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Considering the relations between Japan and mainland China from 1952 to 1972, it is possible to say that there were "twenty lost years" in East Asian regional politics, because of no official diplomatic relations between Japan and China, which have been the two biggest powers of East Asia. The research question of this study is how the relations between the two countries developed in this process, when the political power in Japan did not prefer recognizing the communist regime in mainland China instead of its nationalist counterpart in Taiwan due to the Cold War political conjuncture. Accordingly, in this study, the period between 1952-1972 was examined in terms of economic diplomacy. Economics was perhaps the only factor that kept the people of the two countries dependent on each other. Informal and individual initiatives and businesses established during this period, which were sometimes openly supported by politicians behind closed doors, ensured that the threads were never broken in Sino-Japanese relations. In this context, the names, Takasaki Tatsunosuke in Japan and Liao Chengzhi in China, stood out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast Asia is usually associated with conflict and war. Challenging this prevailing view, this article shows that the sub-region has achieved minimal peace since its peaceful transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War period. The questions posed are: (a) what factors are responsible for Northeast Asia's minimal peace?; and (b) how will these factors respond to the worsening US-China competition since 2010? This article's argument is two-fold. First, Northeast Asia's minimal peace is explained by three realist-liberal factors: America's hegemony; strong economic interdependence among the Northeast Asian states; and a stable institutional structure in East Asia, including Northeast Asia. These factors kept a stable balance of power, ensured development and prosperity, and mitigated the political and strategic tensions between the states. Second, Northeast Asia's minimal peace would be durable to counter the negative effects of the Sino-US competition in the coming decades. While the economic interdependence and institutional building factors have shown resilience, the US hegemony faces a robust challenge from China. Nevertheless, the US hegemony is durable because of America's enduring relative strategic and economic advantages over China, the expanded role of America's regional allies to preserve US preponderance and China's problems in building an alternative regional order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews Japan-China private trade from the 1950s to the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in 1972. Under the Cold War in East Asia, private actors were responsible for trade and business exchanges on behalf of the government in Japan-China relations. Both Japan and China promoted private trade with different political agendas. Japan's objective was to expand Japan-China exchanges with the concept of separation of politics and economics, while China used private trade as a strategic tool to attract Japanese public opinion toward China. This article will clarify how the intentions of the two countries affected private trade, and how private trade expanded as various trade groups competed with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument that "the end of the Cold War will bring history to an end with the final triumph of a free economy and democracy" was incorrect. As the US-China confrontation developed, economic security was discussed in Japan. In May 2022, the Economic Security Promotion Act was passed. The essential challenge of economic security is to "strike a balance between economic logic and political logic from the perspective of maximizing national interests." However, it is not easy to strike a balance between the logic of the economy, which seeks economic efficiency based on market principles, and the logic of politics, which seeks values different from economic efficiency, such as democracy. How Japan, which has its own relationship with the United States and China, respectively, will be able to achieve this balance between the two countries is a historical challenge. Japan must make endless efforts to fulfill its role in bringing stability to the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics, decision‐makers and policy makers have suggested that COVID and the war in Ukraine represent an 'inflection point'. The consequence will be 'the end of globalisation', 'a bipolar Cold War 2.0' and a return to Containment. In reality, the emerging world order is much messier. The logics of geoeconomics and geopolitics, largely aligned during the Cold War, are now in tension, ruptured by decades of globalisation, America's decline, and China's ascent. Consequently, US security allies now often wrestle with the fact that their economic ties link them to US rivals, notably China, or adversaries, like Russia. The pandemic and war have wrought geopolitical and economic adjustments, but any resemblance to Cold War blocs is superficial. What is consolidating is an era best described as fuzzy bifurcation. Unlike the Cold War, alliances will be tenuous across policy domains. With this greater latitude, even small and medium‐sized states may band‐wagon on security but will balance, hedge and even pursue strategic autonomy in others. Terms like 'allies', 'competitors', 'rivals', and even 'adversaries' become contingent on the policy issue. It is a world that American and Chinese policy makers will find challenging, indeed frustrating, because of the inconstancy of allied behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay traces the translation, reception, and adaptation of African anti-colonial poetics that emerged from the Congo Crisis in the People's Republic of China in the early 1960s. It examines the Cold War mechanisms that coded translated African poetry, the socialist literary network that facilitated and constrained textual circulation, and the Maoist discourse of world revolution underlying Chinese writers' responses to Patrice Lumumba's assassination and African decolonization. The article argues that the Cold War served as a powerful geopolitical and discursive structure for keeping specific anti-colonial African authors, texts, tropes, and aesthetics alive and legible across national and ideological borders, while also rendering them susceptible to mistranslations and appropriations. The material, ideological, and affective configurations of the Cold War thus profoundly mediated imaginations