From trade war to cold war? -- Why does China punch below its weight in international relations theory? -- Sunzi in the US military thinking : a case of cultural misunderstanding -- The origins of Chinese political thought -- Modern Chinese international relations theory -- Separating military and economic leadership in international relations -- Conclusion : a non-zero-sum vision of international relations -- Post-script : tribute to Robert Jervis.

The purpose of this analysis is to point out some elements of the Western tradition, as opposed to elements of the Eastern tradition, which enable us to better understand the possible consequences of China's unconditional assimilation of these fundamental aspects of the Western tradition. In this direction, I anticipate the main purpose of this text, which is, in my view, to explain the reasons why it is not possible for China to simply assume Western “values” as a natural (...) consequence of opening up to the market economy, without having to give up of what makes it what it is. The task, therefore, is to think about the relationship between modernity and tradition in China today, based on a certain conception of “modernity”, without disregarding, but also, without problematizing, the intense debate that has already occurred around the question itself. (shrink)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the approach to the health-disease system, raising the question about the principles of bioethics present in physician–patient relations. The principles while widely accepted may not be sufficient for a comprehensive ethical analysis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the perception of these principles and the physician–patient relationship during a hospital stay through a qualitative approach. Method Sixteen semi-structured interviews took place to know the patients’ perception during their 2020 hospitalization for (...) COVID-19. The data was analyzed through the constant comparison method, creating categories and comparing them. In the end, seven categories were established and were grouped in three: bioethical principles (dignity, charity, vulnerability, autonomy), doctor-patient relationship (participant commitment, informed consent, health staff-patient relationship) and the experience of the disease (illness, the role of the family). Results The research found that most patients described a positive experience, with the feeling of having been well cared for with no sense of discrimination or injustice done. The majority also reported that their autonomy was respected in the treatment decisions. The evaluation of these attitudes is an area of opportunity, especially when the patients' vulnerability is at risk. Conclusions The ethics of virtue offers a better reflection of how human beings manifest themselves by emphasizing the development of virtuous character and behaviors that allow them to realize their values in life. Authorized by the Research Ethics Committee with registration: DI/18/105-B/3/308. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPopular culture has many examples of evil characters having vertically pupilled eyes. Humans have a long evolutionary history of rivalry with snakes and their visual systems were evolved to rapidly detect snakes and snake-related cues. Considering such evolutionary background, we hypothesised that humans would perceive vertical pupils, which are characteristics of ambush predators including some of the snakes, as threatening. In seven studies conducted on samples from American and Turkish samples, we found that vertical pupils are perceived as more threatening (...) on both explicit and implicit level and they are associated with physical, rather than social, threat. Findings provided partial support regarding our hypothesis about the relevance of snake detection processes: Snake phobia, and not spider phobia, was found to be related to perceiving vertical pupils as threatening, however an experimental manipulation of saliency of snakes re... (shrink)

The force of globalization has greatly challenged people’s conceptualization of national identity. The traditional definition of national identity as being distinct, stable and generated by such internal factors as ethnic, religion, citizenship and so on, has been replaced by the understanding that national identity is invested with more dynamic and complex features and is actually constructed differently in different situations. By following Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive perspective in critical discourse analysis and drawing on the 47 news reports collected on the websites (...) of People’s Daily Online and Xinhuanet, this study explores how China’s national identities are negotiated in its news reports of the Sino-US trade war. It is found that China’s news reports have constructed three types of Sino-US relations, namely, antagonistic, negotiatory and cooperative relations. Out of these relations, China has been constructed as victim of the trade war, defender of free trade, driver for negotiations and beneficiary of mutual cooperation. The construction of these identities and relations is realized through constructive, destructive, justification and transformation strategies. It is further found that the diversity of both China’s national identities and Sino-US relations in China’s news reports is the result of the political, social and economic differences between the two countries. (shrink)

Barbarism was by no means unique to the past 100 years, Jonathan Glover tells us, but ''it is still right that much of 20th-century history has been a very unpleasant surprise.'' This was the century of Passchendaele, Dresden, Nanking, Nagasaki and Rwanda; of the Final Solution, the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, Year Zero and ethnic cleansing -- names that stand for killings in the six and seven figures and for suffering beyond comprehension. The technological progress that inspired the optimism (...) of the Victorians turned out also to multiply the effects of old-fashioned evil and criminal stupidity. (shrink)

From the "Red Menace" to Tiananmen Square, the United States and China have long had an emotionally tumultuous relationship. Richard Madsen's frank and innovative examination of the moral history of U.S.-China relations targets the forces that have shaped this surprisingly strong tie between two strikingly different nations. Combining his expertise as a sinologist with the vision of America developed in _Habits of the Heart_ and _The Good Society_, Madsen studies the cultural myths that have shaped the perceptions (...) of people of both nations for the past twenty-five years. The dominant American myth about China, born in the 1960s, foresaw Western ideals of economic, intellectual, and political freedom emerging triumphant throughout the world. Nixon's visit to China nurtured this idea, and by the 1980s it was helping to sustain America's hopefulness about its own democratic identity. Meanwhile, Chinese popular culture has focused on the U.S., especially American consumer goods—Coca-Cola was described by the _People's Daily_ as "capitalism concentrated in a bottle." Today we face a new global institutional and cultural environment in which the old myths no longer work for either Americans or Chinese. Madsen provides a framework for us to think about the relationship between democratic ideals and economic/political realities in the post-Cold War world. What he proposes is no less than the foundation for building a public philosophy for the emerging world order. (shrink)

