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Is there a Chinese School of International Relations (IR) Theory? My answer to this question is ambivalent. Although a Chinese school of IR theory does not exist in the singular, it does exist in the plural. If "birds of a feather flock together," then the difference in approaches taken by Chinese scholars is as relevant as is the fact that the scholars are all Chinese. The Tsinghua School and moral realism share much with classical realism. Cultural relationalism also offers a distinctive Chinese approach as do Gongsheng /symbiotic and tianxia approaches. That said, Chinese IR scholarship shares with IR scholarship in America, Europe, and the rest of the world its firm anchor in the Newtonian mechanical worldview of the late 19th century. Natural sciences, such as quantum mechanics and scientific cosmology, meanwhile concluded long ago that Newtonianism offers an often practicable yet constricted view of the world. In contrast, the humanities operate with a worldview fully consonant with 20th century physics. It is the social sciences and the analysis of IR which continues to adhere to the mechanical worldview common in the late 19th century—in China and the rest of the world. In both "China" and "the West" IR, scholars are tapping their canes against the pavement, seeking to fathom what will happen next. If historians and semantic modelers are right, like the future, the past is never distant. Always open to reinterpretation, it is like the future—unpredictable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature discussing imperialism and neo-colonial practices focuses on the alleged power of the West and/or the United States, as well as global neoliberalism. This article argues that neo-colonial knowledge production in the autocratizing regimes of Hungary and Nicaragua reflects the rising importance of China. It shows how both governments seek to set forth new schools of thought suiting their worldview. The People's Republic of China serves as a narrative fix point for legitimizing dissociative diplomatic agendas via comprador academics supported by their government. In what is presented as changing global orders, China joins Russia as a new counterweight to the presupposed U.S. hegemonic and liberal interests. Besides advocating for new partners in the East, compradors colonializing academia argue for the distinctive needs of their respective nations represented by the government. Interviews, publications, and news reports allow one to reconstruct their colonialization efforts to support such nationalist narratives on China's rise as a global power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research intends to identify: features of ideological culture within China's education sector; the most effective theory of ideology, capable of developing the individuals' worldviews and values, revealing their civic-minded self-awareness; the dominant personality traits that can most effectively influence the moulding of civic-minded attitudes and social responsibility among China's residents. This research project included an experiment conducted to determine the effectiveness of various theories of ideology in China's education sector. As the experiment's findings suggest, traditional Confucianism was identified as the most productive ideology (51.2%). The research findings may be used in the study of various ideologies, such as liberalism and neoliberalism, socialism, feminism, communism and social democracy, applicable to existing systems of ideological culture education in the globalization settings (within the context of pedagogical and psychotherapeutic activities, as well as in order to improve methods of teaching general subjects and education levels among students). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ideational motivations behind China's connectivity projects, most notably the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and aims to explore which values these infrastructure projects seek to promote. The article is based on various published sources, including Chinese official, and public policy statements. Specifically, those statements and policy papers are qualitatively analyzed through a reflection of their manifested message against the background of Chinese International Relations-related discussions on Chinese worldviews. Based on this analysis, the article argues that China's connectivity projects may be perceived as part of China's ideational competition with the West, culminating in the presentation of "Chinese values" as a viable alternative to "universal values." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy provides a roadmap for actions to be taken in any task. It plays an important role in successful implementation of any program. Similarly, the presence of policy also plays a key role in implementation of digital preservation program. The organizations having such policy hold an edge for carrying out their digital preservation activities in an organized manner. This paper provides an explicit overview regarding preparedness of libraries and other organizations across the world in terms of availability of policies for digital preservation. The paper also attempts to map the data geographically. The empirical studies were reviewed systematically, and the extracted data was synthesized for producing meaningful insight about this phenomenon. The meta-analysis affirms that libraries and other organizations seem to have realization about importance of policies for implementation of digital preservation program. Although some studies highlight the availability of digital preservation policies in a good number of organizations yet, as a whole, most of the studies point out passive organizational attitude toward the development of such policies. The data mapping affirms that the studies conducted worldwide and North American region show a satisfactory situation in terms of availability of digital preservation policies. However, the studies conducted in European countries, African region, China, and New Zealand identify a gap regarding presence of such policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, Aotearoa New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, sketched out a kaupapa Māori (collective Māori vision) foreign policy for New Zealand based on four tikanga Māori (Māori customary practices and behaviours): manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and the protection of intergenerational wellbeing). This article makes a novel contribution to the global International Relations body of literature by questioning to what extent New Zealand's 'Māori foreign policy' has been applied to its relationship with China. Through assessing the communications of Mahuta and other officials, it is found that New Zealand is utilizing a kaupapa Māori framework towards China: 'the taniwha and the dragon'. It is argued that New Zealand is attempting to consolidate the maturity of the Sino-New Zealand relationship, as well as differentiate itself from the other Anglosphere countries that have recently pushed back on China. In doing so, not only is New Zealand something of an outlier, it is demonstrating how eschewing a western-centric understanding of foreign policy for a more relational view based on indigenous knowledge and perspectives (in this case, from te ao Māori : the Māori worldview) can be applied at a time of increasing great power competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding public debates on environmental problems is critical for enhancing the effectiveness and social acceptance of environmental policies. This article aims to understand how factual environmental condition and culture influence the perceived severity of environmental problems in China. Relying on Cultural Theory and Cultural Cognitive Theory, we measure grid with an egalitarianism-hierarchy scale and group with an individualism–communitarianism scale. We use a large scale nationwide representative survey data——the Chinese General Social Survey——to identify Chinese political subcultures and find that environmental condition alone rarely play a role in Chinese environmental perceptions, and that as hypothesized, moving from egalitarianism to hierarchy, people perceive six of eight environmental problems to be less severe, whereas moving from individualism to communitarianism, people perceive five of eight environmental problems to be more severe. Meanwhile, the effect of environmental condition on the relationship between cultural worldview and perceived severity is very limited. This study has implications for environmental communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Soochow University Philosophy & Social Sciences Edition is the property of Soochow University 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 article seeks to fill a research gap in current scholarship by exploring the role of typography in place-making practices in transitional China. Based on fieldwork conducted in an aspiring new town in an underdeveloped city, I observe that a diversity of typographies from both the tradition of calligraphic writing and novel digital design are applied in making the new town. Drawing on the emergent field of typographic landscape and notions of indexicality and enregisterment in sociolinguistics, I investigate the potential historical, social, cultural and political meanings of various typographies of emplaced signage across the town. Through a culturally sensitive analysis of signage found in historical parks, government-authored promotion boards and commercial streets, I further demonstrate how patterned and value-laden typographic choices are made across the three domains and shed light on the ideologies which shape these choices in situated place-making practices. Lastly, it will be argued that the new town can be read as a heterotopia comprised of different spaces that are incompatible due to their differing world views and place-making positions. The implications of this constructed heterotopia for its relocated residents framed by wider themes of socialist civil education, market-driven economy and tourism development will also be briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most influential CCP campaigns that dramatically transformed the Chinese pre-revolutionary society, the early 1950s land reform has not been fully explored in the case of China's ethnic periphery. This article sheds light on the CCP's land reform and its impact on China's ethnic frontier by examining the official policies, implementation, and the reactions of the southern Muslim community in Yunnan between 1949 and 1958. Drawing on county government work team reports and the Party's land reform policy and evaluation records, it argues that although southern Yunnan Muslims were able to selectively internalize some Communist secular ideologies to cope with social and political changes that land reform brought about, the inconsistency between the Party's freedom of religion policy on paper and its local implementation failed to mitigate the ideological discord between Maoist revolutionaries' atheist worldview and Muslim villagers' religiosity. This jeopardized the possibility of reconciliation between the class-struggle-focused radical state and the community life of its religious subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wisdom views in different cultural contexts are closely connected with the corresponding culture's worldview. Some results are found by comparing the wisdom concepts in Chinese and Western cultures: Firstly, the early wisdom concepts, both in China and the West, contain the elements of intelligence and virtue. Whereas, from the Enlightenment to the Piagetian school, the western concept of wisdom has then shifted to the role of cognition and knowledge; By contrast, the traditional Chinese wisdom concept has been treating wisdom as a virtue. Modern Chinese and western wisdom psychologists are inclined to accept the wisdom meta-theory of "integration of intelligence and virtue". Secondly, both Chinese and the Western philosophy advocate using wisdom to solve real-life problems. Western thinkers focus on practical problems in the material world, i.e. reconciling conflicts between people and the world through understanding and changing the environment. However, Chinese philosophers focus on internal spiritual problems, i.e. improving the individual realm to solve the contradictions inside oneself. Thirdly, both China and the West highlight the comprehensive application of multiple thinking modes. While comparing with the west, which is excelled in using logical and analytical thinking modes and utilizing rational cognition, China