and articulations of Sino-African solidarity in Maoist China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jordanian Journal of Law & Political Science is the property of Mutah University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using bilateral aid data from 47 donors to 194 recipients, we find that while donors reward good relationship with more foreign aid, recipients sweeten their political relations with donors only after aid cuts. The negative impact of aid on political relations is more pronounced after the Cold War, in politically stable regions, and in countries where China and the United States are both donors. We provide evidence that the competition for influence among donors with distinct political pursuits and the conflicts between donors and recipients in aid implementation are driving the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the formative years (1949–1966) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the outward translation of Chinese literature was a crucial element of an ambitious project of cultural diplomacy. Chinese leaders sought to redefine the PRC by projecting a positive self-image of the newly born state to generate interest, sympathy and support abroad during the Cold War. Despite its political and cultural importance, this project in translational practice has received little scholarly attention. Drawing on archival documents, this article focuses on the rationale, intentions and mechanisms behind the Chinese government's outward translation project as a form of cultural diplomacy in the first 17 years of the PRC. It thereby provides preliminary observations on the reception and effects of the PRC's export enterprise, specifically in the English-speaking world, which created new fault-lines as much as it built bridges during the Cold War. It also foreshadows the inherent tensions and challenges for the present China's more ambitious cultural diplomacy project via 'sending out' Chinese literature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thailand, which formed an alliance relationship with the US during the Cold War, has experienced a significant change in its foreign policy behavior towards China since the end of the Cold War. Thailand, which began to pursue the strategy of bandwagoning to the US, has drastically adopted a more pro-active foreign policy in the US-China competition. Under the leadership of military regimes, Thailand has adopted the hedging strategy in order to maintain domestic stability, to promote inclusive economic growth, to maneuver through the changing geopolitical environment around its peripheries, and to gain more support for its economic and military interests from the US and China. This article clearly reveals how it is possible for Thailand, which is a small state, to play an increasingly active role in its region. For this purpose, it examines the hedging option employed by small states and how Thailand pursues the hedging strategy as opposed to the strategies of more traditional balancing and bandwagoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both the first and second Indochina wars, Vietnam had a wide range of support from socialist countries, especially from its neighbour China, which was called the 'elder brother'. From the 1950s, China assisted Vietnam in its resistance against the United States and its allies. By comparing changes in Chinese grants and loans to key moments in the anti-American war in Vietnam, this article argues that Beijing's assistance was tied to US actions in South East Asia. The view from Vietnamese archival materials shows shifts in Chinese support that coincide with Beijing's strategic calculation in dealing with the US in the global conflict. Although both Vietnam and China were in the socialist camp and had a shared ideology, there were profound contradictions in Chinese assistance to Hanoi. The article reveals that while supporting Vietnam, China pursued its own benefits, leading to Vietnam's suspicion about China's real intentions in Indochina. This perspective can explain why the war between China and Vietnam happened in 1979, soon after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US government has been promoting a new cold war against China for some time. It began before former President Donald Trump initiated a trade war against China and has continued under President Biden. The underlying reason for this policy is the drive of the US government to maintain a position of global domination and to prevent any other country from rising to a position of equal, or near equal, economic, political, or military strength with the US. This cold war is unjustified and poses serious dangers for people around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis contributes to a fast-growing body of literature on Sino-Western relations and the tension between economic and security interests. It takes Britain's China policy as a case study considering the Integrated Review 2021. It argues that London's stance towards Beijing has shifted – officially – from the so-called "golden era" to a complex phase of diplomatic–military tensions and scrutinised economic relations, principally because of US pressure. However, this shift de facto has not had a structural impact on the economic side of the relationship between London and Beijing. The article reaches this conclusion by framing its narrative through the lens of the economy-security conundrum at the heart of the Liberal International Order and through the lens of the New Cold War between the US and China. These two factors are crucial for understanding the change between Britain's China policy pre- and post-2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has made great strides in its diplomacy in Central Asia over the past 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations with the regional countries, with three major results including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the “China+Central Asia” (C+C5) cooperation mechanism. These results have not only fundamentally improved China’s security environment in the west, but also advanced stability and development in Central Asia in building a new type of international relations and a human community with a shared future. China has accumulated rich experience in its Central Asia diplomacy, which includes treating each other as equals and advocating trust and harmony; keeping pace with the times while consolidating the basis; pursuing mutual benefits with specific targets; and abandoning the Cold War mentality in handling the relations between major powers. China’s diplomacy with Central Asian countries has a long