Getting Serious about Thermonuclear Security: Need for New Tests, Augmented Capability and First use Doctrine & Posture

India has been an economic and military punching bag for China. This is India’s fault because it has done less than nothing to counter the pummeling except occasionally reacting (as on the Galwan) and then only defensively. It is time India, a nuclear laggard, adopted the strategy conventionally weak nuclear weapons states (Pakistan against India, North Korea against the US) have successfully wielded against stronger adversaries by threatening nuclear first use, and by substantiating such threat by laying down short fuse, forward nuclear tripwires. For an India that has historically quailed before China, making this new more assertive stance credible will require significant measures—resumption of thermonuclear testing, emplacing a differentiated two-tiered doctrine that replaces the impractical “massive retaliation” strategy with flexible and proportional response notions pivoting on nuclear first use but only versus China while retaining the “retaliation only” concept for everyone else, and alighting on a tiered posture supported by the buildup of ‘soft’ strategic infrastructure (a separate strategic budget, specialist nuclear officer cadres in the three services, and a mechanism for oversight of nuclear weapons designing activity). It is a doable strategy the Indian government should not shy away from.    &nbsp

Getting Serious about Thermonuclear Security: Need for New Tests, Augmented Capability and First use Doctrine & Posture

India has been an economic and military punching bag for China. This is India’s fault because it has done less than nothing to counter the pummeling except occasionally reacting (as on the Galwan) and then only defensively. It is time India, a nuclear laggard, adopted the strategy conventionally weak nuclear weapons states (Pakistan against India, North Korea against the US) have successfully wielded against stronger adversaries by threatening nuclear first use, and by substantiating such threat by laying down short fuse, forward nuclear tripwires. For an India that has historically quailed before China, making this new more assertive stance credible will require significant measures—resumption of thermonuclear testing, emplacing a differentiated two-tiered doctrine that replaces the impractical “massive retaliation” strategy with flexible and proportional response notions pivoting on nuclear first use but only versus China while retaining the “retaliation only” concept for everyone else, and alighting on a tiered posture supported by the buildup of ‘soft’ strategic infrastructure (a separate strategic budget, specialist nuclear officer cadres in the three services, and a mechanism for oversight of nuclear weapons designing activity). It is a doable strategy the Indian government should not shy away from.    &nbsp

Reader Responses: Celebrating Jianbing

[Editor’s note: It seems that quite a few of our readers are as fond of jianbing as we are here at China Beat HQ. This morning’s post on the tasty breakfast dish garnered a number of responses on Twitter (revealing that not everyone is a fan, though all have strong feelings on the jianbing issue), which I’ve collected below, followed by one story sent in by a reader via email. And fellow UC Irvine graduate student Aubrey Adams directed my attention to this basic recipe for jianbing, in case I (or anyone else) wants to attempt making them at home.

Asian Regional Institutions and the Possibilities for Socializing the Behavior of States

Departing from the traditional yardsticks for measuring the performance and effectiveness of regional institutions, this paper proposes a new framework to investigate their effect in the socialization (i.e. internalization of group norms by newcomers) of new members. Called Type III internalization, it represents a middle ground between Type I (i.e. member states simply acting according to group expectations, even if they may not agree with them), and Type II (i.e. states transforming themselves by adopting the interests and identities of the group) internalization. In Type III internalization, states act both instrumentally and normatively. While their interests and values do not change permanently, there is enough change to induce substantially new kinds of cooperative behavior, in trade and security. Type III internalization is non-legalistic and consensual, moving at a pace in which everyone is comfortable, but there is no danger of backtracking. New members moderate their competitive instincts and pursue common objectives. The impact of institutional norms such as “open regionalism” and “cooperative security” transmitted through institutions such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the ASEAN Regional Forum on Viet Nam, India, and the People's Republic of China attests to the existence of a Type III internalization.Asia; regional institutions; Asian regional institutions; constructivism; socialization; institution-design; multilateralism

Argh, No More Pirating America’s Booty: Improving Copyright Protections for American Creators in China