is far better at using dialectical and holistic thinking modes and applying intuitive comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Stratum Plus Journal is the property of P.P. Stratum plus 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 analyses Xi Jinping's role in China's foreign policy from elitepolitics perspective focusing on first, the policy preferences and worldviews of political elites; second, balance of power among political elites; and third, the sectoral interests behind political elites. China's foreign policies have generally developed in line with Xi's policy preferences and worldview. The current balance of power is in Xi's favour. His administration comprises mostly local cadres, whose developmentalist policy preferences are reflected in foreign policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is Hua-Xia? How and when did the Hua-Xia ethnic group and Hua-Xia tradition come into being? As the spatial and temporal framework, the connotative features and the genealogy of the archaeological culture become increasingly clear, we can identify two important periods of prehistoric archaeological cultures that may have played key roles in the formation of the Hua-Xia ethnic group and its cultural identity. First is the Yangshao Culture (especially its Miaodigou Era), which was formed at the middle Neolithic age. During this period, agriculture was established as the main economic base, resulting in massive population growth, as well as rapid expansion of painted pottery, unique artifact collections and other highly consistent material culture, from the Central Plains of China to the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River and beyond. Based on recent genetic, linguistic and other multidisciplinary research, it can be roughly confirmed that this culture is the archaeological manifestation of the emergence and formation of the Sino-Tibetan language family with a large population and a vast territory, so it is of fundamental significance for the formation of the Hua-Xia tradition in terms of ethnicity, language and culture. Second is the Erlitou Culture, which rose in the heart of the Central Plains of China after the Longshan Era, and stood out again in the Yangshao homeland in the competition among the regional cultural traditions of the early Chinese interaction circle after the collapse of the Yangshao Culture. Absorbing all the advanced cultural factors known at that time, it became the mainstream cultural tradition and great civilization tradition, including the political tradition, the ideological tradition, the lineage system and the unity and coherence in writing. The Erlitou Culture provided world views, values, even the instrumental systems and political institutions for the continuation of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties to identify and follow, which roughly corresponded to the rise of the Xia dynasty as depicted in the literature. Thus, if Miaodigounization, with its great integration and expansion feature, was acclaimed as the foundation of the Hua-Xia tradition, Erlitounization enabled the establishment of Hua-Xia mainstream tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the changing perceptions of the world in traditional Chinese historiography. Since Sima Qian's Records of the Historian of the second century BCE, China has formed a worldview of "the central empire as the principal, the peripheries as subordinates". In the following two millenia years, three occurred three opportunities for altering the worldview. But all of them failed to materialize. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century and due to the Western challenge, that this worldview became fundamentally undermined. This change gave rise to a new worldview that entered textbook writing and became widely accepted from then on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhongguo dangdai shaoshu minzu ertong wenxue yuanchuang shuxi [A contemporary Chinese ethnic minority children's literature series] is a collection of ten novels published in 2017 describing the life of young children from a variety of ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities in China generally live in rural areas and hold holistic and animistic world views. While this series contains abundant descriptions of distinctive landscapes and animals, these natural elements are not meant to be mysterious or sacred, but a tangible part of everyday life. The nature writing in the series plays with new possibilities and manifests a shift from a transcendent and metaphysical worldview to one that is epistemologically imminent and empirical, which suggests the new generation's readiness to embrace modernity in an ecologically harmonious way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The holistic view (or systematic thinking) of the Yijing (here Yijing refers to the original text in the ancient Chinese Daoist work The Book of Changes) is representative of the philosophical worldview in ancient China, which can reveal the interactive relationship between space, time and number. This study attempts to analyze and summarize human spatial, temporal and numeral processing from the aspects of the linguistic and cultural quantitative system for the three domains, contributing an original cognitive linguistic perspective on the holistic thinking typifying the worldview in ancient China and laying a foundation for further research. It argues that SPACE, TIME and NUMBER are not separated, but a holistic unity (or wholeness), they can be considered as one single domain. In ancient Chinese culture, the three domains cannot be separate, they should be integrated into the "growth of life experience", which is based on the MOTION metaphor and LIFE metaphor of the Yijing. The results of the corpus study of the Yijing text indicate that in this particular context of the Yijing, concepts in the domains of SPACE, TIME and NUMBER are schematized on the basis of further metaphorical extensions of concepts from the source of LIFE and MOTION. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public's voluntary adoption of protective actions is key in risk management, especially when strict regulations no longer apply. This research uses a nationwide sample to understand how cultural worldview influences public adoption of four protective actions against the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) following the end of the first lockdown in China. Relying on Grid-Group Cultural Theory of risk and the Protective Action Decision Model, this research finds that cultural worldview rarely influences protective behaviors directly. However, mediational analyses reveal that cultural worldview can influence protective behaviors via protective action perception and trust in stakeholders but not via risk perception. This research finds that protective action perception and trust in stakeholders increase protective behaviors and the positive correlation between trust in stakeholders and protective behaviors is mediated by protective action perception. Moreover, hierarchy increases protective action perception and trust in stakeholders, individualism increases protective action perception but decreases trust in stakeholders, and fatalism decreases protective action perception. Other correlations of cultural worldview with protective action perception and trust in stakeholders vary with types of protective actions. These findings provide implications for behavioral governance and risk communication among diverse cultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines De Quincey's representation of opium 'addiction' in the cross-cultural context of Britain and China in the light of recent revisionist medical discussions of addiction and dependence, and revisionist historical writing about opium use in nineteenth-century China. De Quincey's representation of the opium user is compared to that of China's first 'city novel', Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou believed to have been written in 1848 (trans 2009). In this complex fiction, opium smoking is presented as a largely pleasurable and common pastime which has the potential for danger if abused by the unwary. It is not connected with dreams and nightmares, or figured as a stimulus of, or analogy for, the creative imagination. It offers a fascinating view of the leisure world of nineteenth-century China, where recreational opium smoking is common and not problematic when undertaken moderately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western missionaries working for the proselytization of Christianity during the early twentieth century were predominantly representatives of a new worldview that put scientific objectives on a par with the aim of converting the Chinese to their faith. Conventional wisdom stipulates that the 1920s brought about a sea change in public attitudes, transforming the missionaries' perceived role in China, as well as in the colonized world, into "agents of imperialism." This article posits that this may well have been the case within the ranks of a radicalizing and ideologically reorienting intellectual elite. However, the majority of the population within the Republic of China held a variety of views, from deep-rooted suspicion ("Western clerics as alien magicians") to high esteem ("clerics as medical experts"). The May Fourth Movement's axiom of a monolithic, "patriotic," and "scientific" opposition to the Western missionaries thus needs to be replaced by a more nuanced interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The art of historiography in China, like any other country, is influenced by the country's culture. In China, at least from centuries before Confucius, the tradition was the basis of popular culture, which naturally influenced the thoughts of Chinese historians. One of the most important traditions influencing the minds of Chinese historians was the traditional Chinese worldview, which survived for centuries. While other countries took their name from the tribes that inhabited their land, the Chinese had called their country Zhongguo (Middle land) since the early centuries of the first millennium BC. The emergence of this idea, which was originated from the cosmopolitan philosophy of ancient China, led the Chinese emperors to claim to be ‘Son of God’ and to consider the surrounding countries as barbarians and tax collectors who should “come and develop”. For example, the narrations of ancient Chinese historians about the Arsacid and Sasanids kings of Iran and West Asia emphasized that the kings of Iran always offered gifts to the Chinese emperors and even asked the emperor for help and guidance in the affairs of their country. Considering the importance of this claim, the present study intends to study the nature of the Iranian kings’ interaction with Chinese emperors in Chinese texts by reading, comparing, and analyzing reports of Chinese texts and examining the nature of this claim. The author of the present study assumes that the idea of Zhongguo was used by Chinese historians in their work ‘to offer’ gifts to Chinese emperors only to emphasize the central position of their emperors. The author believes that, according to the idea of the Middle Kingdom, the phrase ‘to offer gifts’ was deliberately used by Chinese historians, merely, to emphasize ‘the central position of their emperors’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to examine Eurasian globalization historically, this paper outlines three phases of globalization starting from 200 BCE to 1492 CE as Phase 1 and 1500 CE to 1999 CE as Phase 2 and from 2000 CE Phase 3. By historicizing the concept and the process of globalization, the paper attempts to provide a more global rather than a Europe-centred history of globalization and modernization. The paper builds on the idea of Eurasia and offers a new perspective of Eurasian globalization by pivoting on China's role in both Phase 1 and Phase 3 of globalization. The paper uses historical literature that has been not only critical of the Eurocentric view of the world but also provides a more connected view of global history. Concurring with Steger and James [2019. Globalization matters. Cambridge University Press] that globalization has not outlived its utility, the paper seeks to historicize and globalize the discussion of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the modern historical trajectory of the word fendou (奋斗, 'struggle'), from its emergence in the early twentieth century to the present. Originally embedded in a Social Darwinist philosophy of struggle, fendou was later co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As one of its key ideological shibboleths, it