Non-Combat Operations of China\u27s Armed Forces in the 21st Century : Historical Development, Current Drivers and Implications for Military Projection

This thesis examines the twenty-first century non-combat activities of China\u27s armed forces as defined in a 2009 official release titled Building Non-Combat Military Operation Ability in order to understand the historical development, domestic drivers and broader implications of China\u27s contemporary non-combat missions. The paper focuses primarily on disaster relief and domestic stability maintenance, two types of operations that are ideal for examining how the internal drivers of non-combat missions are manifested in practice. Both Chinese and Western PLA analysts frequently view non-combat activities primarily as a component of China\u27s growing international military presence rather than analyzing the domestic scope and causes of these operations. Indeed, participation in international non-combat missions allows China\u27s armed forces to achieve unprecedented operational experience outside of China\u27s immediate periphery and has also helped enhance China\u27s international soft power. This thesis, however, demonstrates that People\u27s Liberation Army (PLA) and People\u27s Armed Police (PAP) twenty-first century non-combat missions are chiefly designed to achieve domestic goals. These include maintaining regime stability, balancing complex civil-military relations, and preserving the PLA\u27s image as an army serving the people amid complex internal and external national security environments. I argue that an outward-looking approach focused on the international ramifications of PLA and PAP non-combat operations is insufficient to fully understand these missions, and it can potentially distort our view of China\u27s broader military development. As vital conduits for bolstering CCP regime stability, Chinese civil-military relations and the PLA\u27s image as a people-centric force, China\u27s twenty-first century domestic non-combat operations, driven by internal security challenges arising from socioeconomic, military and historical developments in post-reform China, will likely continue to grow in importance and scope as these trends persist and intensify, thereby ensuring that the military retains a prominent role in China. As a result, twenty-first century non-combat operations have the potential to impede outward Chinese military development rather than simply expand Chinese interests abroad as more resources are needed to pursue internal security objectives

Future-proofing the state: managing risks, responding to crises and building resilience

Summary: This book focuses on the challenges facing governments and communities in preparing for and responding to major crises — especially the hard to predict yet unavoidable natural disasters ranging from earthquakes and tsunamis to floods and bushfires, as well as pandemics and global economic crises. Future-proofing the state and our societies involves decision-makers developing capacities to learn from recent ‘disaster’ experiences in order to be better placed to anticipate and prepare for foreseeable challenges. To undertake such futureproofing means taking long-term (and often recurring) problems seriously, managing risks appropriately, investing in preparedness, prevention and mitigation, reducing future vulnerability, building resilience in communities and institutions, and cultivating astute leadership. In the past we have often heard calls for ‘better future-proofing’ in the aftermath of disasters, but then neglected the imperatives of the message. Future-Proofing the State is organised around four key themes: how can we better predict and manage the future; how can we transform the short-term thinking shaped by our political cycles into more effective long-term planning; how can we build learning into our preparations for future policies and management; and how can we successfully build trust and community resilience to meet future challenges more adequately

Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters

The pressure of climate change, environmental degradation, and urbanisation, as well as the widening of socio- economic disparities have rendered the global population increasingly vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. With a primary focus on medical and public health humanitarian response to disasters, Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters provides a timely critical analysis of public health responses to natural disasters. Using a number of case studies and examples of innovative disaster response measures developed by international agencies and stakeholders, this book illustrates how theoretical understanding of public health issues can be practically applied in the context of humanitarian relief response. Starting with an introduction to public health principles within the context of medical and public health disaster and humanitarian response, the book goes on to explore key trends, threats and challenges in contemporary disaster medical response. This book provides a comprehensive overview of an emergent discipline and offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective across a range of relevant topics including the concepts of disaster preparedness and resilience, and key challenges in human health needs for the twenty-first century. This book will be of interest to students of public health, disaster and emergency medicine and development studies, as well as to development and medical practitioners working within NGOs, development agencies, health authorities and public administration

THE IDEA MODEL: DESIGNING EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING MESSAGES USING INSTRUCTIONAL RISK COMMUNICATION

The goal of risk communication is to inform people about the risks they face and to encourage them to take appropriate action in response to that threat. To achieve this goal, risk communication scholars continuously examine the messages surrounding crises and disasters, and engage in message-testing to evaluate theory-driven message designs. Recent communication scholarship recommends that messages should including instructing information (Coombs, 2012), and should take into consideration established pedagogy based on instructional communication research (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2010). This dissertation continues to build on research which applies instructional communication scholarship to risk communication messaging. Using message-testing, this dissertation examined the utility of the IDEA model a message design for earthquake early warnings

Approaches to Disaster Management

Approaches to Disaster Management regards critical disaster management issues. Ten original research reports by international scholars centered on disaster management are organized into three general areas of hazards and disaster management. The first section includes discussions of perspectives on vulnerability and on evolving approaches to mitigation. The second section highlights approaches to improve data use and information management in several distinct applications intended to promote prediction and communication of hazard. The third section regards the management of crises and post-event recovery in the private sector, in the design of urban space and among the victims of disaster. This volume contributes both conceptual and practical commentary to the disaster management literature

Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Toward Social-Scientific Literacy and Engineering Resilience

Nuclear Engineering; Environmental Science and Engineering; Social Sciences, genera

Decision Science for Future Earth

This open access book provides a theoretical framework and case studies on decision science for regional sustainability by integrating the natural and social sciences. The cases discussed include solution-oriented transdisciplinary studies on the environment, disasters, health, governance and human cooperation. Based on these case studies and comprehensive reviews of relevant works, including lessons learned from past failures for predictable surprises and successes in adaptive co-management, the book provides the reader with new perspectives on how we can co-design collaborative projects with various conflicts of interest and how we can transform our society for a sustainable future. The book makes a valuable contribution to the global research initiative Future Earth, promoting transdisciplinary studies to bridge the gap between science and society in knowledge generation processes and supporting efforts to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Compared to other publications on transdisciplinary studies, this book is unique in that evolutionary biology is used as an integrator for various areas related to human decision-making, and approaches social changes as processes of adaptive learning and evolution. Given its scope, the book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an integrated overview of human decision-making in the context of social transformation

A review on mechanism of flood disaster management in Asia

This paper attempts to analyze the review on mechanism of flood disaster management in Asia. Flood is among st the most common of natural disasters and its impact is one of the most significant disasters in the world. In this paper, we have discussed the flood disaster management some selected countries in Asia such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Japan and China.For these countries, we tried to explore the flood disaster risk, pre- and post-disaster program and participants, emergency response and recovery, flood mitigation and management, relief and preparedness machinery, flood forecasting and warning system, policy, planning as well as strategic etc.This paper can make for the above countries disaster management system better respond and handle to disasters risk, and reduce the social and economic losses of disasters caused.It also required to improve data availability and evaluation, and possibly to combine with other types of information in view of increasing usefulness for policy making