The advent of the internet brought about revolutionary changes and challenges to the world. Internet piracy is one area which is presenting new challenges, particularly to copyright holders such as artists, filmmakers, and creators. China has been a hotbed of piracy and is home to the second highest number of file sharing infringers in the world. China has made strides to improve its copyright protection, such as implementing a copyright law in 1990, as well as joining the World Trade Organization and signing on to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which specifies minimum levels of intellectual property protection each member nation must provide, the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, and the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty. However, China’s compliance with its obligations as a signatory to the Agreement is a continued point of contention between it and the United States. This Note proposes ways for China to resolve the problems by increasing the statutory maximum damage award for copyright infringement in China, relaxing the foreign film quota, stronger enforcement of the copyright law to protect films that are not formally imported into China, and creating a special copyright division of the Specialized Intellectual Property Tribunals. Implementing these solutions will benefit not only American creators, but Chinese creators as well. With 21st Century problems, these solutions will help ensure that everyone has effective copyright protection in China in the 21st Century in light of the global marketplace that is the Internet

Chapter The “dining table revolution” in China: the question read through the lens of newspapers

Food is not only the source of nutrition for humans but also plays various roles in our daily lives, beliefs, and relationship. In China, one of the fundamental cultural elements is the sharing of food. Typically, the courses are served in the center of the table from which guests serve themselves on their plates or serve guests using their chopsticks. With the COVID-19 outbreak, people were advised to separate dining or at least use gongshao 公勺'serving spoon' or gongkuai公筷'serving chopsticks' instead of picking food directly from serving plates with their own chopsticks. The “table revolution” is a crucial issue: if it succeeds, it will change China's face. Public advertisements, as giant billboards on Shanghai's streets talking of serving chopsticks as a way to set the heart at ease, showed slogans like: "The distance between you and civilized dining is just one pair of serving chopsticks". Nevertheless, serving chopsticks have not quite caught on yet in China as they have done in Taiwan and Japan. According to the survey from Ma Lihua et al. (2020) resistance is strong. In a declaration from China Hotel Association, we find out: "Some restaurants in China have provided individual meals and public chopsticks and spoons for decades, but not everyone chooses to use them due to traditional eating habits". According to the Global Times, "if they eat with close friends and relatives, they would feel too embarrassed to use serving chopsticks as it seems like they dislike sharing with others, which often makes people uncomfortable" (Li Lei, Zhang Hu, Global Times 2020). The New York Times adds: "Many see sharing food with one's own chopsticks as among the most authentic expressions of China's communal culture and emphasis on family, no less integral than hugging is to Americans or the cheek kiss is to the French". The “dining table revolution”, through the lens of newspapers, is going to be an uphill battle

Analytical study of China's slowdown and its implication on India

China has experienced tragic economic growth in last three decade, and became fastest growing economies of the world and today the second largest economy after taking over Germany and Japan. China’s GDP in last three decade has shown increasing trend in double digit averaging near 10%, however recently the China’s fourth quarter GDP came to 6.9 percent in 2015 from 7.3 percent in 2014 which is slowest in last 25 years, initially everyone thought it is temporary bubble but in January 2016 GDP reported 6.8 % and IMF forecast it will reduce further moreover stock market crash not only of Shanghai, and Shenzhen but the shares listed in Hon Kong and US of China also declined, China currency declined by 4.4% against dollar, due to such reason it has become matter of concern for the world.The global economic crises in 2008 greatly affected China’s economy as the GDP growth slowed, FDI declined, Export reduced after that year, but the Chinese government responded by implementing a $586 billion economic stimulus package and loosening monetary policies to increase bank lending. Such policies enabled China to effectively cushion the effects of the sharp global fall in demand for Chinese products. However, the Chinese economy has slowed in recent years and projected to be slowdown, The ability of China to maintain a rapidly growing economy in the long run will likely depend largely on the ability of the Chinese government to implement comprehensive economic reforms that more quickly hasten China’s transition to a free market economy, rebalance the Chinese economy by making consumer demand, rather than exporting and fixed investment, boosting  productivity and innovation, addressing  growing income disparities, and enhance environmental protection,  as per China official GDP slowdown was expected as China is transiting from manufacturing to service sector and trying to built steadier, stronger economy.India with demographic dividend and Purchasing power, and large market can be seen as alternate for China by the world, India can’t replace China as in comparison China is three fold ahead of India Infrastructure wise, in terms of investment, Foreign exchange reserves and FDI, as per economist the picture may change in long term if India planned and strategically implement policies.The present paper is an attempt to study the reasons of slowdown of China, historical review of economic growth of China, and how slowdown of China can impact India, the data for the study is limited as the slowdown is recently reported but still the researched has attempted to tap as much data as possible from secondary sources. Â