was typically used to mobilize the Chinese people to 'struggle' for the goals of the nation. However, as these goals varied significantly in the course of the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the actual meanings and uses of fendou evolved accordingly, following shifts in the ideological paradigms that characterized the different eras. By studying how this term was used as an ideological keyword over time, it is possible to observe the continuities and discontinuities in the visions of struggle, and the relevant 'pedagogies of struggle', promoted in different periods by the Chinese state. The article, in particular, analyses the use of fendou in both contemporary official discourse and popular culture, suggesting that in promoting the formation of a competitive subject in line with the aims of the 'socialist market', fendou still, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, expresses and disseminates a predominantly Social Darwinist world view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhenghe's epoch-making voyages and the subsequent European expansive maritime exploration have exacted varied historical impacts and impressions upon the world. This paper argues that the contrasts stem from their radically different underlying belief systems, namely Confucianism and Christianity. In the East, the Confucian's monistic and polytheistic ethos, coupled with a sanguine and circular worldview, underpinned Imperial China's multilateral and restrained approach in dealing with the outside world. In the West, the Christian's dualistic and monotheistic creed, together with a melancholic and linear worldview, moulded European Imperialism's unilateral and forthright strategy to transform the world. Aside from the past, these divergent philosophical and religious worldviews continue to affect the present, including the current China and US geopolitical and civilizational rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have pointed out the importance of emotional affiliation with nature in fostering environmentalism, but the mechanisms through which such emotional motives influence pro‐environmental behaviors are still unclear. To address this issue, this study introduced love of nature into the value–belief–norm model as an emotional basis. The model was examined in predicting high‐cost and low‐cost green consumer behaviors (GCBs) in selected undergraduate student populations in eastern China. Using data from an online survey (N = 291), this study found personal norms positively predicted both high‐cost and low‐cost GCBs. Ecological worldview positively predicted low‐cost GCBs and its effect was larger than that of personal norms. Love of nature had positive effects on biospheric values and personal norms. The relationships between love of nature and the two types of GCBs were mediated mainly by personal norms, ecological worldview, and biospheric values. The results supported the argument that emotional affiliation to nature offers an essential basis for a moral concern that guides GCBs. The findings also suggest moral concerns may be more salient for difficult and inconvenient GCBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 'world view' perspective is deployed to show President Xi Jinping's dominance of China's policy-making environment and the ideas that he and his leadership group have tried to promote. We use this framework to explain China's relations with three major countries that are crucial to manage successfully in order for China to consolidate its global and regional ambitions – Japan, Russia and the United States. The article shows how the degree of alignment between China's and these great powers' world views influences their levels of resistance or acceptance of the policies that flow from Beijing's world view. We find that, while the United States and Russia lie at opposing ends of the resistance-acceptance spectrum, Japan represents an important middle ground along it. This finding encourages movement away from the overly simplistic dyadic depictions of global politics associated with 'new Cold War' or 'authoritarian versus liberal' labelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore how the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese supporters negotiated the tension between mechanical knowledge, along with its embedded theological implications and the Chinese worldview by examining the Yuanxi qiqi tushuo luzui 遠西奇器圖說錄最 and the biography of a Chinese inventor Huang Lüzhuang 黃履莊 in the context of the polemical debates on Christianity in seventeenth century China. Centring on the concept of creation, I demonstrate how the understanding of machine or automata relates to broader questions regarding the natural world and human agency at the juncture of intellectual transformations in both Europe and China: While some European thinkers, inspired by machines, promoted the worldview of a passive nature analogous to machine, concepts of unity and spontaneity provided the Chinese with an opportunity to account for the autonomy of the machine as something operating in accordance with the self-generating natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a complete and scientific theoretical system, the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy is a momentous achievement in the theoretical construction of China’s diplomacy, which leads China’s diplomatic practice from success to success and enjoys increasing international influence. With a distinct orientation to practice, the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy represents the practical self-conscience of China’s diplomacy that symbolizes and advances the trend of the times. In addition, it brings diplomatic innovation to China’s localized Marxism, stays firm to the communist worldview, summarizes scientific methodologies, and stresses the importance of serving the people’s well-being. With rich connotations in the up-to-date sovereignty concept, the common and sustainable security concept, the principle of upholding justice while pursuing shared interests, as well as the idea to lead the progressive reform of the international system, the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy has built a full set of strategic thinking guiding the relationship between China and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to the special