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| 1 |
ID:
182985
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article discusses the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on China's foreign aid provision by analysing the ensuing transformation and challenges. With regard to transformation, impacts are evident in the increased significance of this aid in China's overall diplomatic project, the changes in development financing arrangements, the long-term vision in planning infrastructure engagement, and the shift towards multilateral cooperation and soft aid programmes. While the BRI has reshaped China's foreign aid in many aspects, the initiative has also posed challenges to the organisation and delivery of aid. The lack of transparency and the fragmented institutional arrangement of China's foreign aid are likely to limit the effectiveness of its aid engagement abroad. The rapid increase in lending to developing countries also raises the debt trap issue and discourse. Moreover, China faces challenges in engaging in partnerships with civil society groups and local communities in the host countries where "soft" programmes of cultural exchange and people-to-people connections are made. The article argues that the BRI is a double-edged sword, representing new opportunities for China's foreign aid while also posing challenges.
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| 2 |
ID:
182986
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China seeks to build a multipolar architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean through economic expansion without challenging the political and security order in the region. Unlike the United States, Russia, Britain and France, which rely on military presence in the region, China has built substantial economic presence within its ambitious framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, exemplified by its seaport diplomacy towards Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Lebanon. China's seaport diplomacy is shaped by its development-oriented mentality, and driven by the economic competitiveness of the host countries, China's economic interdependence and political affinity with the target states, as well as the development potential and the regional influence of the target seaports. Beijing highlights that its geoeconomic interests, manifested in its participation in seaport development, are compatible with other great powers' geopolitical interests in the region. However, China's seaport diplomacy there faces various hurdles, including seaport overcapacity, debt problems and great powers' geopolitical rivalry due to China's ambiguity of strategic motives. In the long run, China's commercial seaport projects in the Eastern Mediterranean may have potential to clash with the United States and the European Union due to the escalating mutual mistrust among great powers, making it hard for Beijing to seek economic benefit while avoiding political entanglement.
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| 3 |
ID:
182990
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| Summary/Abstract |
By analysing the Chinese General Social Survey and Taiwan Social Change Survey data from 2011, this article examines from institutionalist and culturalist perspectives the trust level and influencing factors of patients in the Chinese Mainland and Taiwan. Findings have demonstrated that trust levels of patients in the Mainland and Taiwan are internally differentiated, with a high level of general trust and a low level of specific trust. Second, patients in the Mainland have a higher level of general trust than patients in Taiwan, but their level of specific trust is lower than that of patients in Taiwan, which may be attributed to the influence of traditional Chinese culture and the social transition. Third, although institutional factors play a more significant role, consistency is embodied in institutional and cultural factors that affect the trust of patients in both the Mainland and Taiwan. However, in the Mainland, medical satisfaction has a greater impact on patients' trust, while, in Taiwan, medical equity, internet use and universal trust have stronger effects on patients' trust. Therefore, to improve patient trust in China and Taiwan, there should be greater focus on institutional factors, while not neglecting the cultural factors.
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| 4 |
ID:
182984
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| Summary/Abstract |
How were the post-Deng Xiaoping "educational activities" tied to or different from the rectification campaigns of the earlier periods? What does this mean for the future of intra-Party governance in China? Through a comparison of rectification campaigns in the 1940s–1980s and intra-Party educational activities thereafter, the author concludes that the campaign method had been institutionalised as an integral instrument of intra-Party governance, forging a three-stage procedure to fulfil the dual aims of education and deterrence. Consequently, the Communist Party of China discarded the imposition of extreme sanctions in the post-Deng era but reinforced authoritative and distributive powers through less severe forms of sanctions.
