China Report

ARTICLES

• Cross-Strait Relations Between Taiwan and Mainland China: The Economic Imbalance and its Implications
  Kerry Liu
  Abstract
   
• Trap of Race to the Bottom? Evidence from Pollution Intensive Products Trade in India and China
  Malini L. Tantri
  Abstract
   
• Changing Contours of Chinese Queer Perceptions and the Taiwanese Model
  Amina Reem V.P. and John S. Moolakkattu
  Abstract
   
• Motives and Resources of Traditional Chinese Foreign Aid, 1949-1994
  Cengiz Mert Bulut
  Abstract
   

An Introductory Note for the Articles

• The cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China are critical in the Asia Pacific and the world. Kerry Liu’s article focuses on economic relations and their implications. The main conclusions include: First, the economic gap in output is increasingly larger, thus favouring China. Based on a time series robust least squares model, Liu’s article finds that this economic strength will significantly reduce the number of Taiwan’s foreign allies. At the same time, this economic strength also brings military imbalance. Second, by employing the Granger causality tests to examine the causality relations between the stock markets of Taiwan and China, which reflect the economic integrations in areas such as the trade of goods and services and capital flow, Liu’s study finds that China is in a dominant position. At the same time, Taiwan is in a dominated position. However, except for tourism, the effects of China’s dominant position as leverage seem limited.

• Malini L. Tantri’s article compares China and India, the two biggest emerging market economies in the world, with respect to their trade in pollution-intensive industries and tries to discuss the policy environment supporting such growth. Tantri's analysis is carried out for 13 categories of pollution-intensive products based on the Standard International Trade Classification Revision 3 classification. Tantri’s analysis reveals significant growth in trade in these products in both countries, with a higher intra-industry trade and a significant correlation with environmental stringency. Between the two, India seems to be enjoying a better comparative advantage. Findings suggest a need for adopting cleaner production processes and a cautious approach towards industrial promotion.

• Amina Reem V.P. and John S. Moolakkattu’s article explores the transitions of queer understandings in China, which are considerably shaped by social, political, cultural and historical factors. While the Mao era silenced homosexuality, the reform era created new avenues for public discussions on sexuality, though they were confined to urban China. The representation of queerness in Chinese media like television, films, pop music, and so on, signifies the role of cultural identities having larger implications in a local and global context. However, queer voices in China have been subject to ambiguous yet persistent censorship. In this context, placing queer politics at the cross-strait tensions between China and Taiwan gives a better understanding of its soft power potential. Taiwan is the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, and queer politics has become an important soft power tool to enhance its democratic credentials in the international community. Strategic promulgation of a progressive queer policy in China will have potential benefits in enhancing its legitimacy in the international arena. Reem and Moolakkattu’s article assesses the state of LGBTQ rights in China and how the country traverses between the grey areas of allowance and disallowance in its approach to the queer question. It also explores the potential benefits of granting LGBTQ rights as a soft power strategy, taking a cue from the Taiwan experience and the constraints to attaining such status.

• Since the establishment of traditional Chinese foreign aid, the People’s Republic of China has participated as both a donor and a recipient in foreign aid mechanisms. This has become a major issue in international relations. Until the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank were established in 1994, Chinese foreign aid could be considered traditional. As the focus of this study, traditional Chinese foreign aid has gained a disparate place in the literature due to its high level of involvement with aid mechanisms, domestic economic resources and motivations. In particular, the relationship between the PRC’s foreign aid motivations and its economic resources showed how effectively mainland China applied the foreign aid mechanism, which has been one of the main issues of these international relations. Cengiz Mert Bulut’s article examines the relationship between the different economic conditions and foreign aid motivations of the Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping periods and attempts to reveal certain continuities and changes between the two periods.

 

Book Reviews

• Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China
  Shivshankar Menon
  Abstract
   
• Tony Saich, From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party
  Hemant Adlakha
  Abstract
   
• Cao Yin, Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942-1945
  Diki Sherpa
  Abstract
   
• Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro, China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet
  Maria Monica
  Abstract
   
• Li Zhang, Junlin Qu, Jing Jie and Nannan Liang, China’s Publishing Industry in the Era of Big Data
  Xinyi Zhu
  Abstract