Understanding Chinese identity in international relations : a critique of Western approaches.

In international relations in the West, two main approaches to Chinese identity have emerged: the capability and the culture approaches. Though each takes a different view of China, they share common epistemological ground. positivism. This paper provides an overview of these two influential schools of thought and attempts to challenge their positivistic and ethnocentric assumptions about the identities of both China and the West. While they endeavour to make sense of China, particularly in the post-Cold War era, they fail to understand identity as a form of representation. From a critical perspective, both ’China’ and the ‘West’ are social constructs: each in part constitutes the other. The relationship between them is always relational and fluid. Posing Chinese identity in positivist terms is not only misleading analytically, but potentially dangerous in practice. It is important, therefore, that alternative critical approaches to the complexities of Chinese identity be further explored.

International standing, international reputation and Australian foreign policy

This thesis provides a systematic study of the concepts of international standing and international reputation in four significant episodes in Australian foreign policy in the second half of the Twentieth Century. These concepts are shown to have influenced Australian diplomacy, both as objects of policy and as instruments of policy.

The relationship between attitude and behavior : an empirical study in China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of attitude towards behavior, subject norm and perceived behavioral control (PBC) on a Chinese subject's evaluation of a tertiary education program.

Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts a 3 (country-of-origin) by 2 (location) between-group factorial design. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is used as a framework to understand the intentions of the Chinese subjects concerning their enrollment in an offshore program.

Findings – Results show that a subject's attitude towards behavior, subject norm and PBC had a significantly positive relationship with the subjects' enrollment intentions irrespective of the country-of-origin (COO) of an education program. However, results also indicate that the significance of the three components on enrollment intention is contingent on which country the offshore program is from.

Practical implications – The findings of this study can help foreign education institutions develop a good understanding of the education market in China.

Originality/value – This study is one of the few studies that have adopted the TPB, the widely used psychology theory, in the Chinese context.

Introducing creative language learning in Japan through educational drama

Educational Drama as a teaching and learning methodology is already widely in use and well accepted by Australian teachers and students. This paper reports on a study in which the author investigated Japanese primary school students' and teachers' responses to educational drama as a pedagogical tool in their English language classes. The participants had no prior experience of drama in education. Along with the participants' responses, the applicability of educational drama as a teaching method for the Japanese teachers is also discussed. The author, as a teacher-researcher, used action research methods for this study. It became evident that educational drama tended to motivate the Japanese students' foreign language learning of English, by providing them with an opportunity for a higher level of engagement and participation in learning. In the study, the students showed enhancement of the skills necessary for learning, including social, communication, linguistic, non-linguistic and problem-solving skills.

Questions of (re)production and legitimation : a second screening of 3 films on teacher-student relations

This study considers three Hollywood films that take, as their subject, a teacher-hero confronted with a 'problem' group of students and, as their narrative, the rehabilitation of these students and the resolution of their problems. Employing a Bourdieuian analysis, we attempt a second screening of these films on two levels: first, by stepping inside these celluloid classrooms, so to speak, and narrating a different text, one that is spoken from the position of students and which challenges each film's portrayal of good people achieving fine things; and secondly, by screening for gaps in their accounts of schooling, exposing their limited frames of reference and their legitimacy to speak on behalf of authentic classrooms. The first of these projects is undertaken as a way of challenging teachers and interested others to be wary of uncritical readings of popular images of teaching, whereas the second provides a beginning from which to consider how teachers' pedagogy and school curricula can be informed by a radical democratic view of education - how teachers might embrace the foreign.

Intercultural relations in a global world

The exploration of cross-cultural contact in a global and transnational world is essential for understanding how we can learn to live with difference in ways that go beyond tolerance. This book explores such contact in Euro-American/Australian societies as well as non-western multiethnic societies such as China, Malaysia, Indonesia and countries within Easter Europe. The contributors in this book expose the power relations underpinning such encounters as well as explore the possibilities for meaningful dialogue.

