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This paper focuses on the recent political spars between Canada and Saudi Arabia as well as China and their impact on Canadian universities. It asks three questions: (1) What key issues did Canada's political strains with Saudi Arabia and China raise for Canadian universities' international education (IE) initiatives and what issues were absent? (2) What do these key issues suggest about Canada's approaches to IE in an era of new geopolitics? and (3) What implications can be drawn from these cases about Canadian university-government relations in the context of new geopolitics? Given the powerful role media plays in education policy, a systematic study was conducted across three main media sources to identify 74 articles and news releases between August 2018 and November 2019. Three dominant themes are identified and analyzed, each vividly illustrating the close ties between global politics, government foreign policy and IE within Canadian Universities. On the one hand, the narratives speak to concerns about IE as a risk to national security and, on the other, as a vehicle for Canada's economic prosperity. However, what the media has not achieved is a broader discussion on how Canada needs to revisit its IE objectives and approaches in light of broader geopolitical shifts. Using the theoretical framework of soft power, the paper speaks to the limitations and short-sightedness of Canada's approach to IE as soft power in this era of new geopolitics and concludes with three recommendations for Canada.

Scholarly efforts to predict the future character of the U.S.-China relationship abound. Few however looks to leaders’ beliefs as valid explanatory variables. In this paper, we argue that state leaders’ belief systems are key to understanding both the states’ intentions and policy choices. We analyze China’s national defense white papers (1998-2015) published to date as the source material to gauge the core collective beliefs of three generations of Chinese leadership. The operational code framework is employed to conceptualize and measure these beliefs. Our results identified important crossgenerational changes in a few belief indicators. In the Xi Jinping era, for instance, the political world is seen as less friendly and cooperative strategies are viewed less favorably. In terms of tactics, the policy tools “threaten” and “promise” are viewed as significantly more useful by the current leadership than by past Chinese leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's defense white papers have long been dismissed as lacking substance and offering little useful information on China's real strategic intentions and military capabilities. Nevertheless, since 1998 Beijing has continued to issue defense white papers on a regular two-year frequency. Indeed, in recent years it has accorded greater importance to these documents. This paper argues that China's defense white papers warrant more attention than they have received so far. An examination of the making of the white papers, the functions designated for these documents and their evolving content and structure reveals not only the different nature and purpose of the Chinese white papers compared with their counterparts in Western countries, but also important changes and continuities in China's strategic outlook and its evolving perceptions of the role of the use of force in the context of the country's re-emergence as a major player in international affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's new government is committed to delivering the next defence white paper in 2015. The two previous white papers took a predominantly risk-management approach to Southeast Asia, generally ignored the strategic opportunities in the region, treated it as a stand-alone region largely unrelated to developments in East Asia and failed to link Australia's policies in Southeast Asia with the broader goal of helping to ensure greater strategic stability in Asia by putting constraints on Chinese assertiveness and encouraging its peaceful rise. After offering a summary of recent Australian defence thinking on Southeast Asia, this paper outlines why managing China is the key variable when it comes to strategic stability in the region. It then examines how China's strategy and behaviour can be shaped and influenced by events and relationships in Southeast Asia, and offers some suggestions as to the role Australia can seek to play in Southeast Asia that relates to Canberra's China-focused objectives and strategic stability in Asia more broadly If that can be achieved in the 2015 defence white paper, Australia - which is often criticized for being preoccupied primarily with managing the relationship with its superpower ally the United States - will demonstrate to itself and Asia that its heavy reliance on the ANZUS treaty is no barrier to strategic creativity in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, Richard Hill addresses the topic of China supposedly undermining Australia's national security and way of life, and causing ructions on university campuses. He writes that Chinese infiltration, or so it seems, is everywhere, from excessive housing investments and land buy-ups to dodgy dinner dates with ALP officials; and from Confucian Institutes (as fronts for espionage activities) to the take-over of student unions by Chinese students. Concern has even arisen over the spread of Chinese takeaways and the growing demand for Mandarin courses, both clearly promoting Chinese influence across the nation. Hill goes on to say that three journalists from the "Sydney Morning Herald/The Age" (Baker, Hunter & Bonyhady, 2019) took the brave step of striding into the murky world of Chinese students to expose the shadowy goings on. Hill opines that following some general observations on 'the Chinese issue', their report morphs into a more general discussion of how Australian universities deal with international students -- no trivial matter, given their contribution to university coffers. Apparently, to no surprise, not all of these student visitors are happy campers. Hill asserts that after all, Australian journalists inform the public, that these students have to fork out up to three times more for their education than domestic students, often live in dilapidated and over-crowded accommodation, and feel estranged, lonely and depressed. Many of them struggle with the most basic English, which makes reading turgid academic texts and assignment completion tough going. Worried by such questionable investigative reportage, Hill shares a slightly amended version of a letter he wrote directly to the journalists. He concludes that 'corruption risks' notwithstanding, it has become glaringly obvious that Australian universities are massively over-reliant on overseas students for their income and face an epic implosion when this revenue stream dries up, which it will once China and India build up their own sectors.