way to go, but holds bright prospects with much to be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This year marks the 50th anniversary of former US President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China and the issuance of Shanghai Communiqué. Over the past half a century, the China-US relationship has kept moving forward despite twists and turns, contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in the world. Today’s world is of intertwined interests and a shared future. China and the United States have common interests and shared responsibilities. Cooperation is the only right choice. However, the US has got involved in issues related to China’s core interests, promoted “integrated deterrence” against China, accelerated the decoupling by building “a small yard with high fences,” and interfered with people-to-people exchanges in science and education. These moves are not helping the bilateral relations back on track. The United States must abandon the Cold War mentality, and choose dialogue over confrontation, cooperation over conflict, openness over seclusion, and integration over decoupling. Both sides should follow the principle of mutual respect as the premise to development of bilateral relations, stick to peaceful coexistence as the bottom line, and focus on win-win cooperation as the key, to overcome difficulties, rebuild trust, and bring more stability and certainty to a turbulent and fluid world in building a human community with a shared future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Online Journal Mundo Asia Pacífico is the property of Universidad EAFIT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Global Economics / Revista de Economie Mondială is the property of Institute for World Economy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent two-decade-long march of "global China" – manifested as outward flows of investment, loans, infrastructure, migrants, media, cultural programmes and international and civil society engagement – has left sweeping but variegated footprints in many parts of the world. From "going out," officially announced in the year 2000, to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Made in China 2025, and from the developing world to advanced industrialized democracies, state-endorsed campaigns are but tips of a much more momentous iceberg. Numerous Chinese citizens and private corporations have also participated in a global search for employment, business, investment and educational and emigration opportunities. International reactions to the increasingly ubiquitous presence of China and the Chinese people in almost every corner of the world have evolved from a mixture of anxiety and hope to a more explicitly critical backlash. Terms such as "sharp power," "debt-trap diplomacy" and the "new Cold War" bespeak the West's dominant perception today of China as a threat to be contained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unipolar international order led by the USA has given way to a multipolar order with the emergence of China as a great power competitor. According to many commentators, the deterioration of Sino–US relations in recent years heralds a "new Cold War." The new Cold War differs from its namesake in many respects, and in this paper we focus on its novel territorial logic. Containing the USSR was the overriding objective of American foreign policy for nearly four decades, but in contrast, the USA and China are engaged in geopolitical‐economic competition to integrate territory into value chains anchored by their domestic lead firms through the financing and construction of transnational infrastructure (e.g., transportation networks and regional energy grids). We show this competition poses risks as well as opportunities for small states to articulate and realise spatial objectives. We present cases from Nepal and Laos that demonstrate that by hedging between China and the USA and its partners, their governments are able to pursue spatial objectives. In order to achieve them, however, they must implement significant reforms or state restructuring. The result is the emergence of what we term the 21st‐century infrastructure state, which seeks to mobilise foreign capital for infrastructure projects designed to enhance transnational connectivity. The "rise" of China has precipitated a multipolar international order and, according to some commentators, heightened US–China tension heralds a "new" Cold War. In this context, small states hedge between the USA and its partners and China, as they pursue longstanding state spatial objectives. This necessitates state restructuring, which in some cases leads to the emergence of the 21st‐century infrastructure state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western discourse towards China had been hardening since it became clear to US leaders that their assumption that increasing trade and engagement with China would lead it to become a pale imitation of Western neoliberal financialised capitalisms was coming unravelled and China continued to adhere to its socialist commitments. In waging the US's New Cold War on China with equal if not greater vigour than Trump, Biden merely replaced Trump's "America First" stance with the traditionally hypocritical stance of imperialism that always pretends to do good for the world it seeks to dominate, oppress, exploit and otherwise destroy. The latest version of this discourse is about promoting human rights and democracy. At a time when US and Western democracies are being assailed by a toxic combination of inequality, poverty, distrust, social division and political disaffection and polarisation, at a time when US imperialism's distinctly anti-democratic edge is becoming ever more evident, this stance is only facing mounting contradictions. The present article explores them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines depictions of Africans in China during the period when China moved to establish diplomatic relations across the African continent – the foundation of what would become Africa–China relations today. Chinese posters were early forms of mass visual interaction with (the image of) foreign nationals. They reflect how Chinese society viewed itself in relation to others as it developed a global awareness through domestic mobilization. This study investigates how Africa and Africans are depicted in Chinese posters and how they shaped and/or reflected discourses of the period. It also examines motivations behind the inclusion of Africans in Chinese posters, arguing that this largely had a domestic rationale. By historicizing the meaning-making process of the image