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Against the conventional wisdom that Chinese involvement cannot transform Africa’s economy for the better so as to end much of the poverty and also to spark high speed growth, this paper finds that China is already in the process of transforming Africa. While the conventional wisdom sees corrupt regimes and weak state capacity in Africa frittering away Africa’s opportunity to rise by plugging into Chinese dynamism, China is found in this paper already to be exporting entrepreneurial talent to Africa and to be dynamizing the African economy through East Asian practices. Chinese can bring industry to Africa much as Japan brought it to Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Africa could therefore be incorporated into Asian economic dynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western legitimacy theories have mostly focused on the nation-state and the domestic aspects of political legitimacy. However, with the acceleration of globalization, a dimension of legitimacy has come into view that has previously been largely neglected in political science: the international dimension. While the interdependence of nation-states at the global level might put some constraints on the (re)production of legitimacy domestically, it simultaneously allows them to leverage their global standing to gain legitimacy abroad and at home. China is the most prominent example of the growing importance of this dynamic link between internal and external legitimacy. The paper starts with a critical reflection on the prevalent Western legitimacy theories. Based on these reflections, it introduces a new approach which aims to differentiate analytically between internal and external legitimation strategies and to examine the two-level logic linking the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the Chinese quest for energy resources in Latin America, arguing that the strengthening of relations in this sector can only be explained by a conjunction of interests on both sides. Looking at the presence of Chinese national oil companies in the regional energy sector, we show that China’s incursion has allowed the region to shift its traditional energy partners, introducing a factor of change into economic and political relations with geopolitical implications for the regional arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, as host of the six-party talks first convened in August 2003, has been one of the major players in dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis that began in October 2002. China's role in the talks has helped to start shaping a stable regional security architecture in Northeast Asia. Beijing's leadership in building a new security regime in the region suggests a change on Chinese perspectives regarding its role within the broader East Asia's regional security architecture. After years of passiveness with regards to involvement in security regime building in the region, China has evolved into an active leader seeking to shape a more institutionalized security. Despite the obstacles to building a functioning regime in Northeast Asia, China seems poised to continue working towards creation of a more stable and institutionalized security architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether there is reciprocity between the legitimating effects of China's regime at home and abroad and how global governance and legitimacy interact in the case of China. This is done through an analysis of Chinese climate politics and China's engagement in international climate negotiations and governance, especially its behavior during and after the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009 and the Chinese regime's efforts to legitimate this behavior. While China's role in international climate governance was disputed at the Copenhagen Summit, China contributed constructively to brokering a deal with significant implications for a new climate governance architecture suiting China's preferences and being aligned with China's core interests. China defended the procedural logic of the current global climate governance framework and managed to contain institutional change. Based on Anthony Giddens' proposition about 'radicalism at the centre', it is argued that China's national and international discourse on and actions associated with climate change and the international negotiations about the new climate governance architecture seem to be able to reinforce each other and may well have a mutual legitimacy augmenting effect for the 'radicals at the centre' of the Chinese regime, provided that they ensure consequential logic through targeted reduction of GHG emissions and a 'green transformation' of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While, historically, sovereignty is what Europeans invented and what the Chinese were forced to accept, today it is what Europeans try to bury and what the Chinese hold dear. A conceptual gap on sovereignty clearly exists between China and Europe which more often than not exerts a negative impact on their relationship. It breeds misunderstandings and disputes, makes it more difficult to reach agreements on many bilateral issues, and complicates China-Europe cooperation in third countries. But the conceptual gap on sovereignty does not prevent China and Europe from building a strategic partnership. Given that strengthening or weakening national sovereignty means totally different things to China and Europe, the two parties should jointly and proactively manage their divergence on sovereignty issues by mutual avoidance, mutual assurance, and mutual accommodation, in order to unlock sovereignty-related impasses in China-Europe relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes a thematic approach to review the existing literature (in both Chinese and English) of environmental politics in the broad context of China studies. Examined themes include state and environmental governance, public awareness and environmental social activism, and environmental foreign relations. Findings and arguments are assessed with two important questions in mind: What differentiates the environmental arena from Chinese politics in general? What new insights into Chinese politics can be gained from case studies of environmental protection? Scholarship on environmental politics contributes not only empirical findings, but also critical challenges to the conventional knowledge and frameworks of Chinese politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, Northeast Asia’s security situation is changing rapidly. North Korea is reviving and China’s power is growing at an alarming rate. While the U.S. continues to suffer diplomatically and militarily in the Middle East and from international terrorism, China’s and North Korea’s power is likely to futher increase, polarizing the Northeast Asian security structure, with South Korea, Japan (and Taiwan) all allied with the U.S. versus North Korea allied with China. The liberal democracies should pursue peace with North Korea and China to preclude the situation from aggravating, but should be ready in the longer term to meet, in diverse ways including strengthening their alliances, the challenges posed by rising powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last century there has been a huge number of Western intellectuals visiting China and their Chinese counterparts visiting the West, the Westerners coming here to teach whereas the Chinese going there to learn. The asymmetry in cultural exchange has been caused by their conception of each other’s scholarship: the Western learning has been regarded as universal whereas the Chinese specific. This imbalance has resulted in a strange situation: the Chinese specialists of the West are the cream of the Chinese intelligentsia while the Western sinologists on the margin of the Western academia, and, therefore, the Chinese understanding of the West has to be as accurate as possible while the few cases of Western receptions Chinese influence have all been based on gross misinterpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]