Prior work has found that Americans’ views on evolution are significantly and positively related to their understanding of this theory. However, whether this relationship is cross-culturally robust is unknown. This article extends earlier work by measuring and comparing the acceptance and understanding of evolution among highly educated individuals in China and the United States. We find a significantly higher evolution acceptance level in the Chinese sample than in the US sample, but no significant difference in their average levels of (...) evolution knowledge. Our analysis also shows that accepting evolutionary theory is related to understanding in both the US and the Chinese samples. These results provide evidence for the robustness of the relationship between understanding and acceptance of evolution across different cultural contexts. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to comprehensively test understanding of evolutionary theory within a Chinese sample and to compare these results with the US sample. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the data collected through in-depth interviews of migrant workers in Southern China about their mobile cultures. In particular, we focus on understanding the role that mobile cultures play in female workers’ negotiation of their social and romantic relations and leisure space and how these negotiations are directly or indirectly facilitated by development of informal literacies through their frequent short message service communicative practices. These will help us understand the lifestyle aspirations and life trajectories (...) of the new young working women in China who are experiencing the most rapid socioeconomic changes in society and negotiating their ways of life amidst much tension between old and new values governing lifestyle aspirations, familial, and gender relations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.3 (2001) 483-503 [Access article in PDF] China and the Ideal of Order in John Webb's An Historical Essay.... Rachel Ramsey Scholars of seventeenth-century intellectual history have generally relegated John Webb to the footnotes of their work on universal language schemes, architectural history, and Sino-European relations. 1 In this essay I suggest that Webb's An Historical Essay Endeavoring a Probability that (...) the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language (1669), which argues that for 5000 years China preserved the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, makes significant contributions to seventeenth-century intellectual history and to our understanding of early modern European perceptions of China. When Webb's Essay is placed within the context of the seventeenth-century debates about the "primitive" language of Eden, China's ancient history, and the idealization of that empire's harmonious and prosperous culture, its deeply political nature becomes apparent.The Jesuit accounts and those of other travelers to China were especially appealing to English readers living in the aftermath of the civil wars and the turmoil of the early years of the Restoration because they offered glimpses of a seemingly ideal state ruled by a stable monarchy and blessed with seemingly infinite resources and unimaginable wealth; however, these accounts included evidence that China had maintained an unbroken historical record that antedated the Flood, thus implicitly challenging the veracity of the Old Testament account of Noah and the Universal Deluge. Webb's Essay solves the problem posed by the Jesuit accounts of China's ancient history by placing them within a revised biblical narrative; this solution makes it possible for him to claim that China's [End Page 483] exemplary status is a result of its possession of the primitive language and its socio-political virtues are the consequence of its Noachian origins. The revised biblical narrative not only made Webb's encomium to that country more acceptable to a bible-reading public and protestant king but offered a politically-safe way for him to criticize the restored English monarchy by contrasting it to an idealized account of China's social and political state. More specifically, the circumstances of Webb's years of service in the Office of the King's Works help us further understand what attracted a seventeenth-century architect to the Jesuit accounts of China and what motivated him to write the first English treatise on the Chinese language. Webb's political career allows us to read AnHistoricalEssay as a politico-theological justification for a reasoned critique of the patronage system which Webb held accountable for his thwarted career ambitions. Webb's Career and the Politics of the Restoration John Webb lived through some of England's most turbulent history and witnessed firsthand the effects of monarchical instability and regicide, the uncertainties of the Commonwealth, and the shortcomings of the Restoration. Born to a Somerset family in 1611 and educated at the Merchant Taylors' school, Webb became Inigo Jones's pupil in 1628 and served as his "Clerk Engrosser" from 1633 to 1641 in the Office of the King's Works, where Jones was Surveyor. During the early years of the English revolution Webb served as his mentor's deputy in London after Jones fled north with Charles I, but he was dismissed from his post in 1643 following an "accusation from one Mr. Carter to the Committee of the Revenue, that the said Mr. Jones was at Oxford." 2 During his absence from the Office of the Works, Webb supposedly sent detailed plans of London's fortifications and smuggled jewelry to the king, for which he was briefly imprisoned. 3 After Charles I's execution in 1649, Webb worked on several country houses, including those of the Earl of Rutland at Belvoir, the Earl of Peterborough at Drayton, and Sir Justinian Isham at Lamport but he was firmly excluded from holding any political post as a former consort of the martyred King. 4 He held an appointment briefly... (shrink)

This paper discusses the Chinese Social and Political Science Association and its impact on China’s inclination to Wilsonianism. The CSPSA was founded in Beijing in 1915. Two primary supporters were Lu Zhengxiang and Paul S. Reinsch. It chose English as its official language in order to have dialogues with American scholars. The CSPSA had strong interests in constitutionalism, international relations and international law. As it pondered how to discipline China, it demonstrated its inclination to the American scientific (...) study of the state. Epistemologically, this led to the political converge between China and the US during the Great War. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored longstanding fissures in China's business relationships with the West. If the West is going to develop a relationship of mutual trust, and improve business relations with China in the coming decades, it is imperative to understand how to engage with Chinese thinking on ethics in business-this book explains how. Policy-makers, businesspeople and business-ethicists have trouble communicating about issues in ethics, policy and business across the China-West divide. This book shows how to overcome (...) the us-versus-them mindset plaguing China-West relations by presenting to Western audiences an easy-to-understand yet deeply informed primer on core ideas and perspectives in Chinese cultural and philosophical thought. The book considers original texts of Chinese philosophy and religion, and applies principles from those writings to three business ethics topics of enduring interest to business executives, policy makers, and academics, namely, the protection of intellectual property, assurance of product safety and quality in the pharmaceutical supply chain, and human rights. This book is a must-read for those who want to forge constructive relationships with their Chinese counterparts based on mutual trust and understanding. The book is specifically relevant to business executives, but it should also be of interest to policymakers, educators and students who seek to communicate more effectively with their Chinese counterparts, in particular about difficult and contentious business, policy, and ethical issues. (shrink)

The current state of bilateral relations between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China is described by many international relations experts as the best in history. After taking the president office by Donald Trump, the bilateral relations between America and abovementioned powers are cooling down. Current foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation focuses on holding a common position in the international political arena, which is in fact an (...) attempt to counter-weight political influence of the US administration and their allies. The dimension of the strategic partnership between China and Russia is also determining the mutual economic dependence, which is now crucial for both powers to build a strong position on the international forum. In addition, Russia is one of the crucial partners for the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – by many recognized as the Chinese attempt to break the American economic domination. The collisional course of the American foreign policy towards Russia and China forces the latter to look for Central and Eastern European allies as well as to gain influence in the region of Central Asia which is leading to a constant increase in tensions between China and Russia. (shrink)

The present study will introduce us into a new world of Chinese imagology in the 18th century in France. Different from the negative side of the “sinophobes” such as Montesquieu and François Melon, Sade built a universe of a perfect China in which all crimes were justified. Nevertheless, as a libertine, his point of view was also different from the famous “sinophiles”, La Mothe Le Vayer, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz or Voltaire, for example. China as imagined by Sade was (...) full of infanticide, murder and incest. The pictorial description he uses was largely drawn from the Jesuit literature of that time and some famous travelers’ “relation”, time of the famous theological quarrels about the ritual, easily interested Sade. But, was Sade faithful to these sources or not? Could a libertine moralize about public denunciation? By this foreign image as a mirror, what did he want to explain, taking China as an example, for his own culture? We will give the answers in this article. (shrink)

