Fair trade slippages and Vietnam gaps: the ideological fantasies of fair trade coffee

Fair trade coffee sales have boomed since the late 1980s, making it one of the most recognised forms of ‘ethical consumerism’ in the world. Around the same time exports of lower quality coffee beans from Vietnam also boomed, launching Vietnam from an insignificant coffee exporter to the world’s second largest with historically unprecedented speed. These disparate projects have had significant impacts on thousands of farmers – with Vietnam’s new class of coffee producers representing three and a half times the number of coffee families certified by fair trade. Northern actors, however, have given far more public and positive attention to fair trade. This article will argue that this difference does not stem from a strictly objective appraisal of the relative merits and shortcomings of each project, but from the compatibility of fair trade with ‘free trade’ and its emotionally charged ideological fantasies. This includes unconscious beliefs and desires around individualism, voluntarism, democracy and the affirmation of the exaggerated power of Northern consumers – as opposed to the Southern agency and complicated collective action implied by Vietnamese coffee statecraft.     

The globaliser dragon: how is China changing economic globalisation?

There are many studies on the effects of both economic globalisation and the rise of China. These core issues of the contemporary international agenda entail major economic, military, environmental, social and cultural transformations in most nations. While there is also an abundant literature on how globalisation supported the rise of China, there are scarce publications on how China became one of the primary drivers of globalisation. This article assumes that understanding the power of globalisation over countries is as crucial as assessing the power of certain countries over the process. In this sense, it uses the recently created ‘theory of globalisers’ to analyse how is China transforming contemporary economic globalisation. The conclusion is that China became an ‘economic globaliser’ in the twenty-first century. As the largest exporter, the second largest importer, the third largest provider of foreign direct investments, and a major supplier of high-tech goods, the Asian giant is a vital partner for several economies in different continents. In this context, Beijing’s globalisation strategy aims at both securing the benefits of globalisation and reforming the international economic order, but without a revolutionary stance.     

Alliances,Trade Discrimination,and the Global Trade Regime

Although nondiscrimination is a central tenet of the global trade regime, discrimination was in fact common under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, particularly against developing countries. The latter have recently sought to end such discrimination through World Trade Organization rules: for example, the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) prohibited quota discrimination in this sector. I examine the ATC's impact on US discrimination, asking whether the ATC ended the US policy of favoring allies with generous textile and clothing quotas. I find that, while the United States favored allies before the ATC, this favoritism vanished in the post-ATC period. The ATC thus accomplished its goal of ending explicit textile and clothing discrimination. This result underscores the potential for multilateral rules to control trade discrimination and implies that popular theories of trade policy may be contingent on such rules.     

Measuring international conflict: Developing cross‐country time‐series data

This paper develops a new time series of conflict data from 1948 to the present through statistical estimation of a pooled time‐series of the two most frequently used dyadic events data sets: Conflict and Cooperation Data Bank (COPDAB) (1948–1978) and World Events Interaction Survey (WEIS) (1966‐present). The resulting data series is the longest possible time‐series annual data of dyadic interaction based on daily events. The paper also provides an example of performing a Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis of conflict and trade in a three‐country setting, utilizing the integrated data. Compared to the COPDAB and WEIS data, the integrated data have a large degree of variation and produce forecasting results that are more complex than those from the COPDAB and WEIS separately.     

人民币汇率变动对中美贸易结构收支的影响——基于SITC分类标准的实证分析

人民币汇率变动能否解决中美双边贸易失衡问题一直是国内外学者研究与争论的焦点。实证分析表明,人民币汇率的水平变动无法起到调节中美两国贸易收支的作用,但适度增加汇率波动弹性有助于缓解贸易失衡。因此,只有消除对人民币升值的预期、进行经济结构调整以及改善外商直接投资的流向,才能从根本上恢复中美之间的贸易平衡。     

中朝经贸关系发展现状与前景展望

2000年以后,中朝双边经贸关系迅速发展,双边贸易额、投资额均大幅增长,朝鲜对中国的经济依存度也逐年增加。虽然增速很快,但中朝之间贸易投资总额仍然不高,两国的经济交往仍面临很多障碍,朝鲜的外汇短缺、外贸交流体制的不健全、封闭的政策以及朝核危机等问题均为两国经济交往带来了阻碍。展望未来,中朝经贸关系具有很大的提升空间与发展潜力,根据两国面临的经济形势,建立中朝自由贸易区是一个具有战略意义的选择。     

北京市西城区劳动合同制度实施情况

《北京市劳动合同规定》实施以来,西城区的劳动合同制度基本建立,但在劳动合同制度实施过程中也存在着一些问题。必须进一步提高对劳动合同重要性的认识,加大实施劳动合同制度宣传力度,加强劳动合同的管理和监督力度,尽快出台《劳动合同法》及其密切相关的法律法规,社会各方要密切配合,合力推进。     

论竞业限制协议泛化适用的法律规制 ——以不可避免披露原则的引入为中心

竞业限制协议的泛化适用不利于劳动者权益保护和科技创新发展，而当前我国竞业限制协议泛化 适用问题非常严重，亟须予以规制。“负有保密义务的人员”的理解与适用偏差、竞业限制的保护客体界定不清、 司法审查偏重形式是竞业限制协议泛化适用的重要原因。不可避免披露原则作为一种法定利益衡量机制可以有效 平衡商业秘密保护与离职员工自由择业，根据我国现实司法情况及具体法律制度对其进行适当限制，并以一种合 理的适用途径引入我国，可以很好地解决竞业限制协议泛化适用问题。     

从实然庙会到应然庙会——传统庙会与庙会文化的现代转型

庙会文化是一种复合形态的文化,常常是民间艺术精粹与封建迷信糟粕交织在一起,整体性地影响着广大人民群众。以文化经贸为主题的庙会活动是一种文化交流和商业活动,对促进民族文化与地区经济繁荣是有益的。而以迷信为主题的庙会活动却会对我们事业的发展产生很大危害。现实中的庙会形式及其内容并非完全适应改革开放和现代化建设的需要。既要保留传统庙会的精华并注入新的有益成分,又要去除夹杂在其中的迷信内容,使庙会发展与社会主义现代化建设相协调,就需要我们实现庙会从实然状态到应然状态的转变,实现传统庙会的现代转型。     

关于驻津金融机构工会组织建设及工作开展情况的调研报告

大批外省市金融机构近年在津加速建立分支机构,其工会工作,呈现出注重员工利益诉求、注重提升员工综合素质、注重上质量见水平的较好态势。但也存在对双重领导关系认识尚未到位、与职工期望值尚未对称、干部队伍与组织建设尚未完全匹配、维权机制建设尚不够深化等问题。今后应从依法建会、强化维权,深化内涵、分类指导,讲求实效、理顺关系,加强协管诸方面,加强对各驻津金融机构工会工作的指导与管理。