Capital Inflows and House Prices: Aggregate and Regional Evidence from China

Rising house prices in China have been of concern for investors and policymakers. Prices have risen substantially in the last decade, especially in large urban cities, and some economists have expressed concerns about the affordability of residential housing for young adults. This phenomenon becomes a major concern for policymakers, in terms of managing policies to balance the residential needs of individuals and the transition to a market economy. Theoretically, house prices ought to be linked to economic factors such as disposable income, availability of land to build and credit policy. However, it appears that traditional economic theories fail to appropriately explain house prices in China. We provide an explanation from the perspective of capital inflows into China. In terms of per capita remittances, China receives the highest inflow of foreign capital, and this may have a significant impact on risk adjusted returns in the Chinese market. To investigate this relationship, we use the vector error correction model to assess the impact of capital inflows on house prices. We find that capital inflows have a significant positive effect on house prices. The study makes important contributions to understanding the relationship between house prices and foreign remittances after controlling for other economic factors. China is a large economy. Because the impact of economic development in China has not been consistent across the country, we address the regional differences in the house price changes to capital inflows. Using regional data, we show that capital inflows have an asymmetric effect on the housing market across different provinces and cities of China. This has important implications for the development of economic policies in China that aim to provide fair access to residential housing for everyone. These findings are also relevant to investors in the housing market, whether investing for a personal residential home or as part of their diversified investment portfolio. It will also be informative to see how a reversal of capital inflows associated with tighter financing conditions in advanced countries will affect house prices in China.No Full Tex

Coming Distraction: Factory Girls

As faithful readers may recall, China Beat contributor Leslie T. Chang has a forthcoming book, Factory Girls: From Village to City in Changing China, which will be released October 7. The book has received positive reviews, such as this one at Publisher’s Weekly and this one from China Beat’s Jeff Wasserstrom writing in Newsweek. You can read the first chapter for the book as a preview at Amazon, but we wanted to share a short excerpt, from Chapter 4, with you as well. In this excerpt, Chang describes how a mobile phone is not just a desirable accessory for migrant workers, but a necessity: From Factory Girls: From Village to City in Changing China By Leslie T. Chang Small factories had their own problems, and Min soon discovered what they were. The workplace was disorganized, and her own responsibilities were never made clear; she scrambled to keep up with all the tasks thrown her way. Her new boss, like her old one, was insecure and status-conscious. Min was learning that many Chinese men had this flaw. He didn’t like it that Min did not get his approval for everything she did. He didn’t like it that she was friendly with the security guards. His response was to begin interviewing candidates for her position—a colleague, rival, or replacement for Min— without telling her. She heard about it from the office receptionist. In August 2004, two months after she arrived, Min collected her pay and left without telling anyone. A former colleague had joined a factory in Shenzhen and invited her to go work for him, and she decided to go. She spent the night in a hotel near her factory; while she slept, someone broke the lock on her door. The thief took nine hundred yuan and Min’s mobile phone, the only place where she had stored the numbers of everyone she knew in the city: the excolleague who was her only link to her new job, the friends she had made since going out, and the boyfriend who had gone home

Africa and China Relation: The Basis of a Genuine Cooperation: An Interview with Prof. Dr. Lou Shizhou on a Possible Veritable Cooperation Between Africa and China