Wal-Mart’s trade union in China

In 2007–8, more than 100 Wal-Mart stores in China established trade unions, which were praised by labour organizations and scholars throughout the world. This article questions these positive assessments and evaluations through an empirical study. The empirical findings reveal a dark and unpleasant picture of a double cooptation in that both the Chinese government and Wal-Mart have successfully coopted a few more or less independent unions. Although the presence of the trade union seems to challenge Wal-Mart’s neoliberal corporate ideology and governance, the compromise and tacit agreement between Wal-Mart and the party-state not only reflects a marriage of convenience but also indicates some deeper compatibility, the compatibility between China’s state corporatist model and the neoliberal approach taken by Wal-Mart. This study finds that China continues to move in a ‘state corporatist’ direction and that the transition towards civil society and ‘societal corporatism’ has been stymied.

Politics of accommodation of the Rise of China : the case of Australia

In the context of the rise of China, Southeast Asian countries and Australia have begun shifting towards an accommodation policy. Robert Ross examines the accommodation policy in South Korea, Mochizuki discusses Japanese accommodationists, and Manicom and O’Neil show some evidence of Australian accommodation of Chinese strategic preferences. The scholarship has, however, narrowly focused on and overestimated the role of security. Through a study of the origin, process, structural conditions and impacts of accommodation policy, this paper broadens the concept of accommodation to capture its multiple meanings and practices. It finds that a selective accommodation policy and strategy toward the rise of China developed in Australia is a sign of the changing power relations under which the mainstream paradigms of containment and engagement, hard balancing or bandwagoning, have proved inadequate to the task of dealing with China, and that economic interdependence has driven the politics of accommodation in Australia and several Asian countries.

Impacts of currency fluctuations on Japanese foreign direct investment

The Japanese currency has appreciated substantially against most other currencies over the last two decades. During the same time Japan has become one of the world's largest providers of FDI. Japan's share of total FDI outflows increased from about 6 percent during the late 70's to 21 percent in 1990 while its share of the total stock of FDI in the world increased from less than 1 percent in 1960 to more than 13 percent in 1993. Not surprisingly, Japan's role in international business in general and its FDI activities, in particular, have attracted considerable attention from researchers world wide. However, much of this attention has been directed towards the patterns and determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment, in particular to the United States. The impact of changes in the value of the Yen on Japanese FDI has been largely overlooked. Thus, this paper fills an important gap in the literature by focusing on the influence of changes of the exchange rate on Japanese foreign direct investment. A comprehensive simultaneous equa-tion model of Japanese FDI is developed on a regional level to gauge the extent to which currency fluctuations affect Japanese FDI activities. The results suggest that the exchange rate is an effective mechanism through which to influence FDI. Thus, the exchange rate should not be overlooked by the World Trade Organisation in its efforts to further liberalise investment through the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

FDI location at the subnational level: a study of EJVs in China

The location of FDI activities by MNEs is of interest to international business researchers, especially in light of the rapidly changing economic landscapes in many regions of the world. This paper adds to the literature on MNEs' location choices, focusing on how business characteristics are related to location, in a sample of 6430 foreign equity joint ventures (EJVs) in China during 1984–1996. The results show that the duration of the EJV agreement, the origin of the foreign investor, and the type of business activity are related to the location of the EJVs' business activities within China. Significant differences are noted in the locations of ventures in the manufacturing and service sectors, and there is evidence of an increasing preference for MNEs to locate their activities in China's large, metropolitan cities. These findings reflect the dynamic nature of government policies toward FDI in China and their impact on the location choices of MNEs.

Implications of Kungurian (Early Permian) conodonts from Hatahoko, Japan, for correlation between the Tethyan and international timescales

The correlation between the fusulinid-based Tethyan and the conodont-based international timescales of the Permian System has become one of themost disputed issues among the Permian community during the past two decades. In this paper,we document a conodont fauna consisting of four species including Sweetognathus guizhouensis, Pseudohindeodus augustus, Hindeodus permicus and a new genus Meiognathus pustulus from the lower part of a large exotic limestone block at Hatahoko in the Nyukawa area, Gifu Prefecture, central Japan, which all suggest aKungurian age. The Kungurian age indicated by the conodonts is consistent with the age of the associated brachiopods, but conflicts with the Murgabian age indicated by the associated fusulinids including Cancellina nipponica, Neoschwagerina simplex, Neofusulinella praