China and International Relations

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-302
Author(s):  
Michael B. Yahuda

These last ten years have witnessed a remarkable development of Chinese academic writing on International Relations. The late Premier Zhou Enlai had recommended the expansion of such studies in 1964 on his return from a tour of Africa after having found the relevant Chinese expertise weak and ill-informed. But the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 not only prevented that development, but along with most other intellectuals those few scholars engaged in the subject were humiliated and persecuted. Since 1977, in common with the other social sciences, International Relations has begun to flourish. Although it is a fairly new independent subject of study more than five hundred scholars are engaged in a variety of research institutes and several universities offer courses in it. As in the other social sciences, research in International Relations is carried out under the general guidelines of serving China's long term policies of modernization and the open door.

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-80
Author(s):  
Wolfgang S. Heinz

Abstract: This article approaches the matter of institutional reform of the United Nations Human Rights Council from an international relations perspective. A well-known tension exists between State representatives acting for their governments in international organisations, but whose decisions are presented as UN policies. The latter should be guided primarily by the UN Charter and public international law. However, in reality, different worldviews and foreign policy considerations play a more significant role. In a comprehensive stock-take, the article looks at four major dimensions of the Council, starting with structure and dynamics and major trends, followed by its country and thematic activities, and the role of key actors. Council reform proposals from both States and civil society are explored. Whilst the intergovernmental body remains the most important authority responsible for the protection of human rights in the international sphere, it has also been the subject of considerable criticism. Although it has made considerable progress towards enlarging its coverage and taking on more challenging human rights crises, among some of its major weaknesses are the election of human rights-unfriendly countries into its ranks, the failure to apply stronger sanctions on large, politically influential countries in the South and North, and lack of influence on human rights crises and chronic human rights problems in certain countries. Whilst various reform proposals have emerged from States and NGOs, other more far reaching propositions are under sometimes difficult negotiations. In the mid- to long-term, the UN human rights machinery can only have a stronger and more lasting impact if support from national/local actors and coalitions in politics and society can be strengthened.


Author(s):  
Roman Malek

Jesus Christ has been the subject of manifold and intensive reflection in the Chinese context and has shown various faces. The essay surveys the innumerable works of biblical, apologetical, catechetical, liturgical, general theological, literary, and art-historical nature on Jesus Christ covering the periods from Tang and Yuan dynasties (seventh–ninth centuries and twelfth–fourteenth centuries) to the “Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976). The essay observes how various Chinese portraits of Jesus Christ engage with Chinese religions, and how the Chinese context limited the possibilities for the unfolding of a specific face and image of Jesus much more than other Asian and Western contexts. It raises the question of the future: Which faces and images of Jesus Christ will the Chinese context still generate? In this vast part of Asia, will he remain a vox clamantis in deserto?


1969 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merle Goldman

From its inception until at least the Cultural Revolution, the Communist regime in China has had a twofold aim for its intellectuals: it has sought to indoctrinate them with the exclusive ideologies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and it has tried to utilize their skills to develop an industrialized and modernized society. The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to implement these two policies by an insistence on the strict orthodoxy of thinking individuals, on the one hand, and by the encouragement of intellectuals to work creatively at their jobs on the other. This contradictory approach has resulted in a policy toward the intellectuals that has been alternatively severe and relaxed. Though the main trend is usually in one direction or the other, there have always been counter-currents present which can be revived when necessary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-329
Author(s):  
Renan Holanda Montenegro