In 2010–12, Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated without the Yasukuni Shrine or Chinese human rights violations in the forefront. To improve relations, attention should turn to what I label the ideological, sectoral, and horizontal dimensions of a national identity gap between these countries. They have each figured in the decline and offer more promise than the temporal dimension, with its symbols of wartime memories, and the vertical dimension, where sensitive Chinese internal affairs are at stake. The sectoral dimension comprises political, (...) economic, and also cultural national identity, each of which has grown more intense in China, while cultural identity is still a force in Japan. Establishing an East Asian community is now the centerpiece in the hope that the horizontal dimension will be an impetus for mutual understanding, yet the notion of community is repeated with no sign of a shared vision of the outside world, whether the US role or the international arena and regionalism. With South Korea, their partner in trilateralism and North Korea's transformation at the crux of all three of these dimensions, this paper emphasizes the way divergent views of the peninsula keep growing in importance for bilateral relations. It suggests ways to reframe relations through cooperation over Korea. As difficult as Korean relations are for both states, it is a test case for their identity gap. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 251 7 preface 8 In recent years, people all over the world have become ever more aware of being drawn into intimate—and unequal—relations with one another, whether through environmental crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, global economic commodity chains, violent conflicts, forced displacements, or political protests and social movements. This special issue features China’s so-called rising presence as (...) one of the key nodes in these global intimacies. The essays by Mei-Hua Chen and Hong-zen Wang, Sealing Cheng, and Wei Wei contribute new approaches to migrant intimacies across borders through their ethnographically rich analyses. Chen and Wang explore cross-border marriages and sex work between Taiwanese men and Mainland Chinese and southeast Asian women; Cheng investigates refugee marriages and the difficulties men from various African nations face in seeking asylum in Hong Kong; and Wei analyzes Mainland Chinese queer reproduction that uses transnational Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) to enable queer parents to have a genetic link with their children and to be more accepted in Chinese society. In his essay, Petrus Liu pushes us to move beyond the idea that a theory of gender construction traveled to China from the West and was wholly adopted there, instead demonstrating the complexities of gender theories in China in the age of the Beijing Consensus. Christina Yuen Zi Chung and Sasha Su-Ling Welland explore a broad range of artworks that critically reflect on China’s efforts to create a China-centered global Global Intimacies: China and/in the Global South 252Preface trading network. Paul Amar offers a “deimperial queer analysis” of the all-time top-earning Chinese film, Wolf Warrior 2, illuminating how it both buttresses China’s extractive and militarized investments in African nations and manifests anti-imperialist and utopian impulses. Poems by Zhai Yongming and Xu Lizhi feature the gendered and sexualized precarity and violence of recent social transformations in China resulting from China’s intimate linkages with the global capitalist economy. Finally, Cai Yiping’s News and Views offers a nuanced engagement with the Chinese government’s formal proclamations on women’s rights.1 In the first essay, “Flexible Intimacies in the Global Intimate Economy : Evidence from Taiwan’s Cross-Border Marriages,” Mei-Hua Chen and Hong-zen Wang demonstrate the fallacy of treating cross-border marriages and cross-border sex work as separate as well as grouping women dichotomously under one or the other set of practices. These two seemingly disparate categories are, in effect, produced by state immigration regulations and dominant intersectional discourses of gender, sexuality, and class. Rather than distinguishing between marriage migrants and economic migrants, or between real marriages and fake marriages, Chen and Wang demonstrate the overlapping means by which women from the Global South try to better their lives in what they call the global intimate economy—where the Global North appropriates the reproductive and intimate labor of women from the Global South. The authors develop the concept of “flexible intimacy” to highlight how migrant women treat marriage as an investment through which to improve their lives. They argue that many marriage migrants have economic motivations for cross-border marriage and that migrant sex workers, conversely, are often involved in intimate relationships. Chen and Wang focus their study on Taiwan, which they argue is economically part of the North but politically part of the South due to Mainland China’s “One China” policy, which has marginalized Taiwan in the international political arena. To assert its sovereignty, the Taiwanese government 1. These essays grew out of a Ford Foundation-funded series of workshops on China and/in the Global South: The Central Role of Gender and Sexuality, which took place in Beijing and also at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Thanks to the Ford Foundation grants, and especially Susie Jolly, Lisa Rofel and the authors have built a transnational network of scholars and activists addressing China’s transformed presence in the Global South. Preface 253 strictly controls border crossings by migrant women from China and Southeast Asia yet simultaneously allows Taiwanese husbands to appropriate migrant women’s intimate and reproductive labor. Both Taiwanese men and migrant women expect... (shrink)

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as (...) other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms. (shrink)

The Green Revolution is often seen as epitomising the dawn of scientific and technological advancement and modernity in the agricultural sector across developing countries, a process that unfolded from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Despite the time that has elapsed, this episode of the past continues to resonate today, and still shapes the institutions and practices of agricultural science and technology. In Brazil, China, and India, narratives of science-led agricultural transformations portray that period in glorifying terms—entailing pressing national (...) imperatives, unprecedented achievements, and heroic individuals or organizations. These “epic narratives” draw on the past to produce meaning and empower the actors that deploy them. Epic narratives are reproduced over time and perpetuate a conviction about the heroic power of science and technology in agricultural development. By crafting history and cultivating a sense of scientific nationalism, exceptionalism, and heritage, these epic narratives sustain power-knowledge relations in agricultural science and technology, which are underpinned by a hegemonic modernization paradigm. Unravelling the processes of assemblage and reproduction of epic narratives helps us make sense of how science and technology actors draw on their subjective representations of the past to assert their position in the field at present. This includes making claims about their credentials to envision and deliver sustainable solutions for agriculture into the future. (shrink)

Four decades have passed since the EU and China established diplomatic relations in 1975, and now became mutually indispensable economic partners, presenting both an opportunity and challenge. During that time, after the first market reforms were introduced in 1978, China has transitioned from a predominantly agricultural to industrial and service-oriented economy. On 11 December 2001, China also became the 143rd member of the WTO. The aim of this research is to quantitatively compare the US, EU and (...) Chinese GDP from 1995 to 2014, the US and Chinese outward FDI from 1995 to 2013, and the EU 28 Total Imports from and Exports to the US and China between 2002 to 2014, and analyse the impact of the exponentially rising Chinese investments in the European Union (EU). We have found that while the US economy experienced a regression in general, and exhibited outward FDI exponential decrease in particular, the Chinese outward FDI sustained an exponential growth. Our analysis has shown that the now weakened US dollar and diminished US economic and industrial power, along with the US designed and archaic post World War II European institutions, vitiated by the recent US Economic Recession, which has swept along the EU and all other US dependent foreign economies globally, are and will continue to experience the primary impact of the exponentially rising economic investment of China in the EU. Furthermore, we have found that the Chinese economic growth has been affecting both the EU identity and policies. Yet, its full effect is waiting to be realized. The Chinese investment in the EU is estimated to peak during the next decade, when China will become by far the foremost economic partner of the EU. This crossroad may be reached as soon as in few years’ time and contribute towards the EU – Asian regional stabilization. In the changing context of the Sino – EU - US relations, due to the exponentially growing economic prosperity and rising global influence of China, the EU international institutions and socio-political structures will re-emerge with the once forgotten access to the 21st Century Silk Road Economic Belt, “The Silk Road II”, between China and the EU in the foreseeable future. (shrink)

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as (...) other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms. (shrink)

Honorable Mention, Joseph Levenson Prize, Association for Asian Studies By the middle of the third century B.C.E. in China there were individuals who sought to become transcendents deathless, godlike beings endowed with supernormal powers. This quest for transcendence became a major form of religious expression and helped lay the foundation on which the first Daoist religion was built. Both xian and those who aspired to this exalted status in the centuries leading up to 350 C.E. have traditionally been portrayed (...) as secretive and hermit-like figures. This groundbreaking study offers a very different view of xian-seekers in late classical and early medieval China. It suggests that transcendence did not involve a withdrawal from society but rather should be seen as a religious role situated among other social roles and conceived in contrast to them. Robert Campany argues that the much-discussed secrecy surrounding ascetic disciplines was actually one important way in which practitioners presented themselves to others. He contends, moreover, that many adepts were not socially isolated at all but were much sought after for their power to heal the sick, divine the future, and narrate their exotic experiences. The book moves from a description of the roles of xian and xian-seekers to an account of how individuals filled these roles, whether by their own agency or by others or, often, by both. Campany summarizes the repertoire of features that constituted xian roles and presents a detailed example of what analyses of those cultural repertoires look like. He charts the functions of a basic dialectic in the self-presentations of adepts and examines their narratives and relations with others, including family members and officials. Finally, he looks at hagiographies as attempts to persuade readers as to the identities and reputations of past individuals. His interpretation of these stories allows us to see how reputations were shaped and even co-opted sometimes quite surprisingly into the ranks of xian. Making Transcendents provides a nuanced discussion that draws on a sophisticated grasp of diverse theoretical sources while being thoroughly grounded in traditional Chinese hagiographical, historiographical, and scriptural texts. The picture it presents of the quest for transcendence as a social phenomenon in early medieval China is original and provocative, as is the paradigm it offers for understanding the roles of holy persons in other societies. (shrink)