issue, we use the expression "China in the world" paradigm to define scholarship that purposefully migrates across the traditional borders of comparative politics and international relations in the study of China. We argue that such a paradigm represents a view that many issues of Chinese domestic politics are now issues of international politics; as a result, domestic politics in a globalized contemporary China often cannot be sufficiently understood without considering international consequences. More than this, the paradigm is about scholarly attentiveness to the fact that the politics in China that we study also shapes how the rest of the world views China. We describe the paradigm and its antecedents in the scholarly literature. We then illustrate, with reference to three momentous events that captured public attention around the world in 2020, the paradigm's usefulness as a perspective to scholars reaching out to engage intellectually on contemporary affairs in an environment in which global responses to China require nuanced knowledge as all parties seek to avoid dangerous pitfalls. We conclude by summarizing the five articles included in the special issue and the broader implications of the "China in the world" paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents present economic and foreign policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC). However, while the BRI provides the PRC a great potential for its national development, it also causes uncertainty, anxiety, and criticism from other countries. For years, research has been examining the BRI from economic, foreign policy, political, or military perspective, very few of them explore it from the perspective of intercultural communication. Because the BRI itself is a process of intercultural communication, this paper attempts to examine it from five perspectives of intercultural communication, including cultural values, intercultural adaptation, intercultural relationship, cultural flow and media, and intercultural communication competence. Finally, two concepts, i.e., Chinese "World View" and "China Model", related to the BRI and the future of the BRI due to the impact of COVID-19 are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching of history is an important way in which the older generation, who control education systems, curricula, content choice and so on, pass on to the younger generation ideas, especially the idea of nationhood, which they hope will form the basis for future national cohesion. The younger generation, however, receive these messages and interpret then through the lens of their own experiences, experiences that they do not share with the older generation. Consequently, the idea of history is re-formed and reformulated by each generation. This paper looks at the role of textbooks, principally history textbooks, in that process. The style of textbooks is to present history as uncontentious, a descriptive account of facts and events. In practice, however, textbooks can only present an arbitrary selection from history, and a crucial decision made by educators is when to start their account – the beginning of history – as this can radically affect the interpretation of events. This facsimile of neutrality stands in sharp contrast to the professional historians’ hope that the teaching of history can develop a critical sense of important and contested events in history. The discussion is illustrated with examples of how history is presented in China and Japan, and how the conflicting accounts serve the interests of the policies adopted by the older generation, but may have unanticipated consequences for the younger generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Religion in China" by Adam Yuet Chau explores the central role of "relationality" in Chinese religious life, focusing on the relationships between people, spirits, and spaces. The book challenges traditional approaches that categorize Chinese religions into discrete traditions and instead emphasizes lived religious experiences. Chau argues that understanding Chinese religious practices requires a relational approach that considers the interactions and dynamics between individuals and various religious entities. The book covers topics such as religious diversity, interactions with deities and ancestors, festivals and pilgrimages, ritual service providers, communities and networks, and state-religion relations. While the book is aimed at a wide audience, it may require supplementary materials for readers with limited prior knowledge of Chinese religions. [Extracted from the article]

The Year 2019 witnessed intensified big power rivalry, growing difficulties in global governance, and sustained sluggish global growth. By summing up the successful experience and fine traditions of the past seven decades, China’s diplomacy have broken new ground. Over the past year, China has vigorously developed its relations with other major countries, comprehensively strengthened its ties with neighboring countries, consistently advocated win-win cooperation, firmly defended fairness and justice in the international arena, stepped up to its responsibility as a major country and resolutely safeguarded its core national interests. China-US relations have now encountered unprecedented complexities. While its perception of China has gone astray, the US is also showing a skewed view of the world. Managing differences and staying focused on cooperation will not only benefit both China and the US, but also be a blessing for the whole world. In the year 2020, China’s diplomacy will do its utmost to serve its domestic development agenda, firmly safeguard its national interests, continuously deepen partnerships, resolutely uphold multilateralism, actively expand international cooperation, and vigorously modernize the system and capacity for conducting diplomacy, in an effort to start a new journey of the major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China made phenomenal progress in science and technology during the long twentieth century. However, in the literature, there are contrasting opinions on the role Confucianism played here. To answer the question regarding whether Confucianism served as a stumbling block or a stepping stone, we must first disentangle some of the multifaceted connotations of "Confucianism," such as its worldviews, learning traditions, and "the teaching of Confucius" in a religious sense. The sectarian division of Confucian learning, particularly Neo-Confucianism and evidential learning, which corresponded to Song learning and revived Han learning in the Qing context, respectively, is given special consideration. We exploit several rare datasets of scientists and engineers for the era of the modern period and contemporary times, as well as data on the first wave of the new-style schools, measures of Neo-Confucianism, and the spatial distribution of prolific evidential scholars. We then show that the accumulation of human capital due to the imperial examination system and evidential scholarship contributed to the rise of modern science in China, whereas Confucian values as represented by various Neo-Confucian measures did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the changing perceptions about China and defends the country by terming some of the criticisms about it as overstatements. The picture currently depicted in the media is a far cry from the picture of an utopian country which was presented to the world sometime back. The country was exposed to intimate outside viewing while pursuing its modernization goals as it decided to honestly evaluate its problems and make full use of Western technology. According to several recent books, articles and newspaper columns, China is suffering from economic insufficiency, social immorality, corruption, repression and a self-serving bureaucracy. However, an outsider has limited ability to understand this vast and complex nation with a population of one billion people.

Research exploring urban youths’ value orientations toward the human–nature relationship was conducted with 59 students from a school in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA) and 51 students from a school in Guangzhou, Guangdong (China). Quantitative findings suggest that the majority of participants in both groups shared a similar value orientation, harmony with nature. Qualitative findings, however, suggest youth had somewhat different value orientations toward the human–nature relationship (interdependence most frequently for the Guangzhou school participants and stewardship for the Minneapolis school participants). Similarities and differences between the groups are discussed, and implications for environmental education are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most Chinese religious practice and belief in times past, and even throughout much of the Chinese world today, falls into the still current category of superstition. Assessing the ethical notions that tend to obtain within this vast area of religious life is not easy, but it needs to be done for practical reasons, not least because the legal consequences of moral actions arising from the body of beliefs concerned are starting to come before courts outside China itself. Once the assumptions of a very different worldview affirming the existence of an unseen spirit world are taken into account, the deeds of believers in this worldview can be discussed from the point of view of ethics. Philosophers might do well to pay more attention to this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debates on China's socio-political transformations by tracing the link between China's modernization and nationalism, and analysing their mutual interplay. Many recent studies discuss post-Mao China's development as a unique model challenging earlier development approaches. Instead, the argument pursued here points to the dependence of China's dominant development thinking on the paradigm of modernization and its symbolic celebration in official discourse and public rituals. By tracing the impact of the modernization paradigm in the influential annual publication China Modernization Report and in the 2009 National Day mass parade, the article shows how and what kind of Chinese nation is produced. I argue that China's ostensibly unique development model is constrained by the modernization thinking underlying it. Analysis of the discourses on modernity and 'scientific development' and the symbolism associated with them reveals a series of dichotomies and oppositions underpinning China's nation-building. China's pursuit of modernization relies on the suppression of other possible development paths within China and subsumes Chinese development experiences under those of the generalised West, thereby restricting development alternatives to those allowed within a hierarchical view of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being a prevalent form of cultural communication, zhan bu embodies the lifeworld of many Chinese and reflects their cultural praxis and values. The Chinese way of approaching emotional uncertainty and unknown future is drastically different from the Americans, who are more inclined to seek psychological counseling from licensed therapists. For example, a Chinese woman who is uncertain about her marriage has a higher likelihood of going to a Taoist/Buddhist temple than to a psychologist. For Chinese, zhan bu, or fortune telling then serves as a psychological counseling for those people who are physically or emotionally in turmoil. Zhan bu is deeply imbedded in Chinese culture and its way of life. A phenomenological perspective was adopted in this study to investigate the meaning Chinese people attach to zhan bu (divination) and how it relates to the Chinese lifeworld. Divination makes predictions, so uncertainty of one's future can be reduced. It creates a sense of security when positive predictions are made, or issues an early warning so preventive measures can be taken. It also serves two important communicative functions: psychological counseling and supplying a popular topic for conversation. In addition, it is a reflection of Chinese philosophy, tradition and a ritual in many Chinese interactions. This paper seeks to address spiritual underpinnings and intercultural implications of divination and fortune telling. Using fortune telling as an example, the author seeks to illustrate the extent to which fortune telling exemplifies Chinese cosmology, cultural traditions and worldvie [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is nationalism in China on the rise? Is it making China more combative in the international arena? More fundamentally: Is a focus on nationalism the most