Interviewee: Lou Shizhou (楼世洲) Professor, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU), China. Director of the Centre of African Education Studies at ZJNU, National Education Professional Degree Teaching Steering Committee, Ph.D. Candidates Supervisor. Professor Lou Shizhou is a former Vice President of Zhejiang Normal University. His main research fields include Education policy, Education History, Education in Africa. Interviewer: Jean Gonondo Ph.D. Candidate, Zhejiang Normal University, China. Keywords: Africa, China, Cooperation ideology. Precision: [This interview took place on January 11th, 2018 at Zhejiang Normal University, China.] Jean Gonondo: Professor, you have been in many countries not only in Africa, but also all over the world. Please, can you give us your opinion about the current international relations? Lou Shizhou: Westerners are talking about an “Order” now, they are saying everyone should abide by this “Order”, but the question is, who benefits the most from this “Order” in the trading system? The more developed the country is, the more favourable it is to benefit from it. Then in such a trading system, the rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor. This is what the West wants. Jean Gonondo: Many developing countries know about this “Order” being established by the Westerners, and as such try to seek for solutions. China is one of these countries looking for the solutions to balance the international relations. What is China’s contribution to the global international relations? What is China’s ideology of cooperation? Lou Shizhou: Now the developing countries with China at the top, have to break this “Order”. This “Order” of the world cannot be the same, and shouldn’t continue being like this. The entrance of China into the “Dance Hall” brings a new way of considering people and is contributing to reducing the huge disparities in the trade world. China wishes that there shouldn’t be gaps between the rich countries and poor countries, we need to cooperate in a fair way, being all equal. Jean Gonondo: All equal? Of course, this is our strong desire and hope, but how can we reach such a huge goal and mission? On what do we rely on to promote equality? Lou Shizhou: What does China rely on to face developed countries? ——The market. For example, if powerful countries have a phone and they want to sell it, selling it to other countries will be faced by a smaller market, thereby reducing their profits. But, China has almost 1.4 billion people and the market is very huge. If powerful countries wish, they can sell their products to China, but they have to decrypt and decode the secret of production and then come to China to produce. If they do not decrypt and decode the secret of production, then we reject their products and won’t buy from them. I remember when Japanese wanted to sell us televisions, we asked them to come here to produce these televisions. Although they demanded a high price, we accepted to pay, because it did not only provide employment opportunities for the local population, but we also learned the techniques of production from them. Jean Gonondo: How about African countries? Lou Shizhou: What does Africa depend on? In addition to the labour force and youth, Africa has a lot of resources. Africa should set conditions to those who want its resources. For instance, Africa could say you need my resources, okay, but I'm not selling the resources to you, I'm going to transform them into finished products and sell them to you. In the past, Nigeria had a situation whereby the State sold oil and crude oil to the Westerners, and the Westerners transformed it into petrol and diesel and then sold it back to Nigerians. In such a situation, who is gaining the highest profits? It is the Westerners. African countries should set conditions for countries that need their resources; and one of these conditions should be that the resources must be refined in Africa, to ensure Africans’ own common interest. In this way, African countries will have a part of the right to manufacture, increase employment and learn the techniques of production. After a while, Africans would be able to transform their resources themselves and then sell the finished products to other countries. Another way to face the powerful countries is that African countries must unite. Because if Africa is not united, each country's individual power is too small to have a say in the larger market. But if East, West, Central, North and South African countries join together as a real integrated community, their power will be very significant to face the powerful countries and their conditions. Another big challenge in Africa are the problems of infrastructure, transportation, communication and resource protection. If these problems are solved, there will be hope for Africa's Renaissance. If you have no good transportation conditions, how can you develop? You cannot melt into the world's big system. Now in China, there are high-speed trains everywhere, transportation is becoming very convenient and the  economy is also growing up, the process of urbanization is developing so as the level of education is increasing. Jean Gonondo: Professor Lou, you are saying that African countries must unite, and give orientation to their cooperation; you have been to some African countries like Senegal, Kenya etc. Please can you tell us the impression you have about African leaders? Lou Shizhou: When I go to Africa, I feel that many African politicians have very good, broad and new political concepts to develop their country. They have some very good ideas, which have been taken or learned from the West. But they don’t think about how to link and combine these “good ideas” with their own national realities, how to concretize and implement these ideas to the benefit of the local population. Therefore, as soon as they become leaders, the first thing they think about is to look for means to fill their own pockets, and then choose some group of people to occupy some key government positions. The “new-comers” start to criticize and scold the former occupants of the office, while the issues which they themselves criticize for still remain unresolved. I think that is the lack of a deep national attachment power. Where can these needed strength come from? The strength relies on the youth, the young educated people. Young educated people can find more opportunities and conditions to produce more results. Jean Gonondo: Some time ago China was also poor like many African countries, but today China stands as a model not only for African countries, but also for Western developed countries. Do you think that African countries could positively surprise the world in the future? Lou Shizhou: China's 40 years of reform, opening-up and development are very good and significant experiences for African countries. 