Honorable Mention, Joseph Levenson Prize, Association for Asian Studies By the middle of the third century B.C.E. in China there were individuals who sought to become transcendents deathless, godlike beings endowed with supernormal powers. This quest for transcendence became a major form of religious expression and helped lay the foundation on which the first Daoist religion was built. Both xian and those who aspired to this exalted status in the centuries leading up to 350 C.E. have traditionally been portrayed (...) as secretive and hermit-like figures. This groundbreaking study offers a very different view of xian-seekers in late classical and early medieval China. It suggests that transcendence did not involve a withdrawal from society but rather should be seen as a religious role situated among other social roles and conceived in contrast to them. Robert Campany argues that the much-discussed secrecy surrounding ascetic disciplines was actually one important way in which practitioners presented themselves to others. He contends, moreover, that many adepts were not socially isolated at all but were much sought after for their power to heal the sick, divine the future, and narrate their exotic experiences. The book moves from a description of the roles of xian and xian-seekers to an account of how individuals filled these roles, whether by their own agency or by others or, often, by both. Campany summarizes the repertoire of features that constituted xian roles and presents a detailed example of what analyses of those cultural repertoires look like. He charts the functions of a basic dialectic in the self-presentations of adepts and examines their narratives and relations with others, including family members and officials. Finally, he looks at hagiographies as attempts to persuade readers as to the identities and reputations of past individuals. His interpretation of these stories allows us to see how reputations were shaped and even co-opted sometimes quite surprisingly into the ranks of xian. Making Transcendents provides a nuanced discussion that draws on a sophisticated grasp of diverse theoretical sources while being thoroughly grounded in traditional Chinese hagiographical, historiographical, and scriptural texts. The picture it presents of the quest for transcendence as a social phenomenon in early medieval China is original and provocative, as is the paradigm it offers for understanding the roles of holy persons in other societies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Authorial Authority in Ancient ChinaMartin SvenssonWriting and Authority in Early China. By Mark Edward Lewis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Pp. vii + 544. Paper.The appearance of Mark Edward Lewis' second book, Writing and Authority in Early China, is a long-awaited event in the sinological world. Divided into eight chapters and with the main text running 365 (...) pages, this book is an exceptionally rich study of the intellectual world(s) of the Warring States period and the Han dynasty, approaching its objects of investigation from a variety of different positions. The implicit questions "How do texts speak 'with authority'?" and "How, and for what reasons, are certain texts canonized or deemed apocryphal?" allow Lewis to demonstrate the different strategies used by state bureaucrats, writers of history, diviners, philosophical schools, poets, and reciters of poetry to "authorize" their discourse. The interrelationship and interdependence of Text and State is an all-pervasive theme excellently dealt with in the two crowning chapters here on the establishment of the Confucian canon during the Han dynasty.Lewis has a clear and concise style, a keen sense for spotting significant connections between seemingly disparate phenomena, and a most impressive grasp of primary and secondary sources—even if the absence, in the bibliography, of the Guodian texts, Martin Kern's 1997 Die Hymnen der Chinesischen Staatsopfer, David Schaberg's 1996 thesis "Foundations of Chinese Historiography," Shirakawa Shizuka's 1976 Kanji no sekai (in a new 1997 edition), and, perhaps, Christopher Connery's very recent The Empire of the Text (1998) suggests that we may have been forced to wait for this book for some time. (Christoph Harbsmeier's 1995 article "Notions of Time and History" also offers some important musings on the notion of writing in early China.) Considering its breadth, the book has very few factual errors, one being the use of "Mao commentary" to refer to the entire commentarial section included in the Mao Edition of the Odes, another being the claim that the Odes themselves use tropes such as bi and xing, when in fact these concepts were inventions of the scholastic commentators. Arthur Waley's important 1933 article "The Book of Changes" could have been mentioned in the discussion of Richard Kunst's and Edward Shaughnessy's works on the Changes.In what follows I will do no more than make a few remarks in order to initiate the reader into the organizing principles of what, in the final analysis, can only be described as a first-rate scholarly work. I will then endeavor a small contribution, [End Page 614] inspired by some of Lewis' theses, to the discussion about textuality and power in early China.Before anything else, the reader should be informed about the two peculiarities that shape the book's line of argument. Let us first consider the relation between the title and the contents of the book. "Writing" is used not only in the sense of "the act of putting brush (or any other instrument of writing) to silk (or any other medium)," or merely in the sense of "(physical) text," but also in the sense of the "contents of a text." Similarly, "authority" refers to governmental, bureaucratic, or imperial "power," as well as to the "authority" invested in a discourse by way of its rhetorical force, by its intertextual references to ancient sagely texts, or by its function as mouthpiece for institutions of power (e.g., the ruler or the philosophical master). The polysemic title thus allows the author to shift focus several times and, without contradiction, speak simultaneously of the uses of (physical) writing as a means of bureaucratic communication during the early Zhou and of the interaction of State canon (qua the dogmatic contents of the canonical texts) and the imperial exercise of power during the Han. And, indeed, since Chinese philosophy is eminently occupied with theories of governmental power, one sometimes suspects that Lewis uses the long-standing academic buzzwords "writing" and "authority" in this vague fashion as a foil for creating what is arguably the best general introduction to early Chinese thought available in Western languages today. However, despite the Foucauldian... (shrink)

Analysts have generally offered two explanations for China's no-devaluation policy during the Asian financial crisis. The first is China's good economic fundamentals and the renminbi is not fully convertible. The second is China's foreign relations' imperative. China was endeavouring to seek favourable entry conditions into the WTO and improve relations with its Asian neighbours. At the same time it sought to exploit the undercurrent of resentment in Asia towards the role played by the US (...) during the crisis. Policy making in China has become more institutionalized in the post-Deng era, but these explanations ignore the role of China's domestic bureaucratic actors in exchange rate policy making. This paper examines the exchange rate regime preferences of China's key economic ministries and their influences in exchange rate policy making and argues that Party leaders were able to adopt a no-devaluation policy throughout the crisis because China's key economic ministries actively supported or acquiesced to that policy. (shrink)

Mercedes Valmisa turns our attention to the relations between truth and practice in classical Chinese philosophy. In this tradition, truth is conceived of, in a pragmatic-like spirit, as a series of embodied beliefs and perspectives that lead to fitting dispositions, emotions, and actions (regardless of whether they accurately describe the world, or whether there are other competing beliefs and perspectives that equally accurately or inaccurately describe the world). This means that we should care about truth because of its normative (...) power to guide our behavior in the most fitting way, not because of a theoretical interest in accurately describing reality. Valmisa Oviedo traces the development of this conception of truth in the Mohists and Zhuangists, leading to two radically different sociopolitical and ethical positions: the Mohists used single-truth discourses to enforce ideological monopolies that could not allow pluralism in values, norms, beliefs, and practices, while the Zhuangists warned us against the dangers of such dogmatism. (shrink)

Earlier studies of the term wén 文 in pre-Qín texts do not fully explain the relation-ship between its basic meaning ‘ pattern’ and its more abstract meanings ‘moral refinement’ and ‘tradition of conventionalized behavior’. In contrast, I argue that, when used as an epithet describing individuals in pre-Zhànguó texts, wén meant something like ‘awe-inspiringly beautiful’, rather than ‘accomplished’ or ‘cultured’ as proposed in earlier studies and translations. Wearing clothes embroidered with ‘rank indicating emblems’ and possessing ‘decorated’ accoutrements signaling authority were (...) the prerogatives of members of the high nobility. It was not an acquired property. The meaning ‘awe-inspiringly beautiful’ derived from ‘decorative pattern’ through metaphorical extension. This analysis of wén helps us avoid the anachronistic moral interpretations often found in traditional commentaries and in modern translations of pre-Zhànguó texts, and improves our understanding of the role played by physical appearance in the construction of social hierarchies in the pre-Zhànguó period. In contrast, in Zhànguó-period texts such as the Zuǒzhuàn, wén was reanalyzed in moral terms, thereby giving rise to adjectival uses referring to ‘morally refined’ ‘noble men’. In the Lúnyǔ, adjectival wén in the sense ‘morally refined’ is applied to dynasties. Nominalized versions of adjectival wén then give rise to even more abstract uses referring to the ‘moral refinement’ of the Zhōu, that is, the ideal ‘patterns of social mores and conventionalized practices established by the former kings’, as in Lúnyǔ 9.5. Such uses of wén are often translated into English as culture. However, since the words culture and wén derive metaphorically from different basic meanings, i.e., ‘growing/cultivating’ and ‘decorating/applying an external pattern’, respectively, and since they refer to different, language- and tradition-specific concepts of ‘conventionalized behavior’ or ‘culture’, such translations are often infelicitous or misleading. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humaneness and Justice in the Analects:On Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early ChinaHagop Sarkissian (bio)IntroductionOne of the central themes of Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China is the contestation of the values of partialist humaneness and impartialist justice across diverse thinkers and texts throughout the classical period. His departure point is the Analects, which displays a keen awareness of the difficulties in balancing (...) these opposing values. Jiang's analysis of this dynamic is skillful, filled with Sinological detail and philosophical analysis.Here, I hope to add to Jiang's discussion, focusing on two broad points. First, I suggest two different interpretations of Jiang's analysis of ren 仁 as preference for kin in the Analects, and argue that one of these interpretations is more successful than the other. Second, I argue that aligning humaneness with partiality on the one hand, and justice with impartiality on the other, may obscure some of the Analect's views on these topics, even while illuminating others. In particular, I try to argue that justice cannot be understood as consisting of impartiality alone.Humaneness and JusticeJiang provides "thin or baseline definitions" of the key values of humaneness and justice so as to "schematize … competing normative values operative in the moral-political project during the classical period while … leaving room for variations on these broad underlying values among different inherited texts and the thinkers they are attributed to" (p. 35). They are as follows:[H]umaneness is understood in this book as the … natural inclination to be partial toward those who are close to us, especially our family/kin members; justice is defined here as … our exercise of impartial judgment on the merits of persons and states of affairs, especially in lieu of articulated and publicized standards and codes, irrespective of their relations to us. In other words, humaneness is partialist in nature, whereas justice is impartialist. Humaneness is understood in relational terms, whereas justice is non-relational by contrast. More importantly, precisely because of the relational nature of humaneness, [End Page 429] agent and recipient cannot be switched or substituted, whereas in justice agent and recipient are switchable and substitutable.This framework is fruitful, allowing Jiang to draw connections across texts and thinkers, highlighting aspects of the debates that too often remain hidden from view. His detailed analyses of concepts such as xiao (filial piety), jianai (impartial care), fa (objective standards), tian (Heaven), and shu (conscientious perspective taking) show how they relate to these overarching values. The schematization works, and the book repays careful reading.There are also points, however, where the alignment of humaneness with partiality on the one hand, and justice with impartiality on the other, can lead those familiar with these texts to wonder whether the presentation has, as a result, oversimplified some complex issues. I discuss two of these in what follows.Ren and PartialityJiang claims that the concept of ren in the Analects has two components or elements to it. As he puts it,[T]he way ren is articulated by Confucius, it contains both a partialist element favoring one's family and an impartialist element when dealing with others. … To put it in terms of the central terminologies employed in this book, ren in the Analects is a comprehensive category that contains the elements of both humaneness and justice.Jiang 2021, p. 53)Jiang's analysis of ren in terms of impartiality is compelling, so I will focus on the other half of the analysis—specifically, the claim that the concept of ren itself is partialistic (or, more accurately, has a notable partialist element). This claim may surprise some readers. For example, ren has often been contrasted with the partialistic xiao (filial piety) as the more impartial, public-facing virtue in Confucianism. Indeed, this contrast has been the focus of a strenuous and strident debate in Confucian ethics in modern times (see, e.g., Guo 2007; Guo 2004; Liu 2003), and has a pedigree going at least as far back as the Hou Hanshu (Chan 2004). However, such debates span multiple texts and thinkers in the Confucian tradition. We can still ask the more pointed... (shrink)

This book explains China's intellectual property perspective in the context of European theories, through a critical examination of intellectual property theory and practice focused on China's compliance with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The author's critical review of contemporary intellectual property philosophy suggests that justifying intellectual property protection through Locke or Hegel's property theories internalizes a theoretical paradox. "Professor Wenwei Guan's treatment of intellectual property law and practice in the PRC offers new perspectives (...) that enrich an already active field of study. This book will be a useful contribution to academic and policy discourses examining conceptual and operational dimensions of China's intellectual property protection system and the broader process of China's international engagement." - Dr. Pitman B. Potter, Professor of Law, University of British Columbia, Canada "Dr. Guan reminds us of the daunting challenge of the public-private divide in forming and reforming TRIPS regime; how this regime has failed to address development needs and public concerns in developing countries like China; and how TRIPS's 'birth defect' can be overcome and its evolution can be put back on the right track." - Dr. Yahong Li, Associate Professor at Faculty of Law, Hong Kong University. (shrink)

Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global engineering ethics, developed (...) for and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers. (shrink)

Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue that these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of (...) academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