In this white paper the Chinese government assesses the security environment; defines, and elaborates on, its national defense policy including its commitment to the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances; and describes the defense situation and activities in 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are around 400,000 international students studying on Australian campuses in 2018, and the education of international students is Australia's third largest export, behind that of iron ore and coal, thereby playing a significant role in the country's economy and particularly the financial sustainability of Australian universities. Chinese international students, account for one-third in this cohort, are paradoxically both coveted as 'cash cows' and labelled as a 'security threat' to Australian society. The paper examines this particular 'Chinese Student Syndrome' through the lens of 'colonial modernity' and argues that along with the problems of Chinese firms in Australia, Chinese international students on Australian campuses, in many ways, take on the persona of China itself in Australia, and the implications associated with its global rise. At the core of this syndrome lies a deep-seated ontological framing of a historical teleology that centres the Anglo-European pathway to modernity as universal that grounds the epistemic certainty of higher education institutions in Australia and regards Chinese students as the outsider to this teleology.

The rate of unemployment in Nigeria is alarming and could promote social vices some of which are kidnapping, armed robbery, child trafficking, Cultism, Drug peddling and ritual killing. These social vices could in no small measure constitute a threat to national security as a matter of fact. Therefore, the development of a workable Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme in the country is the needed panacea to creating Job opportunities for the teaming youths. This will definitely reduce to its barest minimum threat to national security. This paper gives insight into: Youth employment as a vehicle for enhancing national security, ways adopted by other countries in promoting the poor perception of TVET, lessons to be learnt from other countries as regards enhancing the perception of the TVET, existing youth employment programmes in Nigeria and the way forward to boosting employment creation in Nigeria.

The US National Security Strategy of 2022 introduced a relatively new concept of Integrated Deterrence (ID) that will likely impact security discourse amongst global rivals such as the US, China, and Russia while affecting the strategic thinking of relatively smaller powers like India, Pakistan, and others. With an expanded scope and objectives, ID aims to build and integrate the entire spectrum of capabilities of the US, its allies, and partners against the perceived threat from China and possibly Russia. Resultantly, the paper focuses on implications of ID for security and strategic stability in South Asia. India, being a major strategic partner with the will to play a significant role in the US-led China containment strategy, is likely to be a major beneficiary of the new US posture of ID. With enhanced and integrated military capabilities, India is likely to adopt a more hostile posture towards its neighbours, especially Pakistan, thus forcing the latter to develop options in the form of 'Integrated Response', to help maintain strategic stability in the region without indulging in an arms race, and by maintaining neutrality in the evolving US-China great power competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese national legislature has enacted a national security law (NSL) for Hong Kong. This paper applies the theory of national security constitution as developed by Professor Koh to examine the impact of the NSL upon four core constitutional principles in Hong Kong's mini-constitution which underly its national security constitution and to evaluate the nature of the impact. The paper argues that the NSL has, instead of applying and supplementing the existing underlying constitutional principles in the mini-constitution, changed them to various degrees, and the pre-NSL bifurcated national security system for Hong Kong and mainland China has been replaced by an integrated national security system under the NSL. The impact caused by the NSL is so significant as to amount to a permanent paradigm shift to a new post-NSL national security constitution. The paper also argues that the theory of national security constitution has its limitation in its application to subnational Hong Kong because its mini-constitution and the underlying principles therein can be modified by national legislation, such as the NSL, of its sovereign, China. Through a comparative study with the USA, the paper proposes that the theory of national security constitution needs to be modified by adding that different effects may occur to a sub-national national security constitution depending on the source of the framework national security legislation. Hong Kong's failure in its constitutional duty to enact national security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law has led to the enactment of the NSL by China. Such legislation from the sovereign has changed the underlying constitutional principles and is fundamentally different from sub-national framework legislation that only implements and supplements those principles. However, a comparative study with Macau indicates that the theory of national security constitution is still applicable to a sub-national entity such as Macau so long as China as sovereign exercises self-restraint and any framework national security legislation is enacted at the sub-national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ideologies of American study abroad in politically and culturally "non-Western" countries. Drawing from the theory of orientalism (Said, 1978), we analyze how American public discourse on study abroad for learners of Mandarin and Arabic manifests an orientalist thinking, and how such macro discourse both produces multilingual subjects (Kramsch, 2010) and considerable tensions with the micro discourses of these subjects. Our findings show that despite linguistic and cultural differences between China and the Arab world, the two contexts are imagined together as the political "East" in American public rhetoric. The two languages are also assumed to be crucial to the somewhat contradictory goals of "bridge-building" and "national defense." These imaginings provide students a mode of identity construction, but they are also contested in students' everyday experience. Using these findings, we argue that the discursive links between the two study abroad destinations result from a geopolitically situated American gaze, a view that obscures differences between the two destinations, the goals of individual language learners, and the locals they interact with when abroad.

