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(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(1), 423-442 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. The legal principles governing EU coordination in international law-making fora: a weakness or a strength of Member States' external sovereignty? – III. The case of the Maritime Labour Convention: the journey of human rights from the EU to China via international law. – III.1. The Conven-tion and the EU's role in its elaboration. – III.2. The EU's rationale for uploading human rights standards into international law: a rights-oriented approach. – III.3. The impact of the Maritime Labour Conven-tion in China. – IV. Conclusion. | (Abstract) This Article presents two arguments and explores the relationship between them. First, the principles governing coordination between the EU and its Member States in multilateral fora (mainly, sincere co-operation and unity in the EU's representation) serve to increase the Member States' influence in inter-national law-making. Thus, there is a trade-off between the autonomy of Member States to determine their own positions in multilateral fora, and their capacity to influence such fora: the lesser the former, the greater the latter. Second, such an influence can be used by the EU and its Member States to pro-mote human rights laws abroad, “uploading” high standards into multilateral treaties, which are subse-quently “downloaded” by third states through ratification and implementation. Therefore, there is a link between the mentioned EU external relations law principles (which are a “condition” for a success-ful promotion) and the obligation to promote values set in arts 3(5) and 21 TEU (which provides the “direction” of the promotion). Consequently, when Member States complain about excessive EU intru-sion into their autonomy through common positions in multilateral fora, they should bear in mind that they are not only bound by the above-mentioned legal principles, but that their obligation to promote certain values abroad is also at stake. The case of the EU's influence on the Maritime Labour Conven-tion and its impact on Chinese law and policy is used to illustrate the arguments.

The situation of the human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is frequently reported in the Western media and it has gained a central place in the Euro-Atlantic political discourse which condemns Beijing's attitude towards human rights at home. However, the sanctions adopted by both the US and the EU in relation to the treatment applied by the Chinese government to the Uyghurs in the XUAR are strongly discouraged and limited by the economic dependencies of the two Western giants on China. The goal of this paper is to discuss the effectiveness of the economic sanctions in supporting the human rights international regime in the context of current economic interdependence between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), on one side, and China, on the other side. The hypothesis of the paper is that the asymmetrical economic interdependence is undermining the effectiveness of the economic sanctions in supporting the human rights international regime. When there is an increased interdependence between a supporter and promoter of human rights, in this case the US and the EU, and a great economic power that does not regard the human rights as having a universal value in the current international order, the effects of the economic sanctions are inefficient in addressing this problem due to the high economic and political costs for both their issuers and their targets.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(2), 429-445 | European Forum Insight of 27 July 2023 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Different meanings of ‘Europe’s technological sovereignty’. - III. Reinforcing the EU’s industrial base, competitiveness and its resilience to crises through internal measures: the proposed Chips act and the approval of important Projects of Common European Interest. - IV. Reinforcing ‘technological sovereignty’ through EU trade measures. - V. Member States’ contribution to the achievement of ‘Europe’s technological sovereignty’ through export control of advanced semiconductor technology. - VI. Conclusions. | (Abstract) This Insight focuses on the EU and Member States’ initiatives to reinforce Europe’s technological sovereignty (i.e. technological leadership and independence from others (especially China)) as far as semiconductors are concerned. It explores whether it is necessary to change the current allocation of powers between the EU and Member States to achieve the mentioned objective. It shows that the EU has enacted (or proposed to adopt): i) a number of internal measures to address the EU technological gap in various areas of the EU’s competence, including those in the field of the internal market; ii) unilateral trade measures designed to establish a level playing field for EU operators and to protect Member States’ technological assets. National authorities have also taken unilateral trade measures such as the Dutch decision of March 2023 to establish an export control of chip technology. This measure was enacted at the request of the United States and is based on the need to avoid dependence, on the preservation of technological leadership and on security grounds. It is an attempt to react to China’s strategy (“Made in China 2025”) to close its technological gap in various areas, including semiconductors. The Dutch decision illustrates that the EU institutions and Member States can each exercise their competences and successfully protect Europe’s technological sovereignty (technological leadership) on the basis of a “shared sovereignty”. There is no need to change the Treaty rules to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty. However, it is necessary that Member States inform the Commission and coordinate their actions at EU level.