Humans are born with the ability and the need for affection, but communicating affection as a social behavior is historically bound. Based on the digitized books of Google Ngram Viewer from 1960 through 2008, the present research investigated the affectionate communication (AC) in China and in the US, and its changing landscape along with social changes from collectivist to individualistic environments. In particular, we analyzed the frequency in terms of verbal affection (e.g., love you, like you), non-verbal affection (e.g., (...) hug, kiss), and individualism (indicated by the use of first-person singular pronouns, such as I, me, and myself) in Chinese and in American books. The results revealed a convergent increasing trend of AC over the past decades, although the frequency of affection words was lower in Chinese than in American books. Further, the individualism was found to be positively related to the frequency of affection words in both Chinese and American books. These results demonstrate the effect of cultural changes on AC, in that affection exchange becomes popular in adaptation to individualistic urban environments, which provide the evidence about the cross-cultural difference in love expression and the cultural universality of social change in Eastern and Western societies. (shrink)

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) may have been the most influential and insightful American thinker of the twentieth century. In dealing with the intricacies of human nature, society, politics, ethics, theology, racism and international relations, Niebuhr the teacher, preacher, philosopher, social critic and ethicist, was highly influential and difficult to ignore during the Second World War and Cold War eras because of his intellectual heft and the novel manner in which he addressed the economic, spiritual, social and political problems of his (...) time. This book distils Niebuhr's disparate and now difficult to access work into one volume, making it more easily accessible than ever before, at the same time bringing his work into the twenty first century. It argues that if he were alive today Niebuhr would be a champion of the U.N, a supporter of globalization, a fierce opponent of America's 2003 Iraq War (for all the reasons he opposed the Vietnam War), an advocate of the Responsibility to Protect, and a pragmatic hawk on China as it rises today. It also highlights his many contributions to international relations theory, from Realism to Liberalism to existentialism to the English School to constructivism. This is the first book that focuses exclusively on the international relations thought of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of Classical Realism's most important figures, one whom diplomat and Realist George Kennan called, "the father of us all.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz and China: A Commerce of LightRobin R. WangLeibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. By Franklin Perkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 224.In December 1697, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) wrote to a Jesuit friend in China, praising the Jesuit mission there as "the greatest affair of our time" (p. 42). The purpose of that mission, in Leibniz's view, was not simply (...) to glorify God and to spread Christianity; it was also being undertaken for the good of humanity and the growth of human knowledge. He went on:For this is a commerce of light, which could give to us at once their work of thousands of years and render ours to them, and to double so to speak our true wealth for one and the other. This is something greater than one thinks.(p. 42)Why was Leibniz, unlike his contemporaries Locke and Spinoza, so enthusiastic about other cultures, especially Chinese culture? Why, in contrast to the scholars of today who claim that philosophy is the privilege of the Western mind and who dismiss philosophical exchange as useless, was Leibniz able to understand the importance of cultural exchange? And why is it that his "commerce of light" can still illuminate our path toward wisdom in this age of globalization? In a well-researched and carefully crafted monograph, Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light, Franklin Perkins answers these questions with compelling evidence and persuasive argument.To emphasize the significance, magnitude, and relevance of cultural exchange Perkins organizes his book thematically in five chapters. The first chapter provides the historical context of the world in which Leibniz lived. Perkins cites well-documented events to illustrate how Europeans first encountered other cultures and the "three lenses" through which they viewed them (p. 12). This exploration sets the stage for understanding Leibniz's knowledge of China and his basic orientation toward learning from diversity.In chapter 2 Perkins challenges current scholarship and makes the critical claim that Leibniz's interest in China and cultural exchange was "not accidental" (p. 45), but rather flowed from his own distinctive philosophical system. This argument distinguishes Perkins's innovative approach from the mainstream traditional scholarship on Leibniz. He claims that Leibniz was "a more pragmatic, empirical and fallibilistic investigator of the world," that he was "motivated by practical and theological concerns," and that he was "a pluralistic thinker" (p. 45). To support his argument, Perkins discusses Leibniz's "monads" in the context of order, diversity, and perfection. Each monad is a different manifestation of the same universe, yet one unitary universe is multiplied by its expression in diverse monads. God chose to create a world exemplifying the utmost perfection, with "the greatest possible combination of order and diversity" (p. 44). Diversity is essential to the perfection of the world since the most perfect possible world maximizes the greatest order. This intrinsic relation between order, diversity, and perfection creates an unqualified need for cultural exchange because order requires diversity for perfection, and an ordered diversity only amplifies the magnificence of its Creator. On a metaphysical level, cultural exchange for Leibniz [End Page 111] was "driven by the value of diversity in the best possible world and the derivation of diversity from variations in monadic perspectives. On an epistemological level, exchange was driven by the necessary limits of our own perspective and the fact that monads in distant places have different and complementary perspectives" (p. 108).After laying out the philosophical foundation for cultural exchange in Leibniz's system, Perkins turns his discussion to Leibniz's specific connection with China. In chapter 3 he offers a historical narrative that traces the development and growth of Leibniz's interest in and knowledge of China. Leibniz's first mention of China was in his De Arte Combinationis in 1666, when he was only twenty years old (p. 109). Through his massive correspondence with Jesuits in China and his active social participation in controversies around the Jesuit mission, Leibniz's knowledge of China grew in depth and sophistication as the decades passed. His initial approach to China reflected "his interest in international politics and economics" (p. 113). But this practical focus was... (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 642-651, May 2022. Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue (...) that these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 642-651, May 2022. Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue (...) that these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

: In this paper I will focus on the notion of “dominant patterns”, as revealed by the recently discovered typescript of what we can assume to be Dewey’s fragmentary and incomplete preliminary lecture notes for the Lecture Series on Social and Political Philosophy. I will show that the way the notion of “dominant patterns” is dealt with in the text of the lecture notes is not only consistent with the conceptual content of the whole series of the Lectures in (...) class='Hi'>China as published by R. W. Clopton and Tsuin-Chen, but also gives us further arguments to appreciate the centrality of this question to the development of Dewey’s philosophical project during this period. In particular, I will argue that a comparative reading of the lecture notes and of the Lectures in China allows us to appreciate the central role dominant patterns play for Dewey’s understanding of social groupings as embodying habitual patterns of action and the way habit formation shapes and gives content to the interests that groups identify with and are identified by in social practices. Secondly, I will argue that such a comparative reading allows us to appreciate how in the lecture series Dewey has developed the notion of dominant patterns into a theory of social domination which is basically described in terms of habitualized recognitive relations. Hence, the discovery of the lecture notes is also very helpful in deepening our understanding of the Deweyan approach to the question of social recognition – and in particular of the dynamics of institutional recognition and its ideological function – and how it relates to habitualized patterns of dominant-subservient relations. -/- domination, habits, social philosophy, struggle for recognition, conflict, groups, hegemony, power, institutionalization. (shrink)

The main aim of this text is to present economic relations between China and the US today. The election of Donald Trump in 2016, significantly redefined American trade policy toward China. Despite the first months of his presidency, which promised an efficient, long-term cooperation between Beijing and Washington, incumbent president decided to implement severe restriction on the trade with China at the beginning of 2018. However, the announced imposition of tariffs on almost all goods coming from (...) this country could interfere with the growth of the single states and the economy of the whole country in the future. Therefore the text is aimed to investigate the dependency of selected states on the inflows of Chinese investments since 2010. Finally, it is necessary to examine the phenomenon of the trade war, which has begun in July 2018, and assess its impact on the growth of both countries. (shrink)

In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides describes the Plague of Athens which killed an estimated 75,000 people in 430 BC, the second year of the war. Thucydides i...