The Asia-Pacific region has emerged as the central playing field of the US and China strategic competition. The US views China as the competitor undermining the US regional influence in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper explores the US-China strategic competition, layers of instability in the Asia-Pacific, and specifically the constraints for the US in its Indo-Pacific Strategy and security implications for the region. The US National Security Strategy - 2022 strategises to counterbalance China by constructing regional deterrence infrastructure by strengthening its long-standing alliances and building new partnerships such as the QUAD and AUKUS, and is also cementing ties with the ASEAN. In order to avert crisis escalation in the Asia-Pacific region, the US and China bilaterally and the regional states, as crucial stakeholders, would require to carefully manage their roles and strategies in the ongoing competition for world order determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper seeks to understand whether the current basic endowment insurance policy has properly played the role of supporting the elderly needs through intergenerational support within the family. Theoretically, there are problems of the imbalanced structure of pension security, retirees' comparatively higher pension and the low-level security of young people's in-service income, and drawbacks of the existing endowment insurance system, both have a certain causal relationship with "gnawing the old." Data on China's family tracking survey in 2016 (CFPS2016), Probit model, IV and PSM robustness testing methods were also used to study the relationship between parents' pensions and their grownup children's "gnawing-the-old" behavior. The results show that: (1) Compared with young people from families without pension income, those with pensioned parent(s) will less possibly choose to work; the parents' financial assistance behavior would restrain the children's intention to work and increase the possibility of "gnawing the old"; (2) Neither the amount of pension income nor financial assistance given to the children is significantly related to young people's "gnawing the old"; (3) Young people's "gnawing the old" behaviors are different according to their parents' professions and living areas; (4) The gap between parents' pension income and children's in-service income also adds to the causes of "gnawing the old." The policy implications of these findings are discussed particularly the formulation of a scientific mechanism for pension income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how China's presence in the East African seaports has created a threat to the Indian Ocean's security. In particular, the research empirically analyses whether China's growing activities in the Western Indian Ocean along the East African coast have dismantled the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. This paper aims to understand the responses of India and her allies in containing China's rise in the region. The paper has taken three East African ports, Dar es Salaam, Lamu, and Doraleh port of Djibouti, as a case study to examine how Chinese presence in these three ports could dismantle the security architecture of Indo-Pacific in the Western Indian Ocean region. The paper demonstrates that the present competition of power projection in the Indian Ocean is a power maximization strategy for the national security of each state. Using primary and secondary data available on China, India, and other states' policies and activities, the study finds that it is a policy failure of the Indo-Pacific, accelerating China's rise in the region. However, the Indo-Pacific partners are revamping their policies to check China's rise in the Indian Ocean region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the UK's future Indo-Pacific policy by looking into the newly published Integrated Review (IR) and comparing it with the French and German policy papers. The "Indo-Pacific tilt" is one of the most highlighted themes in the IR, but a reading of the review suggests that the UK remains Euro-Atlantic centered when it comes to defense and security policy. It is only after the internal and external security issues are addressed that the UK pursues its "global interest" through diplomacy and trade. Hence, while the geopolitical and economic importance of the Indo-Pacific is acknowledged, and the stance of the UK towards the region appears more ambitious and confident than that of France and Germany, it remains a question as to the degree to which the UK may commit to the Indo-Pacific. The UK defines China as a "systemic competitor" rather than a "threat," suggesting that while the challenges China poses may be comprehensive and profound, they are not taken as immediate and urgent. This designation is peculiar. On the one hand, it differs from the US policy, which sees China (and Russia) as threats to its national security. On the other hand, compared with the European counterparts, the UK is the only one that calls out China, expressing a stronger will to counter China when necessary. Therefore, it is suggested that the post-Brexit UK is likely to side with the US in the US-China-EU triangular relations. Being very much a middle power, however, the UK's space for maneuver is limited. It pledges to compete against China and seek the latter's cooperation simultaneously, but such a stance requires power and will that the country may be lacking. The deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Indo-Pacific, for instance, has been described as an expression of the UK's commitment to the rules-based international order. Yet Prime Minister Johnson's emphasis on not antagonizing anyone and the decision that the Carrier Strike Group will not sail through the Taiwan Strait indicates a concern about China and consequently difficulty implementing the "co-opetition" strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global interconnected economy, China-made information-collecting technologies such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras have become popular products for routine video-based surveillance. Hikvision and Dahua are the two largest global suppliers of CCTV cameras, with both companies supplying their products to over 200 countries. Despite their popularity, national security concerns are commonly cited when adopting these cameras, citing manufacturer links with the Communist Party of China (CPC), cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and sales recorded in the Xinjiang region, that has records of human rights violations. This paper is structured in three parts: first, we explore the predominance of China-made information-gathering technologies in Australia; second, we summarise common national security concerns usually associated with China-based technology manufacturers; and third, we propose regulatory measures to regulating China-made CCTV cameras in Australia. The paper suggests that while state and Federal decision-makers are free to remove Chinese CCTV surveillance cameras, they should avoid overt politisation. Overall, a stronger focus should be placed on evaluating cybersecurity risks of Internet of Things (IoT) information-collecting technologies and considering their timely and effective regulation from the perspective of individual and national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan has undertaken a series of cross-border collaboration with China for the past two decades. This paper aims to investigate the Taiwanese approach and policies of educational collaboration with China in a globalized context, where international competitiveness has become a great concern for most countries. It also examines how the Taiwanese government's cross-border educational collaboration will affect the flow of human capital across the Taiwan Strait and reflect upon the challenges of educational governance in Taiwan. It is argued that the rhetorical purposes stated by government may not be entirely realized due to the great concerns of national security, military threat, and employment issues among the public in Taiwan. These make overarching collaboration with China not possible at this stage. The lingering effects of this hesitation not only create an apartheid-type system among non-local students, but might also lead to an undesirable outcome of the outflow of human capital to China. In order to maintain effective collaboration with China, a wide range of governance challenges have been raised and need to be addressed. (Contains 1 note.)