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The author describes and examines the concept of learning in the classical writings of the Confucian school of thought, primarily in the so-called “Four Books” canon: Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. These compilations of sayings and teachings of Confucius and his successors contain the descriptions of learning as the best way toward personal and societal harmony, given that the learning process is identical to ethical development. Therefore, the author first reviews the most significant educational principles of Confucian classics, emphasizing the achievement of virtues as its goal. Another important aspect of the early Confucian classics is the claim that education should be available to all members of society, which led to the establishment of the so-called imperial examination system in the Han Dynasty. The second part of the paper contains a review of this practice and its reforms, especially during the Song Dynasty. Due to Zhu Xi’s efforts, Confucian learning became the process of self-cultivation, the entirety of education in China was based on the Four Books, and Confucian academies became the centers of the higher humanistic learning, emphasizing the development of critical mind. However, Confucianism and its system of education were harshly criticized and oppressed during most of the 20th century, which is the main topic of the third part of the paper. The author then examines the reasons for the Confucian revival in China, which was primarily influenced by the economic development of the countries such as Singapore, Japan, and South Korea – all of which kept the Confucian values and moral education. The implications of the Confucian revival and subsequent economic success of China have potential global significance, even in the Western societies, and the author points to the possibility of a similar combination of traditional moral learning and modern education in the Serbian context as a good way for overcoming what both Confucian and some Christian thinkers termed “the decadence” of materialism.

Based on materials obtained from fieldwork in three Chinese cities and data collected through online ethnography as a complementary method, this article investigates the relationship between Chinese trade unions and food delivery workers resisting the exploitation of platform capitalism. The article first analyzes the impact of the official character and structure of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) on its compatibility with delivery workers. Constrained by Chinese policies and regime, the ACFTU is absent from the collective action mobilization of delivery workers. Thus, it is shown that, by this absence, the Chinese couriers have opted for self-organization. However, while avoiding the role of mobilization, Chinese unions have responded and acted on the emergence of the couriers and the growth of their protest actions. As a result of these practices, some new union organizing patterns in platform capitalism have emerged in different regions. Whereas unions for platform workers, initially in the form of service stations, focused on providing welfare to workers, the actions of these unions are now shifting toward promoting collective bargaining. This article highlights that the ambiguous legal relationship between platforms and workers, the multiple outsourcing of Chinese platforms, and the geographical dispersion of outsourcing companies have challenged the ACFTU’s traditional union organization patterns, with the result that special unions have been created at different levels for couriers by innovating beyond the established system, abandoning the tradition of employer-controlled “paper unions” and potentially gaining substantive bargaining power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Synergies Turquie is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Synergies Chine is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Finance & Business Economies Review is the property of Finance & Business Economies Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

China has been spreading its tentacles across continents particularly sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria. The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of Foreign direct investment on the economic and political framework of Africa, using Nigerian as a case study. The foreign direct investments from China to Africa and particularly to Nigeria has not been received well in the pool of public opinion. However, the benefits the investment pool has on the economic and political framework is positive. Yet, researchers, believe that caution should be taken to avoid excessive FDI from China. The method of regression analysis was employed to prove the relationship between FDI inflow and annual GDP. The result showed that there is a strong and significant influence of FDI on GDP and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Abstract: Guyana has a strategic geographic position in the Amazon and the Greater Caribbean area, as revealed in the strategic thinking and military presence of the United States (USA). Its territory also possesses abundant natural resources, especially after the recent and significant oil discoveries, having the American company ExxonMobil as protagonist. Meanwhile, the country is characterised by a domestic political and ethnic cleavage. In addition, Venezuela and Guyana are in a historical dispute for the Essequibo area, which is potentially endowed and surrounded by areas with strategic resources. The main argument of the paper is that the oil discoveries in Guyana are leading to geopolitical and geoeconomic impacts regarding the intensification of domestic and foreign disputes, involving American and Venezuelan interests and recent state actions. More broadly, it points out that the north of South America has become one of the stages of the global power strife, in view of the Sino-Russian and American presences, in a context of Brazil’s absence. To survey and evaluate the actors’ actions resulting from the oil findings in Guyana, the paper is based on geopolitical and geoeconomic concepts, energy data, specialised academic and journalistic bibliography.