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzes new opportunities for CSR development, and companies in both China and the US, the two largest economies severely impacted by the pandemic, are seeking innovative ways to engage with publics on social media through CSR communication. This study draws on the care ethics theory to examine different manifestations of care values in corporations’ CSR messages and their relationships with publics’ behavioral and emotional engagement on social media. A quantitative content analysis of Weibo and Twitter posts (...) from Fortune 500 companies in China (_n_ = 30) and the United States (_n_ = 30), respectively, revealed that companies in both countries employ multifaceted care-based CSR messages, but in distinct ways and with varying types and levels of public engagement on social media. We interpreted the differences from institutional, cultural, and relational perspectives. The results of this research add to theorizing CSR communication from a feminist ethical viewpoint and with contextualized interpretations. Our findings also guide post-pandemic CSR communication development, particularly relevant to public relations practitioners in the Chinese and US markets. (shrink)

China’s recent engagement with Africa has attracted a significant amount of attention among United States (US) policymakers, academics, journalists and think tanks. By exploring this commentary through an emerging dominant discourse on China’s engagement in Africa, this article argues that it is interwoven with a discourse on US engagement in Africa, performing a Manichean dynamics that reflects analysis of China’s engagement in Africa through a US lens. As a result, alternative discourses and insights are silenced as (...) class='Hi'>China’s engagement in Africa is interpreted through issues counterpoised to those with which the US distinguishes itself. In establishing this dynamics in the dominant discourse, its rhetorical nature is further demonstrated through alternative discourses on the effects of US and Chinese engagement in Africa. Using alternative discourses to de-center the rhetoric in dominant discourses on the benefits of free markets and the disadvantages of state led development, the US and China become perceived as both engaging in Africa through existing economic and political structures in a shared pursuit of markets and resources. The effects of US and Chinese engagement are discussed in regards to these pursuits. Giving voice to alternative discourses reveals the rhetorical nature of the dominant discourses that reflect more about US values than the implications of China’s engagement in Africa. (shrink)

This book offers the first comparative account of the changes and stabilities of public perceptions of science within the US, France, China, Japan, and across Europe over the past few decades. The contributors address the influence of cultural factors; the question of science and religion and its influence on particular developments (e.g. stem cell research); and the demarcation of science from non-science as well as issues including the incommensurability versus cognitive polyphasia and the cognitive (in)tolerance of different systems of (...) knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to Benjamin I. Schwartz' "China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New under the Sun"Lin Yu-shengIn the spring of 1998, my colleague Mike Clover, a historian of the ancient West and an admirer of Benjamin I. Schwartz' The World of Thought in Ancient China, invited Professor Schwartz to participate, with Heiko Oberman, J. C. Heesterman, and Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, among others, in a conference he had been organizing on "Eurasia (...) and Africa during the Last Thousand Years." The essay that follows—the last piece of scholarly writing by Ben Schwartz, finished thirty-seven days before his passing—was read by me on his behalf at the conference, held on October 11 and 12, 1999, in Madison.From my telephone conversations with Ben in the summer of 1999, I learned that while he intended to work on a paper for the conference to be titled "The Idea of Unilinear Evolution and the Destinies of China," his attention was very much drawn to the fact of the onset in America of unbridled consumerism and materialism, whose characteristic of feeding on themselves with ever increasing intensity and widespread impact seemed to indicate to him the rise of a profoundly disturbing new phenomenon in this world. When I visited with Ben and Bunny (Mrs. Schwartz) in Cambridge on October 2 and 3, Ben was in the midst of writing an essay on what he would call the "new technological-economic millenarianism" or "materialistic apocalypticism." He said that he preferred to have me read this essay, which he would finish before the conference, rather than the one he originally intended to write. Since the conference was meant to take note of the significance of the passage of time from a world-historical perspective, the reflections by a thinker as deeply serious and searching as Ben Schwartz at the juncture of the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third on the implications of an entirely new worldwide phenomenon as he perceived it—though having little direct bearing on China's past—would of course be most welcome at the conference.Ben's health deteriorated almost immediately after he had completed the essay on Friday, October 8, and he died on November 14, 1999. We now know from hindsight that Ben had probably felt that he might soon leave us, but he summoned enough energy not to let this happen before his completion of the essay, partly due to his sense of responsibility to deliver what he had promised and partly, and more importantly, because of the imperative he felt to issue, in the spirit of the old prophets, as his parting words, a grave warning to his fellow human beings.The essay is discursive, with many important points implied through nuance rather than formally argued. We can hardly expect more, given the physical condition of its author at the time of its writing. Although this does not, in my opinion, diminish its importance, it does demand close reading from its readers. The following is my brief attempt at this task, for whatever it may be worth. [End Page 189]To begin with, that Ben chooses to use religious language (which is related to "ultimate concerns")—words like "millenarianism" or "apocalypticism," which are ordinarily reserved for depicting the rare and drastic deliverance of humankind from "the vast burden of human suffering and despair"—as a means to explore metaphorically the nature and implications of the new consumerism and materialism is indicative of how serious he has perceived the onset of the phenomenon under consideration to be.To the extent that consumerism and materialism promise to their true believers "a totally new way of neutralizing the age-old causes of human suffering" (italics mine) through their "total attention on every aspect of human life from the techno-economic side," it is legitimate to speak of them as "materialistic apocalypticism," in that they transcend all tensions and agonies in life and elevate the true believers to a state of salvation. However, in its exclusive concern with "unalloyed, unreflective contentment" and pleasure in the self without any regard for the ethical consequences of techno-economic progress, it is a new materialism very different from... (shrink)

The fact that sociology was born during the period of the Industrial Revolution does not authorize us to consider its discourse as lacking in philosophical elements that are rooted in a previous age. Neither can we consider as fully accomplished its role for modernity, nonetheless today, in an after-modern climate (in the sense of Donati 2009), sociology is trying to escape the prejudice of modern ethics to go beyond the clichés of postmodernity (Ardigò 1989). Filled with self-reflexivity and reductionist dichotomies, (...) the twenty-first-century sociologist feels the need to ?own factual reality again? and to rediscover ?a new metaphysics of the social world? (Donati 1993). If self-consciousness is in the world, sociology, perhaps, has to go beyond science and turn into ?globology? (Arnason 1990), or into a sociology on a global scale, which looks at how world unification has occurred. In order to accomplish this, it has to be careful about what it was able to do best in the past: ?to foresee and to enhance sustainable change,? to be aware of the ?relational connections,? which no mathematics will ever be able to show, to build new ?memes,? and to decide to accelerate or to go against the phenomena it encounters in its observation. Society in the twenty-first century will go beyond postmodern stagnation and turn into something new (After-modernity? Hyper-modernity? Trans-modernity?) if it is to be helped by the interpretations of sociology. Notwithstanding the endeavors to change, most Westernized countries are trapped in the lib-lab model, while China argues for a complete reconfiguration of the concepts of public and private, states and market, freedom and controls, copyright and copyleft. What is going to happen in the future? Are we going to fall into a technocratic and authoritarian form of neo-modernization? Are we going to rediscover the system of exchanging gifts? Are we going to create a fully ?relational? society, going beyond the Hegelian categories of right and left? It will be the role of a ?strong and relational? sociology to identify all the ?viable? scenarios and to prepare its advent in symbolic terms. (shrink)

