Russia Relations after Ukraine

Despite rising back to prominence during the global economic turmoil, the International Monetary Fund remains under severe pressure over its lack of legitimacy and effectiveness. It is surrounded by increasingly vibrant and potentially competing systems of regional financial arrangements. But while it is feared that regional arrangements can undermine the global financial order, they can also help buttress the multilateral institutions that are struggling to manage an increasingly complex global economy. The purpose of this article is to draw on trade, exploring the decades-long efforts to ensure compatibilities between regional trade agreements and the multilateral trading system, to offer lessons to financial policymakers.     

筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行的基本思路及对策建议

为促进亚洲地区互联互通建设和经济一体化进程,中国政府倡议筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行,得到东盟的赞赏和支持。筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行已经提上重要议事日程。本文拟阐述筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行的重大意义,分析筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行面临的困难和挑战,研究提出筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行的基本思路,建议筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行率先在中国—东盟区域实现突破,取得好的成效、积累一定经验后再逐步扩大到整个亚洲地区。本文设计了亚洲基础设施投资银行的性质宗旨与职能定位、机构设置与总部选址、资金来源与合作方式等,尤其对在中国—东盟区域起步的亚洲基础设施投资银行的合作方式、期初的股本资金、各国出资金额及所占比重进行较为深入的研究,提出可行性初步操作方案,抛砖以引玉,供决策参考。需要说明的是,本文提出的观点仅是我们个人学术观点,不代表任何组织和机构。     

亚洲开发银行的运行分析及其对筹建亚洲基础设施投资银行的启示

亚洲开发银行的成立是在特定的时代背景下,各方国际力量追逐利益博弈的结果。经过40多年的运营,亚洲开发银行在资金来源、职能定位、组织结构、主要业务及未来重点发展领域等方面日趋成熟与完善。通过对亚洲开发银行运行现状进行分析,可归纳出四个方面的成功经验,但也存在五个方面的问题,这些经验与问题给亚洲基础设施投资银行的创建和未来的运营带来了诸多的启示。     

东北亚国际秩序的转型与大国的角色定位

从世界发展趋势看,所谓国际体系的转型期即指目前的国际体系向世界体系转换的过渡期。这一转型期客观地要求各个大国的正确的角色定位,即由以往的霸权模式向主导型大国模式的转换。中国欲成为引领世界发展方向的主导型大国,不仅要从文化深层确立"类本位"意识体系,而且也要建构以"和谐世界"为核心并由正义、公正、合理、民主、共赢、和平为其结构的理念体系。     

Tiananmen as treated by the Christian Science Monitor

Focusing on one medium's specific responses to a specific news crisis, print coverage by the Christian Science Publishing Company on the Tiananmen Square incident is compared to that of the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Times (Springfield, MA), Sunday Republican, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper internationally known for its objective, balanced reportage, is described and discussed, particularly regarding its pre‐ and post‐Tiananmen coverage. Its 185 articles beginning June 4, 1989, until a year later are delineated, along with the eight that appeared in the Christian Science Publishing Company's new monthly magazine, World Monitor. The argument is advanced that, despite major changes, the Monitor remains an invaluable media resource to both scholars and the lay public for unbiased reportage.     

European health regulations and Brazil nuts: Implications for biodiversity conservation and sustainable rural livelihoods in the Amazon

Abstract

The Brazil nut industry comports with the principal objectives of European policy on development co‐operation (poverty reduction linked with environmental protection) and forest conservation (maintaining forest cover). However, European Regulation 1525–98 EC, which decreases acceptable levels of aflatoxins in Brazil nuts to 4 parts per billion, may cause a crash in the Brazil nut trade. Thus, European policies on food quality, development co‐operation and forest conservation are likely to operate a cross‐purposes. Brazil nut producer countries have questioned the legal basis of the Regulation in terms of scientific justification for the stricter limits on aflatoxin content and lack of conformity with international standards set by Codex Alimentarius. The EC has countered by invoking the precautionary principle. This article documents the debate in the context of the World Trade Organisation's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement and discusses the implications for the relationship between agendas of trade, environment and sustainable development.     

The GATT‐WTO system: Environmental friend or Foe?

Abstract

The GATT‐WTO system has been attacked for being at best indifferent to the environment and at worst hostile to it. However, rather than being an environmental foe, the GATT‐WTO system is environmentally‐friendly in many respects. Several World Trade Organization agreements — the Agreement on Agriculture, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures — not only permit but encourage WTO member‐countries to implement national programs and laws to protect the environment free from WTO interference. Multilateral initiatives through organizations such as the WTO, as opposed to unilateral bullying, are the surest way of securing robust legal protections for the environment.     

Creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a part of China’s smart power strategy

The aim of this article is to assess the creation of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank within the scope of China’s smart power strategy, which will help not only to analyze China’s strategic use of its coercive and co-optive capacity, but also to understand better the concept of smart power. Given that the wisdom of statecraft can only be situationally determined, through this study I will propose the ability to achieve targeted objectives, the skill to use hard and soft power instruments in such a way that they reinforce each other, good interpretation of the existing regional and global contexts, time planning, and compatibility with long-term interests as criteria for judging the effectiveness of a smart power implementation.     

Austerity's Wasted Years

Austerity has become the norm of economic management in the EU, Britain and the USA. In each it is offered as the answer to different problems but everywhere the result is cuts in public spending, higher unemployment and low growth, none of which helps recovery from recession. Labour's response should not be to endorse or continue austerity but to initiate a Keynesian expansionary stimulus based on borrowing and spending on a huge programme of building public housing for rent. This should be accompanied by a competitive exchange rate, an industrial policy to boost the manufacturing sector and a National Investment Bank, the aim being to expand the production base so that it can pay the nation's way in the World and support the structure and the improvements Labour needs. This makes the choice at the next election the issue of what kind of Britain the electorate wants to see: a low wage, mean economy or a determined attempt to rebuild a stronger nation with a more powerful economy.