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Grounded in comparative law research, this paper compares differences in the regulation of online child pornography in China and the United States. The United States began regulating child pornography through criminal law in the 1970s, gradually refining the laws to distinguish between child pornography and obscenity and prohibit the possession of child pornography and virtual child pornography. In contrast, China treats child pornography on an equal footing with adult pornography, but imposes more lenient penalties on disseminating child pornography, which has led to the proliferation of child pornography. By comparing the two countries' policies and laws on child pornography, this review makes four recommendations for other countries: (i) define child pornography in criminal law; (ii) distinguish between obscenity and child pornography; (iii) prohibit virtual child pornography on the internet; and (iv) increase criminal penalties for child pornography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the divergence in investor behaviour between the United States and China following the abolition of the Chinese presidential term limit in 2018, which may, in part, have reflected the heterogeneous opinions expressed in public online media regarding this event. Compared with Chinese investors, the sentiment among US investors was considerably more pessimistic. Accordingly, we find that Chinese companies listed in the United States significantly underperformed relative to a sample of propensity score‐matched firms listed in China. Additionally, we find that the political connectedness of firms to the Chinese government strongly influenced the stock prices of US‐listed Chinese firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite emergent trends of geo-economic integration between nation-states, the role of realist-driven geopolitical calculation appears highly enduring. This paper explores the potential contradictions between state-centric geopolitical concerns and transnational geo-economic formation through an exploration of China-US tensions over Taiwan, a territory of indeterminate geo-legal status and which China regards as its own province. I consider how the Taiwan Relations Act, a domestic public law of the US that frames US-Taiwan relations and has a major influence on East Asian geopolitics, could contradict emergent 'China region', and possibly even China-US, geo-economic integration. This is because the US-sustained arms sales to Taiwan rest on imagining and containing China as a 'threat', while geo-economic integration entails enrolling China as a strategic partner, if not an ally. Consequently, the Taiwan issue could stifle the enhancement of Sino-American relations at a historical juncture when the Chinese and American economies are more intertwined than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much has been written about annual income inequality in China, little research has been conducted on longer-run measures of income inequality and on income mobility. This paper compares income mobility of urban individuals in China and the United States in the 1990s. The following questions are taken up: To what extent are measures of annual income inequality misleading indicators of long-run income inequality? How much income mobility was there in China in the first half of the 1990s and how did this compare with mobility in other countries? Have real income increases been greater for the poor or the rich? How important is the variation in permanent incomes in China and how has this changed? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The weaponization and battlefieldization of outer space is becoming increasingly evident. China and the United States have obvious differences in their proposals for maintaining space security. China advocates a legally binding international treaty according to international law to limit outer space armament based on multilateralism with the framework of the United Nations at its core. The United States advocates establishing voluntary rule‐based agreements within the allied system as rules for the international community to constrain space behavior. The contest between China and the United States over how to maintain space security is in actuality a competition between the two countries over what type of international space order to establish. In the foreseeable future, the outcome of the competition between the two countries could be that an international space order based on US rules prevails, partially absorbing China's rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to examine the implications of high politics in the South China Sea disputes, which basically involve the United States, and other claimant countries, such as Vietnam and the Philippines on one side, and China on the other. The two main actors, namely China and the United States, appear to be re-assertive. All the claimant countries are asking for their stakes, which involve their sovereignty, and sovereign and maritime rights. The fall-out is the polarization of the stakeholders and greater military build-up. Overt military confrontation is a remote possibility at the moment, mainly because of overriding considerations, such as interdependence in economy and a trend towards regionalism. Nevertheless, the array of sophisticated military forces and the vital national interests of the stakeholders in the Sea tend to portend a problematic frontier. This article indicates certain policy implications and attempts to develop the framework of a scenario that is likely to emerge premised on high politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, Russia-U.S. political interaction in the Pacific has mostly been defined by the balance of power logic. Moscow and Washington only cooperated when they faced a common threat. In the 1860s it was the British Empire that was seen as such a threat, whereas from the 1920s through the 1940s it was Japan. Today another geopolitical entente of Russia and America might be in the offing, motivated by the rise of China. Such options are already being discussed by Russian experts and are perhaps also being contemplated by strategic planners in Washington. If Russia and the United States are to establish an effective partnership in the Asia-Pacific, they will need to resolve, or at least moderate, their disagreements in other areas, especially in the post-Soviet space. Furthermore, they have to do something about the lack of substantial economic ties as well as bridge the gap in their political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]