Technological developments in the sphere of artificial intelligence (AI) inspire debates about the implications of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), which can select and engage targets without human intervention. While increasingly more systems which could qualify as AWS, such as loitering munitions, are reportedly used in armed conflicts, the global discussion about a system of governance and international legal norms on AWS at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (UN CCW) has stalled. In this article we argue for the (...) necessity to adopt legal norms on the use and development of AWS. Without a framework for global regulation, state practices in using weapon systems with AI-based and autonomous features will continue to shape the norms of warfare and affect the level and quality of human control in the use of force. By examining the practices of China, Russia, and the United States in their pursuit of AWS-related technologies and participation at the UN CCW debate, we acknowledge that their differing approaches make it challenging for states parties to reach an agreement on regulation, especially in a forum based on consensus. Nevertheless, we argue that global governance on AWS is not impossible. It will depend on the extent to which an actor or group of actors would be ready to take the lead on an alternative process outside of the CCW, inspired by the direction of travel given by previous arms control and weapons ban initiatives. (shrink)

The Chinese tianrenheyi thesis bespeaks a correlative cosmology irreducible to the Western metaphysics. This article historicizes tianrenheyi for new implications to help rethink the given concepts of ‘person/thing,’ ‘environment/nature,’ and ‘relationality’ in contemporary ethical and environmental education in three steps. First, it turns to Yu Ying-Shih’s writing for a historical and ethical picture of tianrenheyi as an ‘Axial breakthrough’ in Confucius' time and with direct relevance to Confucian person-making education. Second, it moves on to Roger Ames’ unpacking of tianrenheyi as (...) hospitalized in a ‘correlative cosmology’ and ‘Confucian relational personhood’ to help us re-understand Confucian ‘person’ as being relational. Finally, it shows how these re-invoked philosophical–ethical–cosmological theses expose a ‘foundational individualism’ which grounds and confines current educational thinking to an anthropocentric ordering. As an alternative, this article calls for a productive symbiotic conjoining between humans and their cultural–natural environs toward nurturing today’s youth into ecologically literate, responsible, and responsive co-beings. (shrink)

The bilateral relationship between China and Myanmar is important and intricate despite being asymmetrical in China's favour. Whereas most observers regard the relationship as being heavily weighted in China's favour, Myanmar does have a fair amount of latitude within the relationship that is informed by historical, economic, and strategic considerations. The nationalism and xenophobia present in the attitudes of elite from the Myanmar military junta is both recognized and understood by China that is keen to have (...) a stable peripheral environment. There are also important security issues such as the ethnic armies that currently have a ceasefire arrangement with the junta along the border areas that need to be resolved in a coordinated fashion to prevent negative spillage into China. In light of such special idiosyncratic and terrain considerations, Myanmar wields relative independence within this asymmetrical relationship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to Benjamin I. Schwartz' "China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New under the Sun"Lin Yu-shengIn the spring of 1998, my colleague Mike Clover, a historian of the ancient West and an admirer of Benjamin I. Schwartz' The World of Thought in Ancient China, invited Professor Schwartz to participate, with Heiko Oberman, J. C. Heesterman, and Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, among others, in a conference he had been organizing on "Eurasia (...) and Africa during the Last Thousand Years." The essay that follows—the last piece of scholarly writing by Ben Schwartz, finished thirty-seven days before his passing—was read by me on his behalf at the conference, held on October 11 and 12, 1999, in Madison.From my telephone conversations with Ben in the summer of 1999, I learned that while he intended to work on a paper for the conference to be titled "The Idea of Unilinear Evolution and the Destinies of China," his attention was very much drawn to the fact of the onset in America of unbridled consumerism and materialism, whose characteristic of feeding on themselves with ever increasing intensity and widespread impact seemed to indicate to him the rise of a profoundly disturbing new phenomenon in this world. When I visited with Ben and Bunny (Mrs. Schwartz) in Cambridge on October 2 and 3, Ben was in the midst of writing an essay on what he would call the "new technological-economic millenarianism" or "materialistic apocalypticism." He said that he preferred to have me read this essay, which he would finish before the conference, rather than the one he originally intended to write. Since the conference was meant to take note of the significance of the passage of time from a world-historical perspective, the reflections by a thinker as deeply serious and searching as Ben Schwartz at the juncture of the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third on the implications of an entirely new worldwide phenomenon as he perceived it—though having little direct bearing on China's past—would of course be most welcome at the conference.Ben's health deteriorated almost immediately after he had completed the essay on Friday, October 8, and he died on November 14, 1999. We now know from hindsight that Ben had probably felt that he might soon leave us, but he summoned enough energy not to let this happen before his completion of the essay, partly due to his sense of responsibility to deliver what he had promised and partly, and more importantly, because of the imperative he felt to issue, in the spirit of the old prophets, as his parting words, a grave warning to his fellow human beings.The essay is discursive, with many important points implied through nuance rather than formally argued. We can hardly expect more, given the physical condition of its author at the time of its writing. Although this does not, in my opinion, diminish its importance, it does demand close reading from its readers. The following is my brief attempt at this task, for whatever it may be worth. [End Page 189]To begin with, that Ben chooses to use religious language (which is related to "ultimate concerns")—words like "millenarianism" or "apocalypticism," which are ordinarily reserved for depicting the rare and drastic deliverance of humankind from "the vast burden of human suffering and despair"—as a means to explore metaphorically the nature and implications of the new consumerism and materialism is indicative of how serious he has perceived the onset of the phenomenon under consideration to be.To the extent that consumerism and materialism promise to their true believers "a totally new way of neutralizing the age-old causes of human suffering" (italics mine) through their "total attention on every aspect of human life from the techno-economic side," it is legitimate to speak of them as "materialistic apocalypticism," in that they transcend all tensions and agonies in life and elevate the true believers to a state of salvation. However, in its exclusive concern with "unalloyed, unreflective contentment" and pleasure in the self without any regard for the ethical consequences of techno-economic progress, it is a new materialism very different from... (shrink)

Economy is one of the major issues in the United States presidential election campaign. In order to investigate the impact of the US presidential election on the economy, this paper first constructs an analysis model of the economic impact on the United States based on stepwise regression and principal component analysis to analyze the focus of different candidates’ attention on the economic issues and its possible impact on the US economy in the election year and after the election; secondly, a (...) Chinese economic impact analysis model based on factor analysis and machine learning logistic regression was constructed to analyze the impact of the US presidential election on the Chinese economy. At the same time, the future economic development of the United States and China based on the time series prediction model is forecast and analyzed, respectively. Finally, the countermeasures and policy suggestions on China’s related economic development are put forward. (shrink)