of Africa in 20th-century Chinese posters, this paper demonstrates that Chinese posters informed public opinion by defining friend and foe, focused more on China and her Cold War entanglements than on Africa, and simultaneously challenged and reinforced some widely held stereotypes about the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from a substantial body of government archives and internal reports from mainland China, the United States, and Taiwan, this article examines how daily transnational and technological communication practices among the masses impacted the making of political culture in Maoist China. The article begins with an overview of the pervasiveness of listening to enemy radio—the overseas radio stations unsanctioned by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC)—followed by an in-depth analysis of the historical legacies, ideological and cultural rationales, and structural deficiencies that contributed to that popularity. It then explores how local radio users' responses and active reaching out to enemy radio stations in the 1950s and 1960s prompted the competing geopolitical powers facing off across the Taiwan Strait to adjust their government policies. Ultimately, this article argues that listening to enemy radio as a technological counterculture was instrumental to the making of socialist subjectivity, arising from the populace's appropriation of the strategic interplay between the PRC government and its Cold War rivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in nuclear deterrence as part of a larger strategic vision. Known as MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction, it included widespread investments in nuclear arsenals and delivery systems that would ensure nuclear capability in the advent of a first strike by an adversary. We revisit MAD in the context of the unfolding climate catastrophe and the context of growing tensions between the United States and China. Each government is investing in defense capabilities. Given the unfolding carbon footprint such a struggle will entail, even if China or the United States never engage in actual combat, we ask: does an unfolding military buildup between the U.S. and China assure our mutual destruction? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a concise overview of the evolution of Japan's strategic thinking and foreign policy. It discusses key events that have shaped Japan's approach, such as China's nuclearization, Nixon's visit to China, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The article emphasizes Japan's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and its non-nuclear policy. It also highlights Japan's proactive foreign policy after the Cold War, including its involvement in regional forums and its response to China's rise. Overall, the article offers insights into Japan's strategic culture and its efforts to become a more proactive global actor. [Extracted from the article]

Until the end of the 1980s the role of the United States (US), European Communities (EC) and China in Central Europe (CE) was marginal. However, with the end of the Cold War the situation dramatically changed. The present article collects and analyses the evidence about the rising Chinese engagement in CE, particularly in the Visegrád Group (V4) countries Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and about its political, societal and economic effects in the region. The research is designed as a three-level analysis of Chinese activities and interests in CE: firstly, attention will be paid to individual CE countries, secondly, to V4 which is historically the longest joint political project of CE countries, and thirdly, to the impact of the situation in CE on the EU level. We found out that pro-Chinese forces recruit from the populist and anti-liberal groups, Chinese activities and influence in individual CE countries differ, even though Chinese strategies to penetrate politics and business are similar, and that China's "words speak lauder than actions". We conclude that even when V4 countries alone are sobering up from the 'Chinese dream', they use the 'China card' within the EU and towards EU authorities to get what they want. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's foreign-policy agenda in the Cold War defined what countries would be included in "international" collaboration. There is little or no formal inter-state cooperation in this mode of science diplomacy: it went no further than consular offices on both sides authorizing cross-border travel between Communist China and scientific visitors from foreign countries. [Extracted from the article]

Up until the end of Cold War mainstream theories in the disciplines of International Relations and Peace Studies have overlooked the transformation in relations between actors but instead concentrated on either the constant state of conflict between units or radical changes from war to peace. Acknowledging major changes in their subject matters due to the changing conditions with the end of Cold War, both disciplines had to rethink their theoretical assumptions and renew their toolboxes. Accordingly, the constructivist turn in International Relations and the introduction of Transformational Approach to conflict in Peace Studies have brought the two disciplines closer. Similar to the Constructivist theory of International Relations that emphasizes changes rather than law-like regularities in international politics, the Conflict Transformation Approach in Peace Studies focuses on perennial transformation processes in conflicts. This paper through bringing together insights from the disciplines of International Relations and Peace Studies, analyses the cross-strait conflict between the People's Republic of China and Republic of China (Taiwan) within a constructivist framework, and from a transformational perspective by applying Hugh Miall's five-point model of conflict transformation (context transformation, structural transformation, actor transformation, issue transformation, and personal/elite transformation). Miall's five-point model is utilized in this paper to show that, despite serious crisis occurred in more than 70 years history of People's Republic of China-Republic of China conflict, the relationship of the parties has undergone a set of transformations on the way to reconciliation. Although the conflict, with serious disagreements on crucial issues, is far from being settled, the ongoing transformation creates room for negotiations and further reconciliation on issues that were previously regarded as non-negotiable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of Australia's main