Zbigniew Brzeziński a John Mearsheimer — dwie wizje rozwoju stosunków chińsko-amerykańskich

The analysis aims to show the differences in the approach to the growth of communist China as perceived by Zbigniew Brzeziński and John Mearsheimer. It shows that the distinctly different attitudes of these thinkers to China’s growth at the beginning of the 21st century were getting closer over time. It happened as a result of the evolving position of Brzeziński, who gradually realized the danger America’s consent and aid in China’s enormous economic leap poses to the United States. That is why, towards the end of his life, Brzeziński began to write about the necessity to include Russia in the political body of the West, on the condition, however, that Vladimir Putin, whose authoritarian rule aims to recreate the fascist experiment in Italy, is removed from power.

The time–space tactics of Chinese Buddhist and Taoist believers under state–religion tension

This study explores the experience of elderly rural Buddhist and Taoist believers in communist China where the ruling party has maintained decades-long regulatory control over religion. Based on ethnographic observation and oral histories, the analysis begins with how the actors made sense of and coped in their relationship with the state during the fieldwork period (May–June 2020) when state regulations restricted public religious practice because of COVID-19. The analysis then looks back on how practitioners experienced tightening state ideological control from the early 2010s to before COVID-19; further back at the religious revival during the opening and reform (1980s–2010s); and finally, the Cultural Revolution period (1960s–70s) when strict atheistic measures were imposed. Their narratives reveal the practical logic (habitus) which practitioners used to mediate their resistance against and compromise with the authoritarian state. Specifically, four logical modes that involve actors’ different time–space tactics were identified, namely state–religion disengagement, state–religion enhancement, religious (dis)enlightenment, and karma. The implications of these ostensibly conflicting modes of thinking in mediating the actors’ resistance–compliance interface in contemporary China are discussed.

Dynamics of gender representation in online communication in Chinese

The article describes changes in the vision of gender of the Chinese that are currently taking place due to globalization and the increased role of the feminist movement in the world. The article aims to describe words and phrases that reflect the contemporary gender vision of native Chinese speakers as well as to analyze the influence of global agenda on the formation of ideas about femininity and masculinity. The paper reviews the theoretical studies of Chinese scientists in the field of gender linguistics, determines the areas where the influence of Western theories is the most significant. The article describes the social status of men and women in three main periods: pre-imperial and imperial China, communist China in the 20th century, modern China in the 21st century. However, the main focus of the article is on the modern Chinese language, as there is a lack of studies in this field. Gender representations reflected in the Xinhua Internet Dictionary （新华 网络 语言 词 典） and the online dictionary 小鸡 词典 were selected as the research material. We selected words and set phrases containing such characters as 女 “woman” and 男 “man”, studied their description provided by vocabulary entries, reviewed gender representation in media.

The Efficiency of the Chinese Silver Standard, 1920–1933

We test for integration of financial markets in China during 1920-1933 using a new dataset of domestic exchange rates. Our data concerns tael-denominated telegraphic transfers between Shanghai and nine other cities. We find that Chinese financial markets, as measured by the efficiency of silver-point arbitrage, were highly integrated among major commercial hubs in north and central China, but there was a lower level of integration for more remote cities in the south. Our paper presents the first comprehensive assessment of the efficiency of the Chinese silver standard and contributes to a revaluation of market performance during pre-communist China.

Organization’s Sustainable Operational Complexity and Strategic Overview: TISM Approach and Asian Case Studies

As a region, Asia comprises communist China, democratic India and many small quasi-democratic and authoritarian states. Both China and India play a significant role in maintaining multilateral world order. Asia’s regional power remains with its enormous potential of resources for domestic markets and per capita purchasing power parity. Hence, the economic and the business aspects of the Asian region require comprehensive study. Sustainable operational excellence is a notion carried by an organisation’s sustainable economic development and other values. This study incorporates the multiple case study method. Twelve case organisations such as Tata Motors, Samsung, Nissan, Indigo, Mitsubishi, Huawei, Wilmar, Canon, NTPC, Hitachi, Singapore Airlines, and L&T were chosen to study their sustainability values, and operational and strategic strands. TISM (total interpretive structural modelling) method is used for model building; four variables such as operating activities, investing activities, financing activities, and SVE (Social value expenditures) are taken for empirical analysis. Based on the available secondary data, the study incorporated panel data regression analysis. The result shows that SVE positively and significantly explains operational activities that proxy with sustainable business practices. The study concludes with a Paux strategy framework for discussion and managerial implications.