Political economy impacts and influences a state's military strategy. This article focuses on how the integration of the US political economy in the Indo-Pacific drives US Navy officers and the broader national security state to establish the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). Investigating the strategic thought of senior Naval officers shows that they think far beyond military threats and engage with the United States and the Indo-Pacific political economy. Even as the US Navy competes with China's military, its FOIP strategy benefits corporate elites in both China and the US, whose cooperation creates a mutually supportive economic relationship. This argument leads to the finding that the US hegemony in the region is a strategy that avoids a bipolar 'New Cold War' of an entirely de-coupled US and China. The FOIP supported by the US Navy continues to integrate China into regional and global economies, even as it attempts to push back against China by gathering allies and partners. The emphasis on international political economy highlights how the region is a network of 'patchwork' relations, where states rely on one another for economic prosperity. Through investigating speeches and strategic papers from US Naval officials, this paper demonstrates how the US competes and cooperates with China in the context of relations in the region that are in constant flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To deal with the pension crisis, many countries have established the 'Public Pension Reserve Funds (PPRFs)'. The Chinese government has also established the Chinese National Social Security Fund (NSSF), a typical PPRF to deal with the Chinese pension crisis. This paper focuses on the governance issues of the Chinese NSSF. More specifically, it focuses on the NSSF's board to determine its decision-making capabilities, during which I will talk about the expertise and representation issues in the NSSF. The paper found that, first, the NSSF's board may have more symbolic significance than substantive powers, which may be the result of the government's endorsement of the legitimacy of the NSSF. Second, we found that the representation and expertise tension that prevail in Western pension funds governance also exist in China's NSSF, and the analytical framework for this tension is also applicable to the discussion of Chinese cases. Third, through international comparison, we infer that an efficient board of directors might be a necessary condition for the pension funds' good performance, but not a sufficient condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 40 years, China has witnessed the world's largest urbanization process. In light of its natural and cultural conditions featuring resource scarcity, frequent natural disasters, rich cultural heritage and regional disparities and dynamics, this process aggravates the complex and severe problems faced by urban areas, including resource and environmental damage, security risks and cultural degradation. To address these issues, a shift in national and regional urban spatial layouts from improving economic competitiveness to balancing protection and development as well as security and development is needed. Related theories and research methods should also be adjusted accordingly. Therefore, given China's specific conditions and regional spatial layouts, the paper introduces the "national spatial planning theory," which aims to create a sound living environment. The core concept is "precise adaptation," which ensures the adaption of urban development to natural and cultural conditions. It is the first theory that proposes to develop the national urban spatial layout based on the analysis of ecological environment. It also suggests shifting the focus from eco-environment to security and culture as urbanization progresses and problems change constantly. In addition, a method framework and technical system of "precise analysis, adaptive distribution and dynamic evaluation" is formulated to build an adaptive urban spatial layout on the basis of quantitative analysis of the capacity of spatial resources. The practices of regional planning processes on varying scales in the past 20 years are to illustrate the specific applications of the theoretical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the 21st century international system towards a complex and chaotic system, due to the simultaneous global and regional transition of power between China and the United States, has made the seas more prominent in the process of order transition. Such a transition can be seen in Indo-Pacific maritime tensions, especially in the South China Sea. Such a multi-level transition has brought new challenges to the traditional model of power transition theory and it’s necessary to adjust it within the framework of complex systems. This paper examines the role do seas and oceans play in the transition of power in complex international systems? The author argues that competition to dominate the seas and oceans can be the point of transferring systemic pressures to the branches of the regional order and changing its security architecture towards a new maritime-based security order. The paper, using the multi-level power transition theory, contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics surrounding maritime competition and contestation between China and the United States in the process of power transition from a systemic perspective. The research method is deductive-inductive based on inference and synthesis. In this regard, at first the principles and rules of transition in complex and chaotic systems are extracted, then by combining them, the bifurcation transition model and comprehensive network control system is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines China's national security review regime of foreign investment and compares it with that of the United States. Over the years, China has gradually established a comprehensive legal framework for national security review of foreign investment. Recent efforts were made to refine the public enforcement mechanism of the review in tandem with a new "pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list" system under the 2020 Foreign Investment Law. The United States also enacted the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 to enhance its national security review regime. By analyzing the law and practices of China and the United States, this paper finds that the national security review regimes of the two jurisdictions have functional convergences despite some formal divergences caused by diverse political-economy landscapes. Their functional convergences are highlighted by China's local practices, such as the de-facto national security screening in the name of anti-monopoly review. There are many factors affecting China's national security review regime for foreign