Sino-Central Asian heritage cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative: drivers, agents, and issues

The article reviews the argument that China’s civil society is less effective in generating soft power than states where civil society operates freely. Over the years, China has become aware of the centrality of civil society in diplomacy and devised cooperative frameworks to increase its attractiveness based on its unique understanding of the concept as an attainable policy outcome. The article contributes to this literature by exploring how the country conducts activities under the framework of people-to-people diplomacy, a priority of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The study presents a case study analysis of China’s people-to-people exchanges with Central Asia in the heritage sector. This article presents some preliminary empirical evidence on how Chinese civil society operates to maximise the chances of representing China positively to Central Asian audiences. The study also argues for two principles to underlie efforts in heritage cooperation - i.e. shared identity and reliance on one-sided interpretations of shared historical experiences

Post-Pandemic Asia

illustratorIn 2020, the way we define “insecurity” has drastically changed. Insecurity can now also be invisible and all around us, in the shape of a virus that disrupts people’s lives, upends the economy, subverts the core functions of national governments and jeopardises the foundations of international cooperation. At the same time, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has not made traditional security challenges disappear, especially in and around Asia. This Report presents short- and long-term scenarios for each of the hotspots that challenge peace and stability in Asia, a region that, after the pandemic, has become even more crucial for a swift global recovery

Mapping China's Global Future. Playing Ball or Rocking the Boat?

Book on Contemporary Chinese Foreign Policie

Changing images? Italian Twitter discourse on China and the United States during the first wave of COVID-19

Although public diplomacy and its influence on foreign public opinion have been central themes in recent research, the latter often lacks methodological diversity and does not consider how states create competing images. Our study offers a framework for understanding Italian public opinion using a triangulation approach that combines traditional public opinion surveys with advanced text analysis of social media content. We compare the representation of China and the United States in the Italian Twitter community during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis shows that Italians who perceived China as a viable alternative to Western governments in public opinion surveys did so because they distrusted Western leaders and institutions

Self-Othering e Neighbouring: La costituzione dell’Asia centrale nel discorso internazionalistico cinese con la Belt and Road Initiative

Analizzando longitudinalmente il discorso accademico cinese, l'articolo indaga i discorsi attraverso i quali gli studiosi cinesi hanno concettualizzato l'Asia centrale come una regione del mondo dopo il lancio della Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Questo studio considera la BRI come il punto di partenza per un nuovo slancio nelle relazioni della Cina con l'Asia centrale e una congiuntura temporale favorevole per esaminare come la regione sia stata recentemente ricostituita politicamente. Metodologicamente, un corpus di quaranta testi accademici in lingua cinese è stato analizzato attraverso la variante storico-discorso dell'analisi qualitativa del discorso. La ricerca mira a rafforzare l'approccio degli studi critici sulle regioni presentando un caso empirico di ricostituzione ciclica delle regioni. Inoltre, l'articolo propone di riorientare l'agenda della ricerca prendendo in considerazione l'integrazione di approfondimenti sulla produzione di conoscenza nelle relazioni internazionali non occidentali

The Type 2 Ryanodine Receptor of Neurosecretory PC12 Cells Is Activated by Cyclic ADP-ribose ROLE OF THE NITRIC OXIDE/cGMP PATHWAY

Of two neurosecretory PC12 cell clones that respond to NO donors and 8-bromo-cGMP with similar increases in cADP-ribose and that possess molecularly similar Ca2+ stores, only one (clone 16A) expresses the type 2 ryanodine receptor, whereas the other (clone 27) is devoid of ryanodine receptors. In PC12-16A cells, activation of the NO/cGMP pathway induced slow [Ca2+]i responses, sustained by release from Ca2+ stores. In contrast, PC12-27 cells were insensitive to NO donors. Likewise, in PC12-16A cells preincubated with NO donors, Ca2+ stores were partially depleted, as revealed by a test with thapsigargin, whereas those in clone 27 were unchanged. The NO-induced Ca2+ release was increased synergistically by caffeine, and the corresponding store depletion was magnified by ryanodine. The specificity for the NO/cGMP pathway was confirmed by the effects of two blockers of cGMP-dependent protein kinase I, while the role of cADP-ribose was demonstrated by the effects of its antagonist, 8-amino-cADP-ribose, administered to permeabilized cells. These results demonstrate in neurosecretory cells a ryanodine receptor activation pathway similar to that known in sea urchin oocytes. The signaling events described here could be of great physiological importance, especially in the nervous system

Nitric oxide action on growth factor-elicited signals. Phosphoinositide hydrolysis and [Ca2+]i responses are negatively modulated via a cGMP-dependent protein kinase I pathway.

Abstract The role of nitric oxide (NO) in the phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) hydrolysis and intracellular Ca2+ release responses induced by epidermal, platelet-derived, and fibroblast growth factors was investigated in three cell lines, a clone of NIH-3T3 fibroblasts overexpressing epidermal growth factor receptors and the tumoral epithelial cells A431 and KB. In all three cell types, pretreatment with NO donors decreased growth factor-induced PIP2 and Ca2+ responses, whereas pretreatment with NO synthase inhibitors increased them. The Ca2+-dependent PIP2 hydroysis induced by micromolar concentrations of the Ca2+ ionophore, ionomycin, was also modulated negatively and positively by NO donors and synthase inhibitors, respectively. In contrast, the Ca2+ content of the intracellular stores was unaffected by the various pretreatments employed. NO donors and synthase inhibitors induced an increase and decrease, respectively, of the intracellular cGMP formation in all three cell lines investigated. All of the effects of the NO donors were mimicked by 8-bromo-cGMP administration and abolished by pretreatment with the specific blocker of the cGMP-dependent protein kinase I, KT5823, which by itself mimicked the effects of the synthase inhibitors. Together with previous observations on G protein-coupled receptors, the present results demonstrate that PIP2 hydrolysis and Ca2+ release occur under the feedback control of NO, independently of the phospholipase C (β, γ, or δ type) involved and of the mechanism of activation. Such a control, which appears to be effected by the cGMP-dependent protein kinase I acting at the level of the phospholipases C themselves, might ultimately contribute to the inhibitory role of NO on growth previously observed with various cell types

Autocrine Nitric Oxide Modulates CD95-induced Apoptosis in γδ T Lymphocytes

Gammadelta T lymphocytes play an important early role in the defense against pathogens. Their function is terminated by acquisition of susceptibility to CD95-triggered apoptosis. Here we show that the regulation of this process depends on the activity of the endothelial NO synthase expressed by gammadelta T lymphocytes, which is modulated in an activation-dependent way. The effects of nitric oxide thus generated, mediated via cGMP generation, are exerted at at least two sites along the CD95 signaling cascade: one at, or upstream, and the other downstream of ceramide generation. At either site, nitric oxide/cGMP action is sufficient for protection from apoptosis. The effect of NO is selective for apoptosis induced by CD95 cross-linking, since it does not affect apoptotic program triggered by other stimuli. The evidence here reported demonstrates a new physiological role for nitric oxide, acting as a survival factor for T lymphocytes

The nitric oxide-donor molsidomine modulates the innate inflammatory response in a mouse model of muscular dystrophy

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