• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.133-162
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• 2020

This article examines China's political characteristics from a cultural perspective. First, it demonstrates the usefulness of the semiotic model through comparative analysis of various political and cultural research methods. Next, this model is used to analyze the representative religions of China, Confucianism and Taoism. Lastly, it analyzes the influence of the cultural codes derived through this on Chinese politics. In conclusion, China has a monolithic cultural code that seeks harmony with transcendental order centered on secular order. It is analyzed that the cultural code of this characteristic had an influence on the orientations of non-rationalization and realism.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.148-168
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• 2020

In April, 2020, amid widespread fear of a second wave of infections of the novel coronavirus in China, local authorities in Guangzhou cracked down on the city's black population, resulting in mass evictions of Africans. The incident raises several questions about racism in China. How should we interpret this heavy-handed treatment of black people? Was this an isolated incident? What motivated such operations? In this article, I explain social control of Guangzhou's African communities as a problem of municipal politics. What underlies the government's heavy handed approach, I argue, are those communities' ties to rurality, which constitute a roadblock in the city's urban upgrade. Using Dengfeng Village, one of the best known African communities in China, as a case study, I show that efforts to upgrade the area by the local state and the real estate industry were frustrated by the community's status as an urban village. Africans, whom Chinese have historically associated with rurality, are seen as contributing to a space that has long been stigmatized as a spatial manifestation of rural people's lack of self-discipline. To better reveal the interconnection between social control and urban politics, I place official action in context of the history of the community's formation and the lived experience. This analysis of Dengfeng applies to various extents to other major African communities in Guangzhou.

• 중국학논총
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• no.68
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• pp.141-161
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• 2020

This paper aims to analyze China's political education, which plays a role of vehicle in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoting its ideological strategy, in order to figure out the utility of the CCP's ideological strategy. After Reform and Opening Up, the CCP rebuilt and reinforced political education in China according to its ideological strategy. Especially after the Tiananmen incident in 1989, the CCP made nationalism and patriotism as the core part of political education, and expanded its curriculum. Such reinforcement of political education has a advantage in maintaining the CCP's governance by creating a nationalist consensus against the western ideas. Although it can be helpful for the stability of domestic politics, it also has negative possibilities which isolate China in the global community and obstruct China's development.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2011

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.373-384
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• 2004

While the bilateral trade volume between China and U.S. has been growing rapidly, the trade deficits of U.S. to China has also been expanding. This growing trade deficit of U.S. to China has several reasons: the increase of foreign direct investment to China, the transfer of trade deficit origins, the intervention of U.S. domestic politics to China-U.S. trade relations, and U.S. direct control on export to China. However, the increased U.S. trade deficit to China does not mean that U.S. is in a disadvantaged position in its economic relations with China, or its international competitiveness is deteriorating. When U.S. surplus in service trade to China is included, the picture would be very different. Also, as internationalization progresses and China's industrial structure adjusts, the trade deficit of U.S. to China would narrow.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2012

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-42
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• 2011

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2020

On the World Refugee Day in 2017, Yao Chen, a Chinese actress, philanthropist, and social media influencer, posted messages in her Weibo in support of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Yet, social media users quickly interpreted this supportive message of the refugee program as encouraging people to "accept and receive refugees" (jieshou nanmin) into China. Particularly, the category of Middle Eastern refugees elicited most criticism in China's cyberspace. As the inclusion of refugees is an integral part of immigrant multiculturalism, this article examines the limits of multicultural imagination of refugees―particularly those from the Middle Eastern and North Africa―in contemporary China. I argue that the limits of multicultural imagination in contemporary China is profoundly shaped by an intricate interweaving of domestic policies and global imaginaries toward refugees. By deploying a mixed methodology, such limits are examined from legal-institutional, ideological, and sociocultural perspectives. More specifically, three interrelated aspects will be highlighted in the article: (1) the global circulation of right-wing populism imaginaries, and their entanglements with the anti-Muslim sentiments in contemporary China; (2) the current insufficiency of the legal-institutional framework regarding refugees and asylum-seekers, which needs to be contextualized in China's modern history of dealing with refugee issues; (3) population politics, the rise of Han-centric nationalism, and their constraining impact on the interpretation of historical events related to cultural diversity. In conclusion, this article also offers potential implications for further examining the different yet potentially intersected genealogies of multicultural imaginaries beyond the Middle Eastern and North African refugees in Asia.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.403-425
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• 2007

The sudden emergence of China as a superpower in world politics and economics is apparently a big surprise. This, however, is not an unusual incident. As far as the Chinese are concerned, they say that China is simply running almost the same track that its neighboring countries. In the recent years, a number of experts and scholars have expected that the emergence of China as a great economic power will be argued as a major issue in world politics and economics. So its economic progress will require experts and scholars to watch carefully how China is going to change. It certainly has created an atmosphere that most of the world leaders, experts and scholars are very concerned about China's remarkable performance in its economics and then willing to accept China's rapid growth as an urgent matter. Many experts and scholars began to analyze carefully the factors that have contributed to the rapid growth. Foreign direct investment (FDI), import-export, and economic reform were then listed as the most important factors. As a result, philosophy of economics, analytical economics, and economics are immediately needed for China who is at the moment very anxious to sustain the stable and continuity of rapid economic growth. But unfortunately China does not even recognize the reason why they need to adopt these economic concepts and methods.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.27-48
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• 2022

In the past decade, Korea and Japan have increasingly exhibited different strategic priorities in trade in face of China's rising global economic prowess and worsening US-China trade conflict. Japan's trade policy decisions have worked to reinforce its economic and security ties with the US as a means to counter China. Japan has used both bilateral and multilateral means to secure its ties with the US against China. In contrast, Korea's trade policy positions have been one of 'strategic ambiguity'. Korea has been more conciliatory towards China, reluctant to take actions that would counter China's interest. Korea has mainly resorted to bilateral channels to maintain favorable relations with both China and the US. Korea's reluctance to clearly ally with the US against China has been observed across different administrations with opposing political orientations. This paper examines Korea and Japan's diverging strategic priorities in trade through the 2017 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference; the 2017 US imposition of Section 232 on steel; the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Korea-US FTA renegotiation and the Korea-China FTA Phase Two Negotiation; and the 2019 Japan-US Trade Agreement.