policy interventions in the South Pacific since the end of the Cold War was sanctions on Fiji in response to the latter's December 2006 coup. Dubbed 'Smart' sanctions, this policy was not only designed to pressure Fiji to return to democracy, but also to sustain Australia's longstanding regional leadership aspirations, aspirations which went hand in hand with its 'strategic denial' of unwelcome geopolitical challengers (Hawksley Global Change, Peace & Security, 21(1) 115-130, 2009). There has been little analysis of the unintended consequences of sanctions, namely, whether 'Smart' sanctions ironically contributed to greater strategic competition in the South Pacific, weakened regional security and prompted expressions of Pacific regionalism that excluded Australia. In the years after the coup, Canberra achieved its primary aim of being, and being seen to be, the dominant power in the South Pacific. However, during this time, Fiji "Looked North" and Pacific Island Countries (PICs) developed greater confidence in the 'New Pacific Diplomacy', thus providing the opportunity for China and other powers to expand their influence in the region (Fry and Tarte, 2015). To the backdrop of growing concern about Chinese influence, the failure of 'Smart' sanctions against Fiji shows the constraints of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. The fact that sanctions are no longer a palatable policy option has not been adequately canvassed in the literature. In this context, in order to counter Chinese influence, Australia requires greater soft power resources and a sustained effort to listen to the concerns of PICs in order to achieve Australia's interests (Newton, 2020b). In the 'New Pacific Diplomacy', threatening sanctions is likely to be counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out, as the conditions of knowledge in the post-Cold War era evolve, the "de-Cold Warization" of the understanding of China has become an intellectual topic of regional significance, so as the concern, brought by such historical juncture, of the Debate on Chinese Social History and within which the reflection and commentary of (the work of) Hu Qiuyuan, who is viewed as an intellectual in the middle of the political spectrum. Hu Qiuyuan's intellectual reflection was different from the official historical narrative of the Chinese Communist Party that succeeded it, as the 1930s was actually a time of great intellectual altercation. Back then, the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, the Trotskyist, and the others co-existed and interacted with each other, even pushing the CCP to alter its course of the revolutions. Specifically, because the centrists were not contained by the logic of exclusivity of other political positions, they were able to criticize the theoretical practice of other forms of dogmatism and represented the whole-of-society and the subjectivity of national interests. Moreover, Hu Qiuyuan, following the tradition of the centrists in the Debate of Social History, unfolded a theory of anti-imperialist, Third Worldist and "transcendent advancedism" (chaoyue qianjinlun). As such, Hu Qiuyuan's intellectual history might implicate the direction for the "de-Cold War" of the understanding of China and have a positive meaning in the inter-referential system of knowledge in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges the dominant view that China has risen, and that its economic ascent has created a restless empire poised to overturn the liberal international order. This author argues that China's deep integration into the global economy from the early 1990s onward, as necessitated by both Chinese domestic politics and America's grand strategy of drawing China out, has eventually set the country on a path of dependent development and has made China not a solid superpower candidate, but rather a fragile great power. It is ironic that it is the empire‐sized country's entrapment in semi‐peripheral development, rather than its economic‐technological 'rise', that has inevitably led to the return of great power rivalry and the coming of the new Cold War. Deep integration into the global economy has not made China another post‐1945 Germany or Japan. Given the country‐empire's size (physical and economic), it is its entrapment in semi‐peripheral development rather than its economic technological 'rise' that contributes directly to the return of great power rivalry and the coming of a new Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regime built around the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has helped curtail the spread of nuclear arms for fifty years. In hindsight, it is remarkable only nine states possess the world's most powerful weapon. The NPT achieved much success during Cold War bipolarity and U.S. unipolarity in its aftermath. But today, China's rise and Russia's resurgence have ushered in a new era of emerging multipolarity. Can the treaty withstand the potential challenges of this dynamic environment? There is a real risk that multipolarity may shake the scaffolding of the nonproliferation regime, presenting a significant test to the NPT's durability. This article identifies four essential elements of the nonproliferation regime: widespread membership, adaptability, enforcement, and fairness. History suggests bipolarity and unipolarity in the international system largely sustained and promoted these NPT features. When international regimes lack such elements, it sharply curtails their long-term efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recently published collection of archival documents provides not just a trove of records on the history of one particular development campaign but also a rich resource for the study of political dynamics and socioeconomic patterns in Mao's China and the early years of the Reform era. The collection, titled Xin zhongguo xiao sanxian jianshe dangan wenxian zhengli huibian (Compilation of archival documents about New China's Small Third Front; Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe, 2021), is the product of a research group headed by Xu Youwei. Documents spanning the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in the compilation's eight volumes shed light on industrial policy, government-enterprise and civil-military relations, factional politics of the Cultural Revolution, welfare benefits, the urban-rural divide, cultural activities, the education sector, family life, gendered practices, and elements of everyday life, among other topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the brief American fascination with acupuncture anesthesia, a technique in which