China’s ethnic policies: political dimension and challenges

Dramatic developments in Tibet and Xinjiang since 2008 have highlighted the challenges to China’s ethnic policies. The pillar of China’s ethnic policies is regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. Ethnic areas enjoy limited administrative autonomy and have witnessed faster economic growth than the country as a whole. However, China still adheres to a “unitary multiethnic state” and has responded firmly to recent riots in Tibet and violence in Xinjiang

China's oil diplomacy: is it a global security threat?

China is now the world's second largest oil consuming nation. China's external quest for oil has thus generated much attention and is believed by many to destabilise the world order. This article attempts to provide an overview of China's external initiatives for satisfying domestic oil demands and to examine the implications of China's oil diplomacy on regional and global political stability. The article suggests that China has taken three steps to satisfy its growing domestic demand for oil—expanding overseas oil supplies from the Middle East, diversifying its importing sources by reaching out to Africa, Russia, Central Asia and the Americas, and securing oil transport routes. This article argues that China's oil diplomacy strengthens its ties with oil-producing nations and complicates those with oil-importing nations. Nevertheless, contrary to pessimistic predictions, China's oil diplomacy has neither upset the USA's fundamental policies towards Iraq and Iran, nor has it generated armed clashes in the South China Sea. China has largely accommodated the USA in these areas and has forged joint efforts in energy exploration with its Asian neighbours, except for Japan. China's benign oil diplomacy can be explained by the minor role of oil imports in its energy consumption and, more importantly, by China's peaceful-rise strategy

China’s ethnic policies: political dimension and challenges

Dramatic developments in Tibet and Xinjiang since 2008 have highlighted the challenges to China’s ethnic policies. The pillar of China’s ethnic policies is regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. Ethnic areas enjoy limited administrative autonomy and have witnessed faster economic growth than the country as a whole. However, China still adheres to a “unitary multiethnic state” and has responded firmly to recent riots in Tibet and violence in Xinjiang

Uneven opening of China's society, economy, and politics: pro-growth authoritarian governance and protests in China

This article evaluates China's model of development, especially its main component, i.e. its model of governance. It suggests that China's model of development is marked by an imbalance between fast opening of the economy and the society and sluggish opening of the political system. The Chinese society has become much more open, reflected in the Chinese growing awareness of their legal rights. The Chinese economy has become highly internationalized and open, but much of Chinese politics is closed. China's governance is marked by pro-growth authoritarianism. The Chinese state is effective in opening up the economy, promoting reform, and generating economic growth, but offers weak protection of people's rights and ineffectual mitigation of social grievances. These imbalances help produce social protests. Viable solutions are discussed

Soft Power Determinants in the World and Implications for China

Statistical tests are here conducted on two explanations of soft power. One is Joseph Nye's argument that political values, foreign policy and cultural appeals shape soft power, and the other is the positive peace argument which suggests a significant influence of the Global Peace Index (GPI) on soft power.Two measures of soft power are employed – the favourability of major powers in global public opinion polls and the Soft Power 30 Index. The latter gauges the magnitude of soft power. When the former measure, which  indicates the positiveness of soft power, is adopted the three soft power resources provide less explanatory power than per capita GDP and especially the GPI. When the Soft Power 30 Index is used, only foreign policy independent of the United States contributes positively to soft power. The GPI and non-soft power-relatedcultural exports (NSPCE) then take on a negative role because a number of nations in the index achieve very high rankings with a relatively poor GPI or small NSPCE. As far as China is concerned, its ranking in 2018 in the Soft Power 30 Index declined due to impressive improvement among other ranked nations and global public scepticism towards its foreign policy and its cultural exports