The Making of the “Chinese Problem”: Indonesian Local Agencies’ Perceptions of Ethnic Chinese and Communist China, 1950-1979

When Indonesia gained its independence, it knew almost nothing about its Chinese population of more than 2 million. During the Dutch colonial and Japanese occupation periods, the authorities established offices for Chinese Affairs staffed by sinologists; however, the young Republic of Indonesia did not have such experts. By the early 1950s, the Foreign Ministry set up its “School of Sinology”. The school’s founder was suspicious of Communist China and therefore viewed that Indonesia must be cautious, with the overseas Chinese in Indonesia constituting a “sumber subversi” (source of subversion). Its first class had twenty students and with the conduct of its first class can be regarded as the earliest effort to study China and the ethnic Chinese by the Indonesian authorities. In the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese were considered a problem, and so the term “Chinese problem” (“Masalah Cina”) was created, which then became commonly used throughout the New Order period. This paper explores how perceptions about the Chinese and Communist China were shaped by local agencies during 1950-1979, who the agencies were, and their publications.. The paper looks at how scholars, journalists, intelligence bureau and publishing houses contributed to the construction of the perceived “Chinese Problem”. Particular focus is also given to sinology-trained military officer and their works, in shaping perceptions towards the Chinese in Indonesia and also mainland China.

A “Spiritual Journey” Through the “Middle” Kingdom: Travel and Translation in François Cheng’s Translingual Novel

The Franco-Chinese migrant writer François Cheng (Grand Prix de la francophonie de l’Académie française 2001) is the first French Academician of Asian origin. His French- language novel Le Dit de Tianyi (Prix Femina 1998, rather differently translated into English as The River Below) recounts the protagonist’s life trajectory across the turbulent twentieth century, from wartime China to France and back to a radically changed Communist China. The protagonist’s cross-cultural and often painful migrant experience largely mirrors that of the author, yet with the final part of the novel being completely fictional. The novel’s generic and stylistic hybridity demonstrates the author’s strenuous effort to investigate the literary possibilities of comparatively incorporating both Western and Eastern cultural heritages in the creative process. Although Le Dit is not formally categorized as a travelogue, travel motifs permeate the novel. The tripartite structure – ‘epic of departure’, ‘detouring journey’, ‘myth of return’ – is redolent of established models of travel since Odyssey. The characterization of the protagonist as a ‘wandering soul’ (âme errante) going on artistic pilgrimages as well as arduous quests for knowledge both in China and to the West, further complemented by the constant longing and attempt to be reunited with loved ones, is among the key features of travel writing largely shared by both Western and Chinese traditions. These travel motifs interact dynamically with the fundamental conception of the novel as both a Bildungsroman and Künstlerroman that linguistically translates, epistemically transforms, and spiritually transcends the individual’s experience of migrance (migration and errance). Such an interaction, then, inspires informed imagination and provokes lateral thinking about cultural representations, and entails a transcultural aesthetic that simultaneously revisits two great cultural heritages, engendering something ‘new’, or indeed, ‘old’. Drawing on theories of cultural translation (initiated notably by Homi Bhabha) and transculturality (Graham Huggan; Wolfgang Welsch), this article examines how the wide range of travel motifs function as a consistent structural and thematic frame and bring frictional qualities and effects to Cheng’s translingual novel. And I argue that these travel motifs ultimately create a liminal space where both European and Chinese literary and artistic traditions are set in motion towards a planetarian possibility of cultural ‘transcendence’ (Cheng’s own word).

Restaging Zhu Yingtai in Early Communist China

In 1953, Shanghai Film Studio produced a Shaoxing opera film version of The Butterfly Lovers as the first color film of the People’s Republic of China. Noted for its immense popularity in the Sinophone sphere throughout the 1950s, the film actually exemplifies a history of Shaoxing opera that is connected to urbanization and nationalism as well as women’s liberation and the cultural politics of early communist China. It is an early example of how Chinese opera and modern media technology contribute to transnational negotiations and imaginations of Chinese identities.