China and Climate Change Governance: A Golden Opportunity

Climate change is a threat to all of humankind, yet there is still a leadership vacuum on climate governance. At the same time, the deepening climate crisis also presents a golden opportunity for Beijing to assume the role of a global leader. China has the capacity to do it in a way that the United States, Russia, India, and the European Union do not. Taking swift climate action is in Beijing’s interest. Greater contributions to climate governance will certainly help advance China’s long-term political interest in both raising its political status and demonstrating the claimed superiority of its system of government. Positive rhetoric and robust action by China are likely to have a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world. Policy adjustment and implementation by Beijing will bring benefits to the rest of the world. Climate policy options that Beijing may take in the future are not mutually exclusive. The policy shift on climate change could also be attached more firmly to the idea of sustainable development as a defining factor of China’s approach to tackling the climate change threat.

FRAGMENTED MOTIVES AND POLICIES: THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN CHINA

Observers have portrayed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) variously, as China's great-power strategy, global infrastructure initiative, or commercial projects. Each characterization has had logical reasoning and evidence to support it. But how? How has one initiative been shown to have such varied motives? This article unpacks the Chinese state and establishes that a “tri-block” structure consisting of political leadership, bureaucracy, and economic arms has accounted for such varied motivations and actors in the BRI in China. In the BRI process, the leadership employed strategic rhetoric, and bureaucracies imposed policy ideas. Yet, more pervasively, the implementers have followed commercial motives in specific projects. BRI's strategic rhetoric and hazardous investment have generated external critiques and anti-China backlash, forcing Beijing to readjust the initiative. However, given the tri-block state structure, Beijing's policy adjustment will not be sufficient. Economic actors’ incentives need to be shifted too.

There and Back Again: The Making of Uganda’s Mobile Money Tax

This paper evaluates the appropriateness of the tax policymaking process that led to the introduction, and the later adaptation, of a tax on mobile money transactions in Uganda in 2018. We examine the unusual source of the proposal, how this particular tax diverged from the usual tax policymaking process, and whether certain key stakeholders were excluded. We argue that weaknesses in the tax policymaking process undermined the quality of policy design, and resulted in a period of costly, and avoidable, policy adjustment. This case study is relevant for Uganda as well as for other low-income countries which could be exposed to similar challenges in designing effective taxes for the mobile money industry.

Forecasting China’s food grain demand 2021-2050 with attention to balanced dietary and fertility policies

The estimation of China's future food grain demand has become vital input for designing grain security measures. Addressing the population's age-gender and urban-rural structures under three fertility policies scenarios together with concerns for balanced diets, we established a multi-factor driven model to forecast China's food grain demand (including staple food grain and feed grain) during 2021-2050. The three scenarios are as follows; the two-child fertility policy for couples when either the husband or the wife is from a single-child family (scenario 1); universal two-child policy (scenario 2), and no limitations on the number of children (scenario 3). The results show that in scenario 3, China's food grain demand would peak in 2030 at about 329.3 million tons, about 3.7 million tons higher than that in scenario 2, and 104.7 million tons lower than that estimated with the traditional per capita method. These findings indicate that the demographic transition for fertility policy adjustment is not the main impacting factor of China's food grain security from 2021 to 2050. We might overestimate food grain demand by about 15 percent if we ignored each age-gender and urban-rural structure of the population. Then it may lead to an oversupply of grain and accumulation of stocks, which would generate about 1 billion RMB annual inventory cost burden. An important complement to the demographic strategy would come from the adoption of the proposed Dietary Guideline for Chinese Residents (2019). It can make people much healthier and save about 7.5 percent of China's food grain consumption, reducing the pressure scarce supplies of water and land in the country.

India - Myanmar Relations (1948 - 1992): From “Idealism” to “Realism” in India’s Foreign Policy towards Myanmar

India and Myanmar are two neighboring countries that share the border of nearly 1.500km and have the relationship on history, politics, culture, ethnic... from over 2.000 years to present. India officially established diplomatic relations with Myanmar, just after this Southeast Asian country gained independence (1948). From 1948 to 1992, the bilateral relationship was influenced by India’s foreign policy towards Myanmar, especially the impact of “idealism” and “realism” in India’s policy. “Idealism” succeeded in India’s foreign policy towards Myanmar from 1948 to 1962; however, it was not effective in the period 1962 - 1988, which made India’s position severely decrease, contrary to the rise of China’s position in Myanmar. For this reason, India must innovate the foreign thought, moving from “idealism” to “realism”, which have more pragmatic quality to Myanmar in the years 1988 - 1992 when the international and regional contexts have many changes. On the basis of the reference sources, this research’s aim focuses on analyzing the foreign policy adjustment of India, especially this study will focus on the issue of India - Myanmar relationship (1948 - 1992) was dominated by the “idealism” and “realism” in the planning of foreign policy of India towards Myanmar. The scope of this research is the relationship between India and Myanmar from 1948 to 1992 under the influence of “idealism” and “realism” in India’s foreign policy. From the early 90s of the 20th century, India’s foreign policy towards Myanmar has been more realistic than in the previous period, especially since 1992, when India implemented its new foreign policy, the Look East Policy. Received: 4 February 2021 / Accepted: 9 April 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021

Nigeria

The Nigerian economy is at a critical juncture. A weak pre-crisis economy characterized by falling per capita income, double-digit inflation, significant governance vulnerabilities and limited buffers, is grappling with multiple shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic. Real output is projected to contract by 3.2 percent in 2020, with a weak recovery likely to keep per capita income stagnant and no higher than the 2010 level in the medium term. Policy adjustment and reforms are urgently needed to navigate this crisis and change the long-running lackluster course.