Domestic bureaucratic politics and Chinese foreign policy

One of the outstanding features of China’s domestic politics is the prominence of the bureaucracy in the policy-making process. Arguably, bureaucracy is the next major player in the policy-making process in China after the top leaders. In this article, the three following aspects of the role of bureaucracy in the Chinese foreign policy-making process are examined: (1) the structure of the bureaucracy, especially the main agencies of the bureaucracy involved in foreign policy making; (2) the respective responsibilities of these agencies and their roles in the process; and (3) inter-agency coordination including the resolution of conflict among them. It observes that while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plays a key role in the process, other ministries and bureaucratic agencies have significant and even growing input in an increasing number of functional areas, such as trade, finance, economy, climate change, soft power and military affairs. In addition, coordination among these agencies has become a key in the policy-making process

The Rationale and Effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Reducing Vulnerabilities in Domestic Political Economy

The existing literature suggests that China launched the belt and road initiative (BRI) in order to stimulate economic growth through infrastructural investment abroad, foster closer economic ties with Eurasia, and counter the US pivot to Asia. In this article, the BRI is interpreted in a deeper context through an analysis of its role in sustaining the economic and political regime in China and in reducing vulnerabilities in domestic political economy. These vulnerabilities include surplus industrial capacity, heavy reliance on energy imports, and under-development of the western region. Post-2012 data suggest that the BRI has partially instead of fully enabled China to ease surplus industrial capacity, secure energy importing routes (especially imports through pipelines), and enhance the economic profile of China's western region

The evolution of China's climate change policy: international and domestic political economy and a strategy for working with China

For over a decade China has been the predominant carbon emitter in the global economy. It is thus imperative for us to understand the factors behind its climate change policy in the past decades. In the article, the author surveys the evolution of China's climate change policy during 1990-2021 and applies theories from international relations and international political economy to explain it. It is found that (neo-)realism/nationalism and liberalism, two main theories in the field, offer only a partial explanation of China's climate policy. The most effective theory is domestic sources. In particular, leadership power consolidation and a concern with economic growth seem to dictate China's climate policy. The findings point to the analytical utility of domestic political economy in accounting for climate stances of nation-states. Policy suggestions for external parties to interact with China on climate change are proposed

China’s governance model: flexibility and durability of pragmatic authoritarianism

Many studies of government in China either simply describe the political institutions or else focus, critically, on the weaknesses of the system, such as corruption or the absence of Western-style democracy. Authors of these studies fail to appreciate the surprising ability of China’s government to rapidly transform a once impoverished economy and to recover from numerous crises from 1978 to the present. This book, on the other hand, takes a more balanced, more positive view. This view is based on a study of changes in China’s institutions for coping with critical crises in governance since 1978. These changes include better management of leadership succession, better crisis management, improved social welfare, the management of society through treating different social groups differently depending on their potential to rival the Party state, and a variety of limited, intra-party and grassroots democracy. This book applies to the Chinese model the term “pragmatic authoritarianism.” It explains changes to and the likely future direction of China’s governance model. It compares current risks in China’s governance with threats that terminated dynasties and the republic in China over the past four thousand years and concludes that the regime can be expected to survive a considerable period despite its existing flaws

The Religious Revival in China

Since 1979, China has experienced a widespread revival of religious faith and practice. This article aims to provide an overview of this phenomenon, by examining the causes behind it, the variety and popularity of religions and the different profi les of believers. It suggests that China's religions are diverse, encompassing offi cial, unoffi cial, and folk religions, and that the revival is signifi cant and visible. According to official statistics, the five largest religions in 2003 counted 144 million believers, while the non-offi cial sources give the figure as nearer 200 million. The revival has been fuelled by a number of factors: the state's lifting of the ban to freedom of worship; popular disillusion with the official ideology; economic and social uncertainties in the wake of economic reforms and modernization; and the enduring resilience of religion and tradition. For ethnic minorities like Uighurs and Tibetans, the revival of their religion has been accompanied by a similar cultural renaissance. Buddhists and Daoists among the Han in Hubei Province come from a wide range of educational backgrounds and professions, although the majority of them are women or were born before 1956. The Han Buddhists and Daoists turn to religion primarily for practical reasons, that is, to gain some advantage in their earthly lives rather than looking for rewards in the afterlife. For this reason, religious fundamentalism may have limited appeal to the Han Chinese