The End of “Reform and Opening”?: New Political Paradigms and China’s Future.
March 21, 2016
Written by Matthew Johnson. If the narrative of “reforming and opening” China has run its course, what new narrative will replace it? The past week has yielded several important clues in this regard, pointing to the emergence of two new frameworks that we might call “Xi-ist” China and “ideological” China. Xi-ist China is a narrative of political …
Cracks in China’s New Silk Road
March 15, 2016
Written by Michael Clarke. Francis Fukuyama recently argued that President Xi Jinping’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) strategy ‘represents a striking departure in Chinese policy’ whereby Beijing is ‘seeking to export its development model to other countries.’ The OBOR’s emphasis on ‘on massive state-led investments in infrastructure’ to facilitate trans-Eurasian economic interconnectivity, he notes, contrasts with …
“Chinese Neo-Colonialism in Africa”: a Bien-Pensant Political Ploy
December 17, 2015
Written by Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong. Some US politicians try to endear themselves to voters by kissing babies. If another country’s leaders said these politicians are sexual abusers of children because both they and pederasts kiss children, the charge would be derided as illogical and politically-based. The same should apply to Western elites’ political ploy …
Creating a civil justice system with Chinese characteristics
December 16, 2015
Written by Kristie Thomas. Recent amendments to China’s civil procedure law (CPL) have highlighted key tensions in the wider legal system. Detailed analysis of these changes has revealed questions including those related to the continuing role of informal dispute resolution such as mediation; the balance between justice and efficiency; and the formal role of the …
China’s New Pledges with Africa: 2016-2018 Multi-dimensional Support to Human Resource Development?
December 15, 2015
Written by Kenneth King. President Xi Jinping’s opening speech to the FOCAC Summit of December 2015 in Johannesburg had ‘five major pillars’, ‘three bottleneck issues’, and ‘ten cooperation plans’. Human resources development (HRD) with Africa is a part of each of these perspectives, as it has been in all the previous five FOCAC triennial events. But, …
China and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urban Expansion
December 11, 2015
Written by Garth Myers. China’s interests in Africa are considerable; China is the continent’s largest trading partner, a major investor and crucial donor. Scholarship analyzing Chinese investments on the continent has grown exponentially. Significant attention has also been devoted to geopolitical dynamics of China-Africa relations, particularly for Sub-Saharan natural resource industries or oil and strategic minerals. …
The rhetoric and realities of Chinese migration to Africa
December 7, 2015
Written by Ben Lampert and Giles Mohan. As President Xi Jinping met his African counterparts at the sixth Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg last week, the focus was on the high-level trade, aid and investment deals that will emerge. But what is often overlooked in the coverage of FOCAC and the broader intensification of …
FOCAC: Beyond Trade, Investments and Aid
December 4, 2015
Written by Daouda Cissé. The 6th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is scheduled to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 4-5, 2015. There is a lot of speculation and expectation regarding the meeting and its outcomes from academic, media, political and economic spheres in African countries, China and elsewhere. While FOCAC is a platform …
The Future of Green Construction in China
November 23, 2015
Written by Sha Yu. China, as the world’s largest carbon emitter and energy consumer, also has the world’s largest construction market. In the past five years, China has added around 3 billion square metres of building floorspace annually (China Statistical Yearbook 2014, Table 10-7). The building floorspace in China today exceeds that of the United …
Is investigative journalism dead in China?
November 20, 2015
Written by Jingrong Tong. One day in May I casually glanced at WeChat moments and saw the news of the closure of the in-depth (investigative) reporting team at the Jinghua Times (Jinghua Shibao). That day, almost all the journalists I followed were talking about the news and considered this as more evidence of the end of …
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