investment, including the ongoing (and escalating) US-China competition (or conflict) at the international level and the evolution of state or party capitalism at the domestic level. These research findings will not only contribute to the existing comparative law scholarship but also benefit multinational enterprises that seek to enter Chinese and the US markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal's role in protecting fundamental rights under China's One Country Two Systems practice. It starts by giving an account of the constitutional and legal framework for Hong Kong's judicial protection of human rights. It examines the Court's efforts in obtaining constitutional jurisdiction, employing generous interpretation approach to rights guarantees, reforming standards such as proportionality and reasonableness for scrutinising rights restrictions, and broadening reference inputs by comparative approach and amicus curiae for interpretation of rights provisions. It indicates that through these ways the CFA has developed freedom-friendly common law constitutionalism and formed judicial preferences in favour of personal liberty. It advocates that the so-called conservative performance of the CFA on rights issues in national security cases may be its efforts to secure judicial independence and the common law system in a changing political climate. The article posits that due to the CFA's strong foundation in judicial protection of human rights, and its recent efforts to incorporate national security law into common law, it is well-positioned to play a crucial role in preserving the way of life for Hong Kong residents as China's Hong Kong policy enters a new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing North Korea is essential for examining international relations in East Asia as a whole, but North Korea's tight control over information makes this difficult. Another factor complicating analysis of North Korea is its "special relationship" with China. The aim of this paper is to examine four factors contributing to the "special relationship" between China and North Korea, how that relationship came about, and how it functions within the context of international politics today. This paper is a structural analysis of China–North Korea relations that describes four factors behind their "special relationship." It continues by analyzing China–North Korea relations under Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un up to the deployment of THAAD in South Korea. The "special relationship" between China and North Korea is based on four factors. What is distinctive about these factors is that they can bring the two sides together but also push them apart. In terms of national security issues, the force bringing them together has ultimately prevailed. Socialist ideology issues have surfaced much less frequently now and have lost their capacity to both bring the two together and push them apart. In the area of traditional ties, the two leaders are attempting to use their personal relationship to have closer relations, but this is not having much lasting effect. Where economic relations are concerned, Beijing and Pyongyang have become even more dependent on each other and this is a strong force pushing them closer together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan's opposition to PRC demands such as acceptance of the '92 Consensus' and 'One Country, Two Systems' formula since 2016 has invited a series of retaliatory measures from Beijing, designed to coerce Taiwan into compliance. Given the stark asymmetry in economic size, military capability, and diplomatic status, Taiwan provides a case for studying coercive diplomacy that takes the form of threats to punish. Material differences suggest that Taiwan should capitulate, and 'cheap talk' theses expect PRC threats to have no discernible effect, while balance of threat arguments expect resolve. In this article, we use the survey data collected in the 2016, 2019, and 2020 rounds of the Taiwan National Security Study to examine how Taiwanese respond to China's intensifying and expanding threats. Our paper identifies four strategies that the public sees as responses to PRC coercion: isolation, bandwagon with China, balance against China by allying with the USA and Japan, and hedge by deepening economic ties with China while aligning with the USA and Japan against China. We show that the popular support for balancing against China rises as PRC coercion grows and Taiwanese citizens increasingly perceive China to be a threat. Our findings imply that citizens in a liberal democracy can develop the will to pushback against pressure from an authoritarian regime despite sharp asymmetries in capabilities and material limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020 and China has since been under public scrutiny for neglecting the first signs of this global health challenge and for its lockdown strategy. Although lockdowns have not lasted for long, China needs to confront the political, social, and economic implications for its national security. The paper aims to fill a gap in the knowledge and investigate aspects of China’s national security in light of the pandemic. The study is based on desk research using secondary data and statistical and comparative analysis. It also employs an inductive method to build general theorems. The Chinese government can be seen as successful in dealing with the pandemic because of a low death toll and minimal economic losses. By early February 2022, only 106,863 Chinese had been diagnosed, and 4,636 had died from the virus. China also achieved enviable economic success and, its output grew by 18.3% year on year in the first quarter of 2021, the fastest rate since the 1990s, and it was the first major economy to withdraw its pandemic stimulus. China consolidated its position in low-income countries and improved its image as a global leader in trade by supplying vaccines, masks and ventilators, and strengthened its geopolitical standing. It will face threats from other countries working on a joint approach to the challenges posed by Beijing and while the aftereffects of the crisis can be seen, it also fears that they might further affect China’s national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy security is a matter of economic security and national security. This paper examines the influencing mechanism of clean energy on China's energy security from 2010 to 2019, by using the entropy method and spatial econometric model. The results show that (1) from 2010 to 2019, China's energy security index shows an overall decreasing trend. The western region has the highest energy security index, followed by the central, northeastern, and eastern regions; (2) there is an inverted u-shaped relationship between clean energy and energy security; (3) in the short term, clean energy will have a negative