This paper examines the legal challenges surrounding the treatment of personal data as a market commodity, with a specific focus on China's experience. The study begins with a comprehensive literature review and outlines the methodology employed. The paper then delves into the gradual construction of personal data protection in China, highlighting the evolution of laws and regulations in response to the growing importance of personal data protection in the digital age. It explores the development of legal frameworks and the establishment of regulatory bodies to safeguard individuals' personal information. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical framework surrounding the treatment of personal data as a market commodity in China. It highlights the gradual construction of personal data protection, explores the use of private law tools, and examines the economic circulation of personal data. Additionally, it discusses the role of public governance tools and offers insights into the challenges and potential solutions in this evolving landscape. Il presente lavoro esamina le questioni legate all’ inquadramento dei dati personali come bene, con un'attenzione specifica all'esperienza cinese. Lo studio inizia con un'ampia rassegna della letteratura e delinea la metodologia impiegata. Si addentra poi nella graduale costruzione della protezione dei dati personali in Cina, evidenziando l'evoluzione di leggi e regolamenti in risposta alla crescente importanza della protezione dei dati personali nell'era digitale. L’articolo fornisce infine un'analisi completa del quadro teorico che circonda il trattamento dei dati personali come merce di mercato in Cina. Mette in evidenza la graduale costruzione della protezione dei dati personali, esplora l'uso di strumenti di diritto privato ed esamina la circolazione economica dei dati personali. Inoltre, discute il ruolo degli strumenti di governance pubblica e offre approfondimenti sulle sfide e sulle potenziali soluzioni in questo panorama in evoluzione.

Copyright of ESSACHESS is the property of ESSACHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At the beginning of the 1950s, the nationality policy of the People's Republic of China granted the Sui, a Tai-speaking minority (Kam-sui group of the Kadai branch) in southern Guizhou, the status of nationality under the Chinese name "shui" and allocated them an autonomous administrative territory in their name with the rank of district. The study presented here provides an example of the territorial production of the Chinese state captured on a local scale, where questions of ethnic identification and regional autonomy present their own configurations. We begin by examining the classification procedures of the Qing imperial state, which at the end of the seventeenth century drew the first official contours of a Sui territory by dissociating them from the other 'barbarian' (Miao) populations of the region. The role of the classifications produced by Chinese ethnology in the Republican period in the future recognition of the Sui as a nationality is then highlighted, as is the founding role of the Sui scholar Pan Yizhi, of Sui ethnicity, who was briefly entrusted with the vice-presidency of the Sui autonomous district in 1957. The recent re-publication of his work, which was ill-treated during the Cultural Revolution, allows us to retrace the stages in the process of its creation. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the instrumentalisation of this founding period for contemporary local development purposes.

The flipped classroom, which appeared in the Chinese schools and universities in 2011, was well received there. This paper presents, based on a bibliometric study, the main trends in English-speaking and Chinese-speaking research on the issue, between 2010 and 2020. In this scientific work, the first step is to describe the innovative elements: for as regards tools, use of digital technologies, multimedia supports ; in terms of pedagogy, focus on learners, activity-based learning, cooperation, distinction between low-level tasks, carried out before school time, and high-level tasks, in particular problem-solving, carried out during school time. Some of the research reviewed assesses, using various methods, the effects on learning and academic performance, the building of autonomy, critical thinking skills and teamwork. The paper also shows how scientific work on the question crosses different research disciplines, what are the specificities according to the fields covered, and the main trends of recent developments, especially in China. It pays attention to local characteristics and to the diversification of forms of inversion; it shows the limits of these pedagogies and puts their innovative character into perspective.

Abstract This paper aims to systematize and analyse the expansion of Chinese agribusiness business towards the Brazilian Amazon. A scenario of possible natural resources to be exploited in the South American Amazon is presented, followed by a discussion of the changes in the conduct of economic exploitation in the Brazilian Amazon since the Bolsonaro government came into power. We opted for this cut due to the increase in the soy trade flow from Brazil to China, in addition to the direct foreign investments of Chinese companies in this sector to be concentrated in Brazil, as well as investments in infrastructure for transporting soy grain from the Amazon.

