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China became Brazil’s most important trading partner in 2009. For the South American country, this new situation implies lower levels of economic dependency on the USA. But does this new situation automatically translate into a more equitable axis of South-South relations? And, to what extent can Sino- Brazilian trade be reconciled with the vision of a global, low-carbon bioeconomy? This article addresses these questions by means of a qualitative analysis of the trade relations between China and Brazil over the period 2000-2018. The Sino-Brazilian case is interpreted as an important axis of South-South relations in the context of the emerging bioeconomy. The paper shows that, despite greening policies on both sides, trade relations between the two countries are by no means developing in the direction of a low-carbon transition. Although Sino-Brazilian trade is treated bilaterally as an expression of South-South cooperation, its constitutive elements and dynamics do not break with classical centre-periphery hierarchies. Instead, the article highlights the construction of new inequalities, with much relevance for the bioeconomy in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its "unlimited" supply of low cost and unorganized peasant workers, China has become a global manufacturing centre. The potential ability of Chinese workers to change this situation has significant meaning for global labour politics. Through ethnographic case studies, this paper examines the extent to which working class power in Southern China has managed to improve in recent years. The author contests the dominant current in labour studies, which announces "the death of the working class" and privileges non-class identities, and instead argues that the expansion of global production into China has intensified class struggles in the workplace and beyond -- even though workers' class formation has been dislocated by the state's labour regulation strategy. It is argued that without class-based organisations, the emergence of a labour movement is unlikely; nonetheless, unstable relations in workplaces and in the labour market present a challenge to both state and management and are leading to the steady improvement of general working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergency of modernization forced upon China means that the pride and sovereignty of China could only be maintained by becoming the Other in its „best“, that is, by adopting the criteria, norms and values of the developmentalism of the West that seemed to have made it so „successful“. However, it is exactly at a time when pride and sovereignty seem to be such a manifest reality for China that an „untimely“ rethinking of what most people regard as good and with reasons to be proud of is called for. The dangerous aspects of modernization in China today should be quite obvious to anyone willing to confront them. This paper aims to take some initial steps in dealing with the „main danger“ of the everyday life with a view to a form of activism not exhausted by the political binaries of oppositional politics. Part I of the paper examines how the media representations of the relations between modernization and rural poverty are framed by binary pairs, how the diminishing of the self legitimizes the violences of the modernization processes, and how modernization should be understood not merely as a domestic solution for domestic problems, but should be read together with the movements of colonization and globalization. Part II of the paper examines practices constituting a difference to the „dissemination“ and „over-determination“ effects of globalization on China's trajectory of modernization. One case in point is the rural reconstruction movement carried out in a relatively self-conscious manner in resisting the colonizing effects of processes of globalization and countering the very logic of this development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese economy has developed rapidly during the past 30 years and a market-oriented state capitalism has emerged. The policies of the Chinese party-state have led to concentrating effects both in - and outside of China: Huge state-owned enterprises and conglomerates have emerged at the expense of smaller ones. With the support of state institutions, the remaining SOEs increasingly involve in overseas activities. Chinese outward foreign direct investment has grown considerably since the year 2000. This paper depicts Chinas capitalist development and illustrates underlying motives and effects of the "Go Global Strategy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the global slump, China emerged as a major „winner" of worldwide economic and political rebalancing. The paper tries to evaluate the effects of the ascent of China with special regard to current power relations in East Asia. Although China gains in importance and has spearheaded several of the steps toward regional cooperation, there will be no far-reaching political integration under the hegemonic leadership of Beijing in the foreseeable future. In a world marked by economic turbulence, nationalist backlash and American and Japanese challenges to „Sinocentered" Asian regionalism, disintegration tendencies and rivalries will not easily come to an end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Local societies in the Tibetan Highlands are experiencing challenging transformations, recently expressed by a new and unprecedented scope of urbanization. State-driven economic liberalization combined with large-scale infrastructural upgrading of roads, railways and telecommunication systems are fostering new processes of labour mobility, migration and social differentiation among the peasant communities and nomadic peoples of the highlands. With local subsistence economies based on animal husbandry losing ground, the collection and marketing of a natural resource, the caterpillar fungus, is contributing to booming cash incomes in local societies, at least in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Yushu in Qinghai province. Against this background the paper argues that the conjunction of different regionalization processes, reflecting the local appropriation of the global, is structuring the conditions of livelyhood security and their territorial manifestations in one of the most remote landscapes in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the birth of oral history research and biography research discussions on the epistemological value of these data sources has taken place. This paper discusses the knowledge, which could arise from the detailed analysis of autobiographical narratives. It will be shown how the memories of women who belong to the highly stereotyped and stigmatized generation of the so-called Zhiqing-Generation are influenced by different parameters like public discourse, individual sense-making ("Sinnstiftung“), their different status and "class background“ during the Cultural Revolution and identity formation. Further, it will discuss whether the different ways of remembering the Cultural Revolution are proof that there is no "master story“ of the Cultural Revolution and instead will highlight what are the driving forces for the different types of stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper, based on the data obtained by the author in the extensive field work in Xinjiang, describes the practices of shamanism beliefs among the Uygurs, Kazakhs and Kirkiz whose religion is Islamism now. And the related practice of healing diseases, expelling evils, the devices that the shamans use, the ritual procedures and the lines of the ritual songs performed by the shamans during the rituals, are also described in detail. Then the author gives a comparatively thorough analysis on the shamanism belief of the peoples and Islamism. And in conclusion, the author points out there are mutual co-existent relations of Islamism and the multi-god belief of shamanism among the ethnic groups and the unique cultures of Islamism and shamanism exist among the peoples of Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]