effect on industrial structure upgrading. But with the expansion of its scale, clean energy development will promote the industrial structure upgrading, and then improve energy security; and (4) the development of clean energy has a positive effect on the adjustment of energy structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan occupies an elevated role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and hosts its so-called flagship project, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Existing literature has often interpreted this project from a geopolitical perspective, as a vehicle through which a rising China projects influence on a peripheral country and advances its own centrality in international affairs. While such motivations certainly played a major role in getting the project off the ground, they are not the sole determinant of its design, or the heated controversies it triggered within Pakistan. This paper seeks to capture both dimensions by analysing the development of CPEC, and the handling of the conflicts it sparked, through a lens of overlapping centre–periphery relations: one between China and Pakistan at the international level, and one between Islamabad and peripheral regions and groups within the country. I argue that this model best captures the pivotal position and resulting agency of national governments in shaping local BRI implementations. It also shows how the BRI is not a straight case of Chinese influence radiating outwards; rather, contestation by local actors in turn forces adaptations in Chinese foreign and security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Agricultural Science & Technology (1008-0864) is the property of Journal of Agricultural Science & Technology 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 Agricultural Science & Technology (1008-0864) is the property of Journal of Agricultural Science & Technology 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 rise of 'state capitalism' in the field of investment catches the eyes of western countries. The North is currently getting stuck and facing uncertainty while the South is actively participating in global markets and embracing economic globalization. Protectionist stances on trade and immigration result in a more conservative view towards inbound foreign investment in the North. The South sees China becoming an active and important capital exporter. Given that, the USA and EU seek solutions to the changing investment dynamics and issues raised by Chinese state-owned investors in critical infrastructure. National security, reciprocity and competitive neutrality are frequently raised by the USA and EU when dealing with China's state capitalism. This paper therefore aims to explore the implication of the US and EU measures on Chinese investment and domestic reform by comparing investment policies and treaty practices adopted by these two leading economies. The reasons behind and the convergence and divergence of adopted approaches are discussed. It found that concerns about China's state capitalism is a clash between two types of development models presented by the North and South. The paper recognizes the legitimacy and necessity of state intervention in foreign investment to protect national security and ensure a level playing field while it also emphases the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination in rule-making. An adaptive version of competitive neutrality and increased transparency are critical for China to respond to the US/EU demands and to further domestic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper represents a systematic effort to describe and assess China's evolving biosafety/biosecurity legislative and regulatory regime. It catalogs and analyzes laws, regulations, and measures, including the newly passed Biosafety/Biosecurity Law. Various reasons are underlying China's recently accelerating legislative process for such a law, from international attention increasingly turning biosafety/biosecurity governance into a more regular fixture; the emergence of infectious diseases and even pandemics linked with zoonosis; advances in the global frontier of the life sciences and biotechnology and their integration with other technologies, which, while holding great promise for advancements in global health, raises biosafety/biosecurity concerns; to the strengthening of biosafety/biosecurity governance in many countries. Chinese leadership's 'holistic view of national security' encompasses broad areas of concerns of national security with biosafety/biosecurity being an integral part. However, having progressed alongside its development of the life sciences and biotechnology, China's current biosafety/biosecurity legislative and regulatory regime is far from rising to the challenges and even the newly enacted Biosafety/Biosecurity law still has room for improvement. The paper's findings have significant policy implications for further enhancing China's biosafety/biosecurity legislation and governance and making them better serve domestic interests while converging with international norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to investigate China's policy on digital trade with the objective to highlight the rationales behind such policy. Design/methodology/approach China's policy on digital trade is assessed by analysing the main regulations imposed in the country in the period from 1985 to 2016 that have an impact on digital trade. Findings It was found that there are more than 70 measures imposed today that have a negative impact on digital trade. The measures are diverse and can be justified with several policy objectives, namely, industrial policy, public order and national security, and these support China's fiscal and state-owned enterprise structure. Originality/value This paper analyses China's policy on digital trade from a new perspective and provides insights on the rationales behind this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to provide an answer to the question which has hitherto not been significantly explored in the relevant academic scholarship: Why did China block India's (and other countries) attempts to designate Masood Azhar – head of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM/Jaish) as terrorist under UN Security Council 1267 committee rules? According to the extant literature, China's actions are explained broadly by India-China rivalry and India-Pakistan rivalry resulting in a strategic and 'all weather partnership between China and Pakistan against their common enemy India. This study argues that China's actions are also explained by its New (Asian) Security Concept and the ensuing China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), domestic (in)stability in Pakistan and China's geo-strategic interests. China is deeply perturbed by the socio-economic-political instability in