This paper explores the history of free zones in Ghana and Ghanaian policy makers’ related strategy. It looks at the “role of China” in these zones: both in terms of Chinese companies’ presence there, and in terms of reference to a “Chinese model” to develop free zones. On the one hand, the domestic success of special economic zones in China has validated this model and justified the creation of “Chinese SEZs” in a few African countries. On the other hand, despite a significant presence of Chinese investors and companies in Ghana - including one newly established Chinese industrial park - we find that China’s role in Ghanaian free zones is negligible. We attribute this finding, together with the absence of “Chinese SEZs” in Ghana, to a host of variables, including: Ghanaian leaders’ and policy-makers’ strategies, the country’s framework and trajectory with regard to free zones, the business environment, and some missed political opportunities.

As China has taken its place at the heart of the ASEAN economy, as well as global maritime and financial traffic, it has continued to internationalise its businesses at an accelerated rate and in some of the most technologically advanced ways. Singapore has been a key destination since it began its massive investments in the region. Like other foreign investors, Chinese companies have targeted logistics, manufacturing and high value-added services. But now it seems that Chinese investment is focusing on the digital economy, which can be traced through the study of the projects and acquisitions of two key players: Alibaba and Huawei. This paper measures, characterises and contextualises Chinese OFDIs in Singapore from 2000 to 2022 in order to show how, through increasing investment in Southeast Asia's richest economy, China is consolidating both its own power in the digital domain and Singapore's position of regional superiority.

E-waste has grown exponentially around the world and is estimated to be growing at 3–5 % per annum. China faces a rapidly increasing amount of e-waste, both, from domestic generation and illegal imports. This paper examines the management of e-waste by formal and informal sectors in china, by means of descriptive and analytic approaches. The main results involve that China is the world's largest producer and importer of electrical and electronic devices, likewise China is the largest e-waste market. Furthermore, over 60% of E-waste produced in China is recycled informally. However, about 40% of e-waste was focused on the formal system. Finally, the major challenge for china in e-waste management is how to provide incentives for formal recyclers to reduce informal recycling activities.

Copyright of Asiatische Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to analyze the political stakes of media coverage in the relationship between the Chinese state and anti-Islam activism. A corpus of more than 210,000 media and user data (posts, reposts, comments, etc.) has been built from Weibo based on two events: the Kunming train station attack in China in 2014 and the Paris attacks in 2015. This work identifies, through an analysis of media content and users, the main composition of anti-Islam activism, the state's strategy of ambiguity to this activism and a less censored space of debate constructed communicatively in the process of mediatization of Islamophobia.

If history has been defined as a crucial element to construct national identity, what happens when its reliability is contested? In China, despite having been considered for a long time as an instrument of propaganda, narrative’s relative freedom of re-elaboration, as Dutrait (1989) suggested, has covered an essential function in the process of reflection on historiographic processes. The paper considers some literary works belonging to what Linda Hutcheon (1988) defined as “historiographical metafiction”: novels and short stories by a variety of different authors, all characterized by intertextuality and an explicit reflection on the process of writing literature and history, as well as by a questioning of the meaning and truthfulness of memory. It proposes an overview on some of those texts, and a specific focus on Zhang Kangkang’s short story “Collective Memory” (Jiti jiyi 集体记忆, 2000), showing how, by suggesting a reshaping of the “imaginary mirror” that history is in China today, they open questions on the topics of historical traumatism, memory, and writing.

Educational hub refers to centres of excellence in higher education and research whose aims are to provide high-quality education for both national and international students to enhance the competitiveness of the country. These educational hubs provide an opportunity for knowledge exchanges and innovation in local regions through education and training. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid shifts were made towards online learning in education around the world. Although the lockdown is over, remote learning will likely play an increasingly prominent role in education. The adoption of scaled remote learning during the pandemic provided evidence of the importance of online learning. They offer an insight into global society, helping prepare students for an increasingly interconnected world by facilitating links between different regions. Educational hubs can be tied to distance learning and are successful in attracting international students when offering a combination of distance learning methods and innovative programs. This paper examines the phenomenon of educational hubs in higher education for international education through online learning with digital technology. New opportunities for online and distance learning within the definition of educational hubs are analyzed, and three online and blended learning models that reflect the development of educational hubs based on COVID-19 conditions of education are offered. In addition, the successful cases and experiences of distance learning hubs in China and Iran in recent years are described.