40 years ago, China was very poor. But we have chosen the right direction and worked very hard to reach our goal. I think African countries have to choose the right direction and they will be able to come up after 40 years, 30 years or even less. They must not be fooled by the so-called "Order" and "Democracy". Whose democracy? Who are the beneficiaries of that democracy? Someone gives you some money to vote for him, or encourages you to go to the streets to protest, is that democracy? In fact, that is not democracy. True democracy comes from the will of the individuals. In the United States, if you give someone some money to go to the street to protest, he won’t accept it, because he has his own income, but in Africa it is not the same case. Why? Because most of them have low incomes. National interests should be the interests of everyone. Jean Gonondo: What legal form of state would you recommend to African countries? Lou Shizhou: Sometimes, centralization is not compulsively a bad thing and decentralization is not necessarily a good thing. I think in Africa, during this special stage in their development, a certain level of centralization is still needed. Having a national consensus is inevitable, all the decisions should be taken to propel the economic development of the country for the prosperity of all. We shouldn’t be blinded by the so-called “democracy”. If China had not controlled the so-called “Democratic wave” movement when it appeared in 1989, there would have been a national unrest and trouble, till now; then people with the financial position would have used this chaotic period to take advantage of properties, and implement privatization. And we know that privatization does not produce wealth and advantage for all, but only for a few people. To a favorable extent, state-owned properties create a lot of advantages for everyone. To be considered as a valuable system, democracy must live in every citizen's heart and become a kind of intrinsic value. If it doesn’t come from our heart, if the State cannot control, if people do not have a “deep national thought” from the bottom of their heart, and if life is not improved, then that kind of democratic system will only appear like a mirage, because it is like a smoke shown to people. “Democracy” is used by some people just as an illusion. And a small group of people exploit this opportunity to reap the benefits for themselves. Jean Gonondo: Then, why is democracy possible in the West? Lou Shizhou: It is possible in the West because they have a deep culture, history and tradition with that system, but we don't have it. If we want to bring it and use it in our country, we must be well-informed to a certain level. Now, we are talking about ruling the country based on law and democracy, but we are not giving the real example to our people. Democracy is possible only when it emerges consciously. But when the people do not have this consciousness, or do not know what democracy is used for, some group of people will just use it as a tool for their own benefits, and in this case it is more frightening. China had also faced this period of blindness and ignorance. That was during the Cultural Revolution, there was no rational heart. But today it's totally different. So we shouldn’t only base our judgment on talking, but more on doing. This is very important. Jean Gonondo: Professor, you did a lot of researches on educational policy, history of education and especially education in Africa. Not forgetting that you are the Director of the Centre for African Education Studies at Zhejiang Normal University. What do you think about Education in Africa? Lou Shizhou: When I went to Africa, I observed three things: Firstly, the higher education system was built on the basis of the old system with an elite service. In some African countries, the university is free of charge: free tuition and they offer scholarships. It is very good to offer privileges to university students, but the system has a disadvantage. The State's financial resources cannot be expanded, higher education cannot be expanded too. In order to expand the higher education institutions, they rely only on the establishment of private universities. And we know that private universities are very expensive and only wealthy families can afford to enrol their children there, but financially poor people can't. So, there is a dilemma. China abolished free university system and welfare system in 1985. I graduated in 1982, and at that period I enjoyed not only free tuition but also living expenses. But from 1985, the government began to cancel these privileges, and everyone had to pay his own tuition. From the individual perspectives, paying tuition fees could be certainly challenging, but from the perspectives of the whole country it is beneficial. The state can use the money derived from payment of tuition fees to expand the scale of higher education. Thus, many people could receive higher education. I think, higher education reforms must begin with tuition fees reform. But now, many African governments are afraid to implement such reforms, because students could maybe march on the streets to protest. I saw it in some African countries. Students went to the streets to express objection and disapproval, a few days later, teachers also went on strike claiming that their treatment is not fair and so on, but the fact is that the government has no money. Secondly, another problem is that many universities do not have the professional design of the local service concept and goals. So, many students from higher education institutions can’t find jobs after graduation, and then they become unemployed, and socially undesirable. Thirdly, African countries should develop technical and vocational education as large as possible to learn skills and techniques. The government should aim at importing as few as possible products, and build as many factories as possible, then employ graduates from these technical and vocational institutions. This will solve a lot of problems. It will also increase the processing capacity of the local resources by using new technologies, rather than relying entirely on crude labour. African countries should strictly prohibit digging and sale of resources and raw materials. Resources must be transformed into finished products before being exported. Raw materials should be processed in Africa and local labours should be employed. By so doing, African countries will conserve resources on one hand, and increase employment on the other. For the Renaissance of African countries, the expansion of technical and vocational education, the popularization of higher education and the universalization of basic education are crucial