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| 5 |
ID:
182983
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| Summary/Abstract |
Was it a result of domestic political changes or of developments in international environmental politics? While the decision to introduce comprehensive modern environmental policies in China has had arguably a long-term impact on environmental governance, few studies have scrutinised the early decision-making process. This article attempts to address the void in scholarship. Adopting the multiple streams framework, the authors argue that the origins of environmental policy in China arose from the confluence of three streams—problem identification, political tensions and policy choices—under Premier Zhou Enlai's sponsorship. The new ecological perspective arising from the environmental policy emphasises scientific principles and technocratic solutions, lending a contrast to an ideological approach that had characterised the previous decades. This process was accompanied by the new political role of an environmentalist group consisting primarily of bureaucrats and scientists who mobilised international experience to identify appropriate technological solutions. This article analytically traces the historical context, problem identification, policy entrepreneurship and key policy instruments that characterised the first phase of Chinese environmental policies. The authors discuss the extent to which key elements of China's environmental policies today may still be shaped by the technocratic approach in the initial phase.
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| 6 |
ID:
182991
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Basing their approach on Homans' group theory, the authors evaluated 168 examples of doctor–patient conflict that occurred between 2000 and 2016. The empirical results show that group relationship, group scale and event duration act as catalysts, while media attention can be a conditional buffer in influencing the evolution of such conflict behaviour. The authors also found that group scale has a buffering effect when the event duration is longer, while the buffering effect of media attention is weaker when the event duration is shorter. The authors discuss how these findings contribute to research on social risk management.
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| 7 |
ID:
182987
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the higher education systems in the European Union (EU) and China, and the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, yidai yilu) on the implementation, development and reforms of an international agenda. It also takes into consideration the development of EU–China cooperation in education and academia through research and scientific programmes launched in recent years, as well as the role of some key institutions such as the Confucius Institutes. To this end, the aim is to analyse China's "soft power" policy and its link with the novel concept of "academic diplomacy" introduced in this article to describe the engagement and academic international cooperation between the EU and China. Such reforms and promotion of collaboration with the EU have ultimately promoted China's influence and visibility in the global arena.
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| 8 |
ID:
182982
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| Summary/Abstract |
In China's decentralised system, vital public services such as health, education and social welfare are provided by local governments. The intergovernmental fiscal system is critical to ensuring local governments are adequately financed. Since 1994, China has overhauled its public finances to create a system able to finance government operations, support economic growth and fund industrial policies and international initiatives. Its Achilles' heel remains a weak intergovernmental fiscal system that is unable to fund local governments efficiently and equitably. This article analyses local finance through three decades of reform. Despite a promise early in the Xi Jinping administration to realign central–local fiscal relations, local finances have deteriorated since 2015 due to slowing growth, tax cuts and pressures from tightened budget management. Local fiscal difficulties have caused a decline in social spending as a share of gross domestic product. If continued, this trend threatens to reverse recent gains in improving services and undermine other national policy goals.
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| 9 |
ID:
182988
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Extensive studies have shown that social services of Christian churches in mainland China today are still charity-focused, and feature temporary, sporadic and unsystematic efforts. Social services of a local Christian church in city S have risen above the conventional charities through various endeavours, a success attributed mainly to a set of self-developed and effective strategies, namely centralised control to boost organisational efficacy, collective identity cultivation to build a shared frame of reference and capitalising on favourable political circumstances to tap external resources. Specifically, improved organisational efficacy offers stable institutional support; a shared frame of reference ignites internal driving power; and external support catalyses greater public engagement. A closer examination of these strategies reveals the modes of church–government interactions that vary from one context to another. On the one hand, China's religious affairs authorities remain sceptical towards churches, while local governments, on the other hand, have taken initiatives to explore collaborations with churches to address their needs for effective governance. Manoeuvring between religious affairs authorities and local governments, local Christian churches have managed to blaze a trail of social engagement to demonstrate their social and public orientations without going against the national discourse.
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| 10 |
ID:
182989
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Chinese government created specialty mediation committees to settle profession-based disputes, including medical disputes, in the 2010s. Using data on medical dispute resolution collected from fieldwork from 2016 to 2017, this article examines why (and how) mediators have addressed social grievances. It argues that the specialisation of mediation institutions and a series of politicisation measures, as well as affective and bargaining strategies employed in the mediation process, have jointly led to a high mediation rate. The findings also reveal that several factors could shape mediators' strategies, including timing, disputes that may lead to group petitioning, and disputants' level of bargaining power. This article enhances our understanding of the advent of the specialty mediation committees from an institutional perspective and enriches our knowledge of the mediators' role in the process.
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