Pakistan. China was concerned that if Masood Azhar was designated as a terrorist under UNSC 1267 Committee rules, Jaish and other terrorist organizations would take up arms against the Pakistani state (as in the past) which will create further instability in Pakistan and undermine CPEC and China's geo-strategic interests. Thus, the paper provides a more comprehensive and nuanced grasp of China's reluctance to designate Masood Azhar as a terrorist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the four main military strategies of the People's Republic of China towards the security architecture of East and South China Sea under President Xi Jinping. These strategies cover a region that has been under the US alliance system's security umbrella since the Cold War. This paper demonstrates that the People's Republic of China, under the current leadership, seeks to reorder the regional security architecture to its favour by leveraging military modernisation, influence operations and diplomatic-economic power to remove the influence of the US and its allies over the East and South China Sea. The present study argues that the successful conclusion of the rising power's strategies over the East and South China Sea will translate the current geopolitical rivalry into a power transition to the detriment of the established power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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China and the United States host the world's largest digital platforms. Platforms are multisided markets that facilitate value‐creating exchanges among users, such as social media, e‐commerce, software QJ;application downloads, search, email, and cloud services. Internet access and the purely digital nature of many of the products and services make digital platforms potentially global in scope. This means that the rules and restrictions governing the flow of capital and information services among national markets strongly influence the economic and social potential of digital platforms. The paper conducts a sequential analysis of the rise of barriers to the United States–China trade in ICT and digital platform markets from 2000 to 2021. We find that China's thriving platform economy was relatively open, competitive and market‐driven in its early stages, and benefited from U.S. capital and the entry of U.S. firms. Since 2009, both countries have progressively restricted access to each other's domestic information services markets. In both cases, the primary stated rationale involved national security claims rather than trade policy concerns. Drawing on International Political Economy theory, we label the United States–China interaction pattern digital neo‐mercantilism. Digital neo‐mercantilism fuses the power and security of the national state with economic development in the digital economy. Policymakers represent information flows and digital technologies in domestic policy discourse as critical to the security and relative power of the state, and pursue various forms of industrial policy, data localization, trade protectionism, or exclusion of foreigners as a result. Both the United States and China are following this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rare earth is one of the most important strategic minerals in the world today. The wide application of new products and technologies in the global market has made the world's demand for rare earth resources grow rapidly. As an important basic resource of high technology, rare earth plays a significant role in national security and strategy. As rare earth mineral resources are irreplaceable in civil, military, and nuclear industries, they have become national strategic resources of various countries in the world. Although China's rare earth industry has occupied a leading position in the world, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the rare earth industry, the pollution problem of "three wastes" produced in the recovery of rare earth mineral resources is becoming more and more serious. From the perspective of resource endowment, China is rich in rare earth resources, but the declining trend of resource reserves is obvious, and the advantages and disadvantages of resources are more prominent. Based on the goal planning and few-shot learning, this paper studies the economic significance of rare earth resource development, aiming at solving some problems in the development of rare earth mineral resources in China, and thus promoting the scientific and healthy development of the rare earth industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensification of U.S.-China relations marked by severe competition and sanctions in the Trump administration has continued in the Biden administration. As stated in the United States' 2018 National Defense Strategy, strategic competition with China has become Washington's top defense policy priority. Against this backdrop, United States' competition with China over the space domain will require much of the world's attention, as Washington continues to augment its space power in the context of its overall security strategy against China today. Therefore, it is crucial for countries like South Korea to understand how the United States is constructing its own space power and how this may influence South Korea's national security in the years ahead. The purpose of this paper is thus to analyze the current state of U.S. space power in the context of increasing U.S.-China security competition and provide relevant policy recommendations for South Korea. This research suggests South Korea 1) to establish a military organization with space security focus to promote the country's prospective space power augmentation and maximize the effectiveness of its joint military operations, 2) to construct its own space power and enhance its strategic value in the midst of U.S.-China space competition, and 3) to implement specific U.S.