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Written on the occasion of marking the 30th anniversary of the reform and opening-up process starting in 1978 which ushered in a new historical phase of both China's own development and China's interrelation with the world, the paper asserts that international law has played a unique role in this process through facilitating an increasingly broader and deeper mutual engagement and interaction between China and the world. The paper reviews both the benefits China has gained from its engaging with and using international law and the contribution made by China to international law in a wide range of areas covering international commerce and trade, environment protection, climate change, combating transnational crimes, human rights, disarmament, etc. In view of the ongoing significant changes both China and the world order are experiencing, the paper foresees a more important and conducive role for international law in China's future development and presents recommendations for China's better interaction with international law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the large-scale investments of both China and the EU in climate-change mitigation and renewable-energy promotion, the prevailing view on China-EU relations is one of conflict rather than cooperation. In order to evaluate the prospects of cooperation between China and the EU in these policy fields, empirical research has to go beyond simplistic narratives. This paper suggests a conceptual apparatus that will help researchers better understand the complexities of the real world. The relevant actors operate at different levels and in the public and private sectors. The main message of the paper is that combining the multilevel governance and value-chain approaches helps clarify the multiple relationships between these actors [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The BASIC countries (Brazil, China, India, South Africa) have played a major role in recent climate negotiations. We argue that a focus on identities—both their individual national identities as emerging powers and their joint identity as the BASIC coalition of emerging powers—is useful for understanding the coalition’s negotiation stances and the larger negotiation dynamics between 2009 and 2011. BASIC countries maintain a hard defining line between themselves and developed states in terms of their climate obligations but accept some differentiation between themselves and other developing countries, thus adding a destabilizing third category of countries to the climate negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the sources and consequences of East Asia's participation in global governance. Despite the rhetoric of global contribution, the article argues that global governance issues are reframed in East Asia to better suit domestic and regional priorities. Specifically, two underlying mechanisms are at work to complicate, and often render ineffective, East Asia's foray into global governance: (1) the conflicting identities of the three countries at the regional and global levels; and (2) the localization of global governance issues. By examining the global role of China, Japan, and South Korea in climate change, peacekeeping, nuclear nonproliferation, the article shows how the shared desire of enhancing global status in East Asia is tempered by the politics of dual identity and issue localization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]