A new dynamism in Sino-Japanese security relations: Japan's strategic use of foreign aid

Abstract

In November 2004 a Chinese nuclear submarine cruised into Japan's territorial waters near the Okinawa Islands. In response, the Japanese government dispatched several Japanese naval ships and planes to chase the Chinese submarine until it navigated into international waters. This event, which potentially could have become the first exchange of fire between Japan and China since the Second World War, illuminated increasingly problematic security relations between the two neighbouring countries in the twenty-first century. In fact, deterioration of Sino-Japanese security relations is not a recent phenomenon but has already been evident since the mid-1990s, when Japan imposed a series of economic sanctions on China. Between 1995 and 2000 Japan had suspended its foreign aid to China in protest against: China's nuclear weapons tests; China's large scale war game including the launch of missiles across the Taiwan Strait; and Chinese naval activities in disputed areas in the East China Sea. This article looks at Sino-Japanese security relations since the mid-1990s through three case studies of the aid sanctions imposed by Japan on China. It clarifies the domestic political and bureaucratic interests that motivated aid sanctions and determined the decision-making process leading to these sanctions. The article argues, that with certain politico-security interests, Japanese governments actively used foreign aid as a strategic instrument to counter provocative military actions by China in the East Asian region since the mid-1990s. Despite the limited influence that Japanese aid sanctions have actually had on Chinese military behaviour, Japan's strategic use of foreign aid has undeniably created a new dynamism in security relations between the two neighbouring great powers in Asia.     

Oil and territory in Putin's relations with China and Japan

Abstract

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has centralized decision making in Moscow and has reduced the role of domestic actors. He has demonstrated his own personal management of foreign policy in relation to China and Japan. He has used negotiations over oil and territory to place Russia in a more favourable position between them. In relation to oil, he has overruled the oil company Yukos and others within his own government and decided in favour of the Japanese pipeline route, which includes a branch line to China. Putin decided on the Japanese route because it promised access to wider markets in the Asia Pacific, besides China. It also entailed deeper Japanese involvement in Russia's development and reduced Russian dependence upon China. In terms of territory, Putin undermined the power of local opposition and offered territorial settlements to both China and Japan, to remove sources of future tension. With China he compromised over the river islands which had been left outstanding since the main border agreement was signed in 1991. To Japan he again offered a compromise over the disputed islands based on the 1956 agreement to improve relations. Russians may hope that energy dependence would induce the Japanese to become more willing to compromise over the territorial issue. The Japanese, however, expect that Russia's need for funding for the pipeline would allow them to resist that pressure and to demand a return of all disputed islands. If Russia emerges as an energy supplier to both China and Japan its influence and its regional role would be enhanced. Much depends upon the prospects for the oil pipeline and its branch line, whose feasibility has been questioned.     

China's reform,internal trade and marketing

Abstract

This article analyses Macau's casinos as an example for accumulation by dispossession, in which they serve to transfer wealth from Mainland China to Macau and the casinos' foreign investors. They also represent a model for economic development and this model has migrated to Singapore, where it also operates as a form of accumulation by dispossession. By requiring citizens to pay an entrance fee, Singapore's casinos explicitly appropriate other people's money. The efficacy for the use of casinos as economic development is interrogated here because Macau's casino experience has emerged as a model for economic development in Asia beyond simply Singapore.     

中共十八大对反腐倡廉政策的新发展

中共十八大系统地分析了当代中国党风廉政建设和反腐败实践所面临的新形势,在反腐倡廉政策方面提出了新的政策问题、政策思想、政策观点、政策原则、政策目标和政策工具、政策措施,基本建构了中国目前阶段新的反腐倡廉政策体系,体现了执政党的反腐倡廉政策向科学化、民主化和体系化方向发展的趋势。深入研究中共十八大对反腐倡廉政策的新发展,对于把握未来一个时期当代中国反腐倡廉政策的走向具有重要的理论价值和实践意义。     

Using the Law as a ‘Harmonious Weapon’: The Ambiguities of Legal Activism in Favour of Migrant Workers in China

Abstract

Legal mobilization has spread in China over the past 20 years and is generally considered by both activists and scholars as a way to advance democracy and rule of law. Focusing on the mobilization in favour of migrant workers and on politically moderate practices, which are both more frequent and widely held as more successful, I argue to the contrary that resistance and reproduction of political domination are mutually constitutive. Public interest litigation and administrative litigation appear as new forms of political participation that constitute an internal regulation to the authoritarian regime, thus contributing to explain the regime's capacity to adapt and its durability. This article also accounts for new strategies developed by some lawyers that shun the courts and use law to ‘empower civil society’ and that thus do not contribute to structural reproduction. Though activists are struggling to turn their strategies into more institutionalized practices, they remain an ad hoc mechanism of internal control.     

马克思、恩格斯生态哲学思想与“美丽中国”的建设

马克思恩格斯虽没有专门系统的阐述生态哲学思想,但从各个时期的不同著作中可以看见生态哲学思想的端倪,马克思在很多著作中批判生态破坏,认为资本主义的生产方式是生态破坏的根本原因,生态和谐是共产主义的表现之一等等。立足于马克思恩格斯著作文本,深入分析和阐释马克思恩格斯生态哲学思想,全面的掌握马克思恩格斯生态哲学思想的基本内涵和解决生态问题的途径,使之和中国社会实际相结合,以便卓有成效的指导"美丽中国"的建设,并对解决当代社会生态问题和中国生态文明建设具有长远的意义和价值。     

论刑法作为宪法的罚则及二者的关系模式

目前关于宪法和刑法关系的表述,是一种基于宪法文本的解读,没有论及当前的法律设计是否合理。宪法是法律世界的统领,为个人权利对抗刑罚权力提供平台,形成对刑法审视,并且贯穿定罪和量刑两大根本领域。具体而言,对宪法秩序的破坏是犯罪行为具有严重社会危害性的指针和标准;只有宪法才能说明刑罚的正当性来源于人民。因此,刑法是宪法的一种罚则,宪法在由精神、原则和规范所组成的框架内指引着刑法的创设和发展。     

道路自信与制度自信的双重逻辑——“一国两制”的时代论域与哲学意涵

哲学的特质决定了其对现实世界分析的深刻底蕴,即历史的客观性与规律的概括性。对"一国两制"道路的认识与评价,必须从国情与时代的演进中来探寻发展的逻辑。"一国两制"的科学性体现在原则性与灵活性的有机统一,适应了生产力与生产关系的发展规律,丰富、拓展了马克思主义国家学说的当代论域。