During the Covid-19 epidemic, Japanese and Chinese have overwhelmingly tended to wear face masks, while Americans have not. Why? In this paper, based on ethnographic interviews with members of these three societies as well as examination of mass media and scholarly reports, I provide a preliminary interpretation of this question. I first consider social psychologists’ large-scale analyses of collectivism versus individualism; China and Japan are both considered to be collectivistic societies, whereas the United States is considered to be individualistic. I also consider ethnic belonging to one’s nation in China and Japan, as opposed to civic belonging to one’s nation in the United States. These explications have value in understanding Covid-19 policies but seem of limited use in explaining mask-wearing. For such understanding, I turn to ethnographic interviews—some twenty in each society—as well as participant-observation in public sites. My findings are these: While in Japan social pressure is paramount in leading to mask wearing, with the state mostly absent, in China state pressure is paramount, with social pressure largely absent. In the United States, with social pressure absent beyond one’s sub-group and state pressure hotly contested, mask-wearing becomes a matter of politically-based individual choice. In these three societies, there have thus been different axes as to why mask-wearing is accepted or contested. This research is of too small a scale to fully explicate these factors; but it does show how anthropological analysis is essential in combining with the findings of other disciplines such as social psychology to arrive at a fuller understanding of contemporary social phenomena.

The adoption of the World Heritage Convention (WHC) in 1972 was the response to a world asking for peace after the destruction caused by the two world conflicts, particularly to cultural heritage (CH). UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) act as enablers in establishing strong and effective relationships among countries, people, culture and history, while influencing and attracting these elements to promote a positive national image and fostering mutual understanding, which is the main objective of cultural diplomacy (CD). This holds true also for China and this institutes the need to investigate on how UNESCO World Heritage acts as a strategic asset in Chinese CD. This paper will provide an empirical framework addressing the position of WHS embedded in the Chinese CD. Discussion on the growing Chinese involvement of WHS in cultural projects fostering international relations and considerations on the potential impact and future development of this phenomenon with regards to China and the WHC are offered.

Botanist Edmer D. Merrill noted that vernacular plant names in some ancient botanical texts can help botanists identify the original plants. In the same paper, he noted that they could also be misleading. On the basis of this apparent contradiction, we have considered the Chinese plant names chosen by Loureiro in his Flora cochinchinensis (1791), and, comparing them to the names found in modern Chinese books, we have found that the two assertions are true; however, the first one reflects rather frequent cases contrary to the second one.

The toponym Manchuria has become controversial in China in recent years, even though its use has a long history in Europe and Asia. Detractors maintain that the place name poses a threat to China’s sense of unity, because it exaggerates the distinctiveness of Northeast China. This essay shows that in the last forty years in Italy, as in other Countries, Manchuria has been used less often than in the past. However, it is still a matter of discussion whether Northeast China can be considered a region, as the disputed toponym can suggest. The paper tries to address this question, through an analysis of the physical and cultural features of the area, as well as its economic connectivity, from the XVII Century to the beginning of the XX Century. The conclusions of this survey suggest that Manchuria did not present the typical features of a physical and human unit before han Chinese mass immigration and the completion of railways at the beginning of the XX Century.

With the rapid growth of China’s economy, the urbanization process is accelerating, and urban development is getting faster and faster. Housing prices have become a concern for more and more residents. This paper empirically studies the determinants of housing prices, including population, region, land factors, and government fiscal measures. Multiple linear regression models interpret the economic implications of empirical results by collecting unique data sets from multiple sources. The results show that government fiscal revenue, real estate investment, and land value positively correlate to housing prices. This article makes insightful comments on the above analysis, which is significant to the government, real estate developers, and residents. To a large extent, the government can take measures to adjust the housing price and solve the housing problem. Achieve the purpose of sustainable development.