Nos últimos anos, houve uma proliferação de livros e artigos sobre aspectos diversos da atuação internacional da China, como relações comerciais, investimentos, participação em novos fóruns multilaterais, questões de defesa, etc. Por outro lado, existe uma relativa ausência de textos introdutórios resumidos sobre a política externa do país, principalmente em língua portuguesa. O presente trabalho busca preencher essa lacuna por meio de uma análise de três aspectos centrais para se compreender a China na contemporaneidade sob lentes macro: 1) a existência de uma grande estratégia; 2) o desenho administrativo interno e os principais atores de política externa; e 3) os instrumentos à disposição para se perseguir os objetivos internacionais do país. Estudantes de graduação de Relações Internacionais – e de Ciências Sociais em geral – em estágio inicial de contato com temas sobre a China são o público-alvo, além de outros possíveis interessados no assunto.     Abstract: Over the last years there has been a proliferation of books and articles on various aspects of China's international performance, such as trade relations, investment, participation in new multilateral arenas, defense issues, etc. On the other hand, there is a relative lack of summary introductory texts on the country's foreign policy, mainly in Portuguese. This paper seeks to fill this gap by analyzing three central aspects to understand China in the contemporary world under macro lens: 1) the existence of a great strategy; 2) the internal administrative division and the main foreign policy actors; and 3) the instruments available to pursue the country's international objectives. International Relations undergraduate students – and those of Social Sciences in general – in the initial stage of contact with topics related to China are the target audience, in addition to other people interested in the subject. Keywords: China. State and Government. Foreign Policy. International Relations.     Recebido em: maio/2019. Aprovado em: agosto/2019.  


1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh L. Unger

The article attempts to explicate the meaning of “Sovietology.” It traces the origins of the term and discusses the uses to which it has been put in the scholarly literature. Two different meanings have been attached to the term. One reflects the understanding of Sovietology as the study of Soviet politics; the other views it as a “basket” of several, variously specified, disciplines in the social sciences and—less often—the humanities, distinguished by a common area orientation. The resultant ambiguity has blurred Sovietology's disciplinary identity. Now that the record of Western scholarship on the Soviet Union has become the subject of critical scrutiny and debate, it is especially important that the meaning of “Sovietology” be clearly stipulated.


1987 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 450-465
Author(s):  
Jerome Ch'En

In Hong Kong during 1966 and 1967 I had spent the first part of my sabbatical leave reading on subjects completely unrelated to the Chinese Communist movement, while on the other side of the border the Cultural Revolution was raging with increasing intensity and threatening to spill over into the Crown Colony.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Owen Clark

In an essay entirely devoted to the subject of dance in Alain Badiou's Handbook of Inaesthetics [Petit manuel d'inesthétique (Badiou 2005b)], we find the following contentious statement: “Dance is not an art, because it is the sign of the possibility of art as inscribed in the body” (69). At first glance, this statement seems strangely familiar to the reader versed in writing about dance, particularly philosophical writing. “Dance is not an art”: Badiou critiques Mallarmé as not realizing this as the true import of his ideas. It is familiar because it attests to a certain problem in aesthetic thinking, one that relates to the placement and position of dance and the works that comprise its history into what can be seen as certain evaluative hierarchies, particularly vis à vis the relation of dance to other art forms, and in particular, those involving speech and writing. Dance seems to suffer from a certain marginalization, subtraction, or exclusion, and its practice seems to occupy a place of the perennial exception, problem, or special case. The strangeness of the statement, on the other hand, relates to the widespread view outside of academic writing that the status of dance “as art” is actually completely unproblematic. What follows therefore is a critical commentary on this assertion of Badiou, placed both in the context of Badiou's writing, and in the wider one pertaining to the problem of exclusion just outlined.


1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sneath

A number of papers have been written in the west on the subject of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia. Hyer and Heaton's (1968) account of the period in the China Quarterly deals with events up until 1968, and relies heavily upon an analysis of the news reports broadcast by Radio Inner Mongolia at that time. The paper focuses upon the fate of Ulanhu, the Chairman of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region who fell from power during the Cultural Revolution. Hyer and Heaton are concerned primarily with the power struggles within the political apparatus, and they include no first-hand or eyewitness accounts. The paper gives no indication of the effects of the Cultural Revolution upon the great bulk of the population of the I.M.A.R., either Mongolian or Han Chinese. However, the article does carefully document the rapidly changing tide of Inner Mongolian government policy and the emergence of populist groups which challenged the political establishment, over the period 1965 to 1968.


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