needling was used in place of, or in combination with, chemical anesthetics during surgery. In 1971, a series of American medical delegations began traveling to China to observe the procedure and gauge its viability. While some of these physicians were optimistic about the technique's therapeutic possibilities, others were antagonistic to its feasibility in an American context. Previous studies have explained the quick rise and rapid delegitimization of acupuncture anesthesia by invoking the professional interests of biomedical doctors. In contrast, this article rethinks the history of the procedure by casting it against the backdrop of the Cold War. In discussions about the legitimacy of the technique, assumptions about race, communist politics, and Cold War bipolarity were omnipresent, causing acupuncture anesthesia to become a synecdoche for the promises and perils of Chinese communism writ large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a strategic adjustment to China's national defence, economic and construction policy for military purposes, the 'Third Front' construction programme (1964–1980) had a profound impact on the country's industrial layout and urban-rural relation. The built environment of this era represents the spatial orientation and strategy of China's 'road to socialism' during the Cold War. Through a historical review and field investigation, this study summarises the characteristics of Third Front construction with reference to the 'new socialist industrial mining bases' that emerged from the paradigm shift in China's urban planning. By analyzing spatial patterns and the language of spatial design from a historical perspective, this study sheds light on China's socialist architectural and planning discourse and supplements the existing scholarship on Cold War architectural historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable and well positioned human sources are essential for the US and its allies in an era of declining relations and rising tensions with China and Russia. The recruitment and handling of spies is essential if the US and its allies are to cool relations carefully, enact sound policy and curb the relentless intelligence operations of their adversaries. However, despite the superficially more open borders of China and Russia, technological advances have made the threat of street surveillance to the recruitment and handling of agents today as acute as it was in Cold War "denied area" states. This paper assesses the degree of street surveillance in contemporary Russia and China – including the impact of biometrics and online data history on the defensibility of cover and the severity of advanced CCTV networks – and the solutions intelligence agencies might adopt to address these problems. Despite the possibilities cyberspace offers espionage – for instance, by reducing the need for face to face meetings between intelligence officers and agents – the paper establishes the limitations of technological answers and argues that Western intelligence officers are entering a new era of Moscow and Beijing Rules in which they are more essential than ever and yet need to operate with absolute caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent occasional attacks on Chinese entrepreneurs in Zambia, supposedly on grounds that they are expropriating socio-economic opportunities for Zambians, deserve a fresh interrogation of Zambia--China relations. Labourrelated tensions between Chinese employers and their Zambian employees have also ignited violence between the two parties. Opportunistic Zambian politicians have used these tensions to sponsor the narrative that China in general has malevolent designs over Zambia. Due to increasing external debt and general economic difficulties during the tenure of Zambia's Patriotic Front (PF) government, from 2011 to 2021, desperate Zambians took their frustration out on the increasing numbers of Chinese entrepreneurs who are considered harbingers of Zambia's external debt crisis and usurpers of Zambia's sovereignty. Using constructivism as the theoretical framework, the research found that Zambia--China relations are no longer driven by ethical moorings that were typical of the colonial and Cold War eras. Secondly, that China's identity in Zambia has assumed an ominous dimension with the increasing number of Chinese migrants whose conduct is at variance with the image that the Chinese government strives to present. Third, that the ineffective governance of the PF leadership threatened to force the country to default on the debt it owes to China and this could have led to China limiting the room for manoeuvre on the part of the Zambian government, thereby justifying the arguments of those who opine that China aims to take over Africa even though ineffective African governments are culpable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two theoretical frameworks used to evaluate Maoist development. The first is based on neoclassical economic theory, and the second is rooted in the idea that the Chinese Communist Party made China into a state capitalist regime. Both these theoretical frameworks presume to know what economic practices the CCP should have engaged in and fault the Party for not conforming to their standards of judgment. This article finds this normative approach to analyzing Maoist development to be wanting for four reasons. In its drive to depict China as acting anomalously, this normative standpoint insufficiently attends to the empirical specificities of economic activities of the Mao era. It does not take enough into account how China's socialist identity shaped the CCP's economic initiatives. Nor does it dig deep enough into how the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War influenced Chinese development. This way of writing the history of the Mao period also overlooks similarities between China and other developmental states in Cold War East Asia. This article calls on historians to adopt a different approach to the study of Chinese development and scour available documentation with the aim of comprehending the economic practices of Mao's China on their own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) not only distrusted, but also feared, the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s assertion to be peace-loving. The reason was that the PRC used its peacefulness claim to negotiate whether the ROC or the PRC should represent 'China' in the United Nations, based on a specific definition of 'peacefulness' and on the socialist World Peace Movement as a platform of public diplomacy and international networking. This explains a function of the PRC's