effective intellectual framework for understanding how those living within the People's Republic of China (PRC) are defining their position in contemporary world politics? This article briefly answers each of these questions. It argues that, despite forwarding some compelling insights, previous work on Chinese nationalism has been undermined by a number of major flaws. It then finds that such shortcomings are in no small part a product of the narrowing gaze that a focus on nationalism alone imposes on the study of identity politics. The article then advocates that in place of the nationalism rubric, a turn to the broader question of national identity formation is merited. Utilising this perspective, it concludes by cautioning that incipient splits within contemporary Chinese national identity may portend a more tumultuous relationship between China and the rest of the world in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do adults adapt when they have been inculcated into a particular philosophy of parenting and education and are then expected to adjust to a cultural framework possibly at odds with their worldview? Mainland Chinese fathers represent one immigrant group that has had to successfully learn to navigate various challenges while interacting with their children and the American K-12 educational system. This case study explores the issue of fathers and their children through interviews with five men from Mainland China. The article first highlights the most common concerns expressed by Chinese families toward American schools and details how the fathers in this study developed specific strategies to address similar worries. The findings then focus on the concept of parental involvement in children's education through the fathers' perspective and how it might diverge from a more traditional view of involvement held by some educators. Implications for strengthening cross-cultural awareness between families and schools are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article is presented on the role of science in China's culture and intellectual life. It explains that the New Culture Movement, a group consisting of mainstream intellectuals, focused its scientific interests on society, politics, and culture. It is suggested that China's worldview shifted from a traditional "heavenly" perspective to that of a scientific perspective. This article was translated from the Chinese by Hongmei Yu.

Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this paper extends Joseph Nye's analytical framework on soft power to the China case, in order to provide a more balanced and updated analysis of the country's power status. We argue that the rise of China is not simply an expansion of hard power; it has also been accompanied by tremendous efforts to develop soft power. Soft power helps Beijing redraw geopolitical alliances in ways that will propel its rise as a global power. This process is nevertheless complicated by the deficiency of its soft power resources and the uneven progress in projecting the soft power abroad. The paper concludes that despite Beijing's growing ability to shape other people's worldview or political agenda, soft power remains Beijing's underbelly and China still has a long way to go to become a true global leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Boundary delineation methods are scarce for crop fields with area <1 ha each. • We developed DESTIN for delineating field boundaries from high resolution imagery. • Temporal features were derived from Planet separately at soil preparation & harvest. • Crop field objects were recognized by DESIN at overall accuracies from 95% to 99%. • DESTIN yielded better matches of field boundaries with reference than ENVI FX. The digital boundaries of crop fields represent a prerequisite for designing parcel-based crop management platforms, implementing online site-specific agronomic practices and monitoring crop growth per field. Previous approaches on field boundary delineation were mostly developed with medium resolution imagery (e.g., Landsat) for the regions or countries with intensive agriculture and large-sized crop fields. However, suitable delineation methods are scarce for the regions in developing countries where the majority of arable land is cultivated by smallholder farmers and distributed in small and fragmented crop fields. This study proposed a comprehensive method, delineation by fusing spatial and temporal information (DESTIN), to derive the boundaries of crop fields from sub-meter WorldView-2/3 and 3-m Planet imagery. After extraction of spatial objects from very high resolution (VHR) WorldView imagery, this method performed recognition of crop field objects using high resolution (HR) Planet-derived temporal features specifically concerning soil preparation and harvesting stages for summer crops. The performance of DESTIN in crop field boundary delineation was evaluated with the reference polygons (0.4–1.0 ha in area on average) over four subset areas in eastern China's Jiangsu province, and further compared with a benchmark objection extraction approach. The results demonstrated that the integration of WorldView and Planet imagery as demanded by DESTIN yielded accurate recognition of crop fields with the classification overall accuracy (OA) ranging from 94.98% to 98.84%, which was remarkably improved over the use of WorldView or Planet imagery alone with increases in OA from 12% to 17%. The majority of crop field boudaries were successfully delineated with both methods, but DESTIN produced cleaner polygons than the benchmark appraoch and closer matches of field boundaries to the reference. DESTIN also yielded better one-to-one matches between delineations and reference (77% as opposed to 54%) and fewer one-to-many matches (1% as opposed to 33%) as a reflection of being less prone to over-segmentation. The DESTIN method does not need subjective parameterization for image segmentation, and could be applicable to the areas with availability of bi-temporal VHR imagery over the soil preparation and harvesting stages and HR imagery over the peak growth stage of summer crops. It has great potential for delineating the crop field boundaries in smallholder farming systems with VHR imagery acquired from satellite, airborne or unmanned aerial vehicle platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]