-South Korea space cooperation plans to develop advanced space technology and space industry capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, maritime sovereignty disputes have become highly visible microcosms of broader contests between security orders in East Asia. Escalating tensions over seas provoke questions about how historical and territorial conceptions of sovereignty map onto maritime areas, and the continuing effectiveness of the so‐called "rules‐based order" in maintaining regimes for deciding jurisdiction of islands, rocks and other maritime land features. The paper examines sovereignty claims and the international law of the sea across various cases, including the contested claims over Dokdo/Takeshima, Senkaku/Diaoyu Dao and China's nine‐dash line. These case studies reveal the tensions between two legal regimes: territorial rules of acquisition (sovereignty) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This article concludes by considering the ways that the symbolic nature of these disputes has implications for the capacities of UNCLOS and other legal instruments in the US‐led "rules‐based order" to establish orderly relations among states in the maritime arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since 2006, Tibetan nomads have been resettled into centralised urban settlement towns as part of China's effort at 'Building a New Socialist Countryside' in Tibetan areas. The official narrative of this new policy falls very much within the ambit of neoliberal mantras, such as bringing modernisation, economic efficiency, market-oriented personhood, comfortable living and, most importantly, environmental protection and national security to its west. At the heart of such policies is the idea that the west would remain 'backward' and 'unruly' if left alone or uncared for. In this context, this paper aims to elucidate how a sense of backwardness that ostensibly poses a threat to social and political stability is transformed into the spatial and social reorganisation of Tibetan pastoral regions. Drawing on my ethnographic research in the summer of 2012, this paper takes the newly built resettlement village in Jentsa (established in 2009), Amdo, as a case study to explore how a multitude of actors on the ground have come to view, respond, and cope with this new policy by simultaneously relying on and incorporating the new space, and by constituting alternative forms of participation and social space. I argue that, if we are to understand the multiplicity of interactions and actors at play in the process of implementing nomadic settlement project in Tibetan areas in general, and in Jentsa in particular, we need to develop models of understanding these relationships that acknowledge their complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the application of the non-interference principle in the context of China’s security policy in Africa, to determine the extent to which we are witnessing an evolution in the application of this principle. Indeed, as seen with the recent opening of the military base in Djibouti or with China’s contribution to peace talks in South Sudan, it would appear that the non-intervention principle is undergoing a course reversal. This paper will argue that, in spite of these apparent shifts, there has been no fundamental change to the application of this principle. To make this point, this article applies Ren’s typology, which characterises three levels of nuance in the forms that the application of non-interference has taken in practice. This typology is then applied in a comparative manner across the four following components of China’s security policy in Africa: peacekeeping operations; military cooperation; naval power projection; and crisis management mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cybersecurity has become a key regulatory area in China's rapidly digitizing society, economy, and state. The leadership deems it critical in providing adequate security guarantees for the realization of the ambitious "informatization" policy, symbolized by the passing of the Cybersecurity Law in 2016. Cybersecurity has also become integrated with overall national security, at a time when Chinese policy has become increasingly securitized. What, then, does this mean in practice? How do authorities conceive of cybersecurity and attempt to retrofit regulatory frameworks into an already well-established digital environment. This paper reviews the various components of the cybersecurity regime established by the Cybersecurity Law. It discusses how external circumstances have facilitated or obstructed the advance of regulation and implementation and demonstrates how cybersecurity is embedded in the broader processes of reform led by the Chinese Communist Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity has become a major health concern in China, as it is elsewhere, and so health communication on obesity in Chinese discourse deserves more scholarly attention. In this paper, to investigate how obesity is metaphorically framed in the People's Daily, one of China's major official media outlets, we use the Discourse Dynamics Approach to identify evaluative positionings towards obesity in 98 obesity-related editorials. Based on our analysis, we posit three groupings of linguistic metaphors in the editorials that frame different aspects of obesity: JOURNEY, WAR and MONEY. Within the groupings, our analysis finds three systematic metaphors surrounding weight-loss, i.e., LOSING WEIGHT IS A NATIONAL JOURNEY TOWARDS HEALTH; LOSING WEIGHT IS A FIGHT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY; LOSING WEIGHT IS AN INVESTMENT BOTH AT THE INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL LEVELS. All represent obesity and obese individuals negatively and are embedded in specific Chinese sociocultural contexts, jointly framing obesity as a matter of national collective social character rather than just an individual health issue. While JOURNEY and WAR express a collectivist view of the issue, the MONEY grouping seems to indicate a neoliberal, individualist perspective emphasising the maintenance of health as part of citizenship. By comparison, similar stories on health issues surrounding obesity in Western media show differences in their discourse models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world is drawn increasingly into a web of shifting geopolitics, battle lines are being drawn and alliances are re-orienting themselves. Working from the premise that the competition between the United States (U.S.) and the People's Republic of China will define the dynamics of the international system for the foreseeable future, this paper takes a look at the U.S.'s evolving posture of Integrated Deterrence and the likely Chinese response, which would have implications for Asian security. It reviews the contours of 'Integrated Deterrence' as it is laid out in the U.S. National Security Strategy 2022 and how this may shape the policy decisions of the U.S. and its partners, especially Taiwan, as well as how major U.S. regional allies, including India are likely to play their role in support of the U.S. interests. The paper also analyses China's strategic thinking, national defence policy and national security objectives that are likely to influence its choices in the evolving great power competition. Taking Taiwan as the case study, the paper finds that in addition to pursuing more traditional approaches, both the U.S. and China will consider influencing domestic public opinion in China and Taiwan as a key focus of their respective policy considerations; it also finds convergences in the related responses of South Asia's two major players, India and Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of International Affairs is the property of Routledge 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.)