Tag: China

Globalism or Nationalism? Chinese Public Discourse on COVID-19 Vaccines

On 11 March 2020, COVID-19 was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Subsequently, the pandemic impacted the lives of millions of people. It is widely accepted that the development of COVID-19 vaccines would be a significant step in controlling the pandemic.
As the COVID-19 vaccines also have triggered heated discussions on social media in the PRC, I conducted an online observation from 9 October 2020 to 9 February 2021 on Sina Weibo to collect data on discussions about COVID-19 vaccines.

Life as “humineral”? What is behind China’s high-tech boom?

In early 2023, the term “human mine” or “huminerals” (renkuang 人矿) has sparked a widespread discussion on the Chinese Internet (China Digital Times, 2023). The term first appeared in 1984 in the People’s Daily to describe Chinese workers as a kind of material resource for economic development. Forty years later, young talents in the high-tech industry have used the term to criticise how their lives are used as “consumables” and exploited continuously. What is the underlying logic behind the sudden popularity of the term? How do young talents in urban China experience their work and life?

Opinion – China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Pragmatism over Morals?

By Tabita Rosendal, Ph.D. student at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden and an affiliate at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Is China beating the US and EU through its pragmatic approach towards cooperation under the “Belt and Road” Initiative (“一带一路”倡议) (BRI)? Despite the advent of the US’ “Build Back Better World” (B3W) and the EU’s “Connecting Europe Globally” (CEG), evidence from Sri Lanka suggests that some countries still look to China for support due to the ‘no-strings-attached’ nature of its investments. The stark reality is that China’s “pragmatic values”, combined with loans, may outcompete the two Western initiatives.

Life Under the Radar: Female North Korean Migrants Living in China.

Kate Allanson, MA North Korean Studies Student, University of Central Lancashire: A life underground or risk repatriation. This is the choice many North Korean migrants are faced with once they cross the Yalu River, setting foot on Chinese ground. North Koreans hold no refugee status once in China, receive no governmental aid and encounter no […]

A New Cold War? Can we maintain good academic relationships with China post Covid-19?

Jørgen Delman, University of Copenhagen

As a social scientist working in the field of Chinese politics, I note with interest the speed with which perceptions of China changed these last months. A Cold War mentality is detectable.

What’s Past Is Prologue – The Geopolitical Significance of Covid-19 for Southeast Asia

Ann Maire Murphy, Seton Hall University.

As countries begin to reopen during the Covid-19 pandemic, strategic analysts are debating its impact on the future of geopolitics. Some contend that the pandemic could reshape the global order, accelerating China’s rise to international leadership while hastening the decline of the United States.

Tackling intimate partner violence is not of interest to China

 by Pia Eskelinen,  Doctoral Candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku.   In early 2016, a legislation on domestic violence was implemented in China. However, the law does not provide adequate protection for the victims. And furthermore, intimate partner violence is often seen as normal thing within families or in other close relationships. In […]

Political blogs in China: the case of Han Han by Jesper Schlæger, PhD Fellow Copenhagen University

Introduction Blogs1 have become a way for people to express personal opinions online, and in China the “blogosphere” is turning into an arena for political debate. This stands in sharp contrast to the Chinese state media which, not surprisingly, usually present the officially acceptable version of social events. Self-censorship among journalists and editors is well-known, […]

Are the “flower revolutions” in the Middle East and North Africa endangering stability in China? by Christian Göbel

These are fascinating
times, as the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East might well be the
beginning of a “Fourth Wave” of Democracy. The late political scientist Samuel
Huntington once likened clustered incidences of democratizations to “waves”. After
the apparent ebbing out of the “Third Wave”, which between 1974 and the early
1990s swept over Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe, the
time might have come for another democratic push. As a political scientist
studying stability and instability of authoritarian regimes, I am extremely

Still Repairing Chinese-Japanese Relations by Asger Røjle Christensen

Yes, there has been a serious crisis
recently between China and Japan.

The collision between a Chinese
fishing trawler and a Japanese coastguard patrol boat close to the disputed
islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, prompted both countries
to take drastic measures which resulted in China canceling a number of
high-level ministerial meetings between the two countries. But no, this doesn’t
imply that the region is on the brink of open confrontation. It doesn’t disturb
the general trend towards a more pragmatic cooperative attitude from both
sides.