peacefulness claim in the Cold War and rewrites the chronology of the PRC's gradual United Nations entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the Cold War ushered in the golden age of Arctic cooperation. The Arctic Council established in 1996 is the most representative intergovernmental forum in the field of Arctic governance. In 2009,the Arctic Council adopted the AMSA 2009 Report, which adopted: listed recommendations related to the three topics of enhancing Arctic marine safety, protecting Arctic people and the environment, and building the Arctic marine infrastructure. Subsequently, four Status on Implementation of the AMSA 2009 Report Recommendations were released from 2011 to 2017. The implementation of the AMSA 2009 Report reflects two characteristics: international cooperation can eliminated faults in Arctic governance; permanent participants and international organizations are involved. China is an observer of the Arctic Council. According to China’s Arctic Policy, the Arctic Council is one of the platforms for China to build a community with a shared future for mankind in the Arctic. Therefore, China’s deep participation in Arctic governance, is to strengthen cooperation with Arctic states, permanent participants and international organizations; On the other hand, efforts should be made to jointly host the workshops of the Arctic Council working groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial discusses the growth of area studies in China, paralleling the historical development of such programs in the U.S. It highlights the geopolitical motivations behind the establishment of area studies during the Cold War era and suggests that China's expansion of these programs may serve similar strategic interests, particularly in supporting its foreign policy objectives such as the Belt and Road Initiative.

How did the attempt to make the world more liberal end up making the West less liberal? Following the end of the Cold War the US tried to promote liberalism in various parts of the world. This promotion took place under the liberal belief in its universality. A few of these attempts succeeded, most notably the integration of China into the global economy. Many other liberalizing endeavours failed, notably democracy-promotion in China, Russia and the Middle East. Yet, both the successes and the failures resulted in the rise of illiberal elements in the West as reflected in Brexit and Trumpism. The article shows how the outcomes of the attempts at liberalization—both the failures and the successes—generated these populist forces. The Chinese economic success took place at least partly because of the US-led integration of China into the international order. Yet, this success produced adverse economic effects in the West. Such outcomes led to the rise of economic populism. The American liberal interventions in the Middle East affected the rise of terrorism and of Muslim migration to the West. These developments influenced the rise of cultural populism in the West, which advances resentment of foreigners, migrants and minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial liberalism would suggest that whereas globalization was conducive to great power cooperation—or at least moderated competition—deglobalization is likely to ignite greater competition amongst the Great Powers. In reality, however, the picture is much more complex. To begin with, the intense globalization of the 1990s and 2000s is not responsible for moderating Great Power tensions; instead, it is itself a product of the security situation resulting from the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, while globalization did serve to reinforce cooperation between the United States and rising challengers, such as China, which sought to harness the economic gains of globalization to accelerate their rise, it also created or intensified fault-lines that have led to heightening tensions between the Great Powers. Finally, while we are currently witnessing increasing tensions between the US and both China and Russia, deglobalization does not appear to be the primary cause. Thus, geoeconomic conditions do not drive security relations; instead, the geoeconomic environment, which is itself influenced by Great Power politics, is better understood as a medium of Great Power competition, which may affect the character of Great Power competition and its intensity, but does not determine it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official discourses of Development are being redefined. If the key geopolitical contexts shaping the post‐war Development project were decolonisation and the Cold War, the defining world‐historical transformations shaping the emerging vision of Development are the expansion of state capitalism and the rise of China. The IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the G20, other multilaterals, and bilateral partners are increasingly taking stock of the rise of state capitalism, and acting as ideational vectors of this emerging regime. However, this new "state capitalist normal" is also portrayed as carrying risks. There is anxiety regarding the direction the political form of global capital accumulation is heading: with the unchecked proliferation of state capitalism possibly blunting competition, politicising economic relations, and intensifying geoeconomic tensions. This anxiety underwrites the current re‐articulation of Development, one which embraces the state as promoter, supervisor, and owner of capital; even as it critiques China's use of similar instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the onset of the Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19) global pandemic, Sino–US strategic rivalry has dramatically heightened to a pitch where there is a mounting discussion over whether or not China and the United States have embarked on a "new Cold War." There are three main views in this regard. The first is that China and the United States have indeed entered a new Cold War; the second is that China and the United States are heading for a new Cold War; and the third is that China and the United States will not descend into a new Cold War. Different views reflect different scholarly understandings of the essential properties of the Cold War concept. Fundamentally, the two core features of the Cold War were ideological confrontation and proxy war. Considering that current US–China strategic competition is in the technological rather than ideological domain, and that neither side has instigated any proxy war; however, the phrase "new Cold War" is inappropriate; that of "Porous Curtain" is more apt. The ever-narrowing power gap between China and the United States has undoubtedly prompted the US government's adoption of a policy of blockade and containment to curb China's rising power. However, the deep integration of the international system and historical inertia of US–China interaction preclude the US's complete isolation from China. This has resulted in bilateral relations of a more porous nature. Although the future may not be promising, competition does not necessarily lead to conflict. For this reason, managing the bilateral competitive relationship and striving towards coexistence under competition should be the key task of both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract From the perspective of the history of technology, this paper reviews the development of a hypersonic wind tunnel in China. The key figure is Yu Hongru 俞鸿儒, who began his research into shock tube wind tunnels in the 1950s, and proposed ways to use detonation driver technology. His insight, however, was stymied during China's "Cultural Revolution." After China's reform and opening-up began in the late 1970s, Yu 俞 designed a hypersonic tunnel driven by backward hydrogen-oxygen detonation utilizing a dumping section and carried out verification experiments with RWTH Aachen University. After 2000, the high-temperature gas dynamics team of the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences built the first long test-duration detonation-driven shock tunnel. This case study draws extensively upon Chinese literature, documents, and interviews. It adds to the history exploring Cold War science and technology. While much research has focused on activities in the USA and the USSR, this article contributes to the less-explored history of scientific research and development in China after 1950, demonstrating the importance of knowledge flows within the wider concept of Cold War transnational science. In addition, this transnational emphasis contributes a non-western chapter to the western-centric history of aerospace technology development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, establishing partnerships has been part and parcel of the grand strategy of great powers. The partners that great powers seek fall under the two categories of security partners and political-economic partners. Statistics show a significant variation in the proportions of great powers' security partners. The authors argue that such variation is mainly determined by two factors, namely, great powers' strategic threats, and their ways of maintaining national security [self-help or security-dependent (on the United States)]. Specifically, both the security-dependent great powers that are under China's strategic threat and the self-help great powers that are under the US's strategic threat have a higher proportion of security partners than the security-dependent great powers that are not under China's strategic threat and the self-help great powers that are under China's strategic threat. These findings will help to refine the current theories of great power politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) began with the establishment of dialogue relations between the two sides after the ending of the Cold War. In 1994, when the ASEAN Regional Forum was established, China was one of the founding members, marking the beginning of formal security cooperation between China and ASEAN. The decision to shift to cooperation/enhance willingness to cooperate was made by the two parties after taking stock of the international and regional situation and their respective interests in the wake of the collapse of the bipolar system. Security cooperation was driven by a consensus on seizing, creating and maintaining strategic opportunities; or more specifically, by taking advantage of development opportunities and striving to maintain regional stability in difficult situations, thus creating a peaceful and amicable strategic regional context for sustainable development. The core concept of China-ASEAN security cooperation is developmental peace, with the norms of cooperation being the ASEAN way, cooperative security, the new security concept and the Asian security concept. In practice, China-ASEAN security cooperation covers three dimensions—strategic stability, management and control of high tension issues, and practical cooperation. New opportunities and challenges are emerging in the new era for China-ASEAN security cooperation. Fundamentally speaking, the two sides need to strive for the goal of building an ASEAN community and a China-ASEAN community with a shared future and to properly coordinate the strategic positioning of the long-term core interests of both parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As researchers suggested, there is no way back for transatlantic politics; it has suffered severe setbacks that cannot be undone in recent years. Although the Biden win promises opportunities for EU-US cooperation, the EU's drive for strategic autonomy would not turn a halt given that the great leap forward for European policymakers and strategists would be to acknowledge that Europe's "autonomy" is actually in the transatlantic interests. Nevertheless, the transatlantic partnership is torn from a "thickening" tie that has bound the US and EU together for decades. Consequently, President Biden's transatlantic strategy to retie would undoubtedly pose challenges for European relations with China. The United States is increasingly intent on decoupling its economy and its technology sector from China as part of the new cold war cliché between the two. Nevertheless, the EU-China partnership has been working closely for the past few decades, and China's market has a great appeal to the world. The time has come for the EU to consider how to survive the turmoil of US-China decoupling caused by the two superpowers' agendas. This paper analyzes the critical transformation in light of not only the politics of today but also the structural trends in the global balance of power between the US and China. And explains the reasons why the pitfalls of US-China decoupling shape the dynamics of European ties with China in the last decade. This paper focuses on the issues: i) The EU's alterations of the EU-China partnership dealing with an increasingly assertive China; ii) US and China on the path to inevitable economic decoupling; iii) The EU drives for strategic autonomy aiming at enhancing the competitiveness in the high tech sector; iv) EU's ambition of safeguarding and reinvigorating cooperation over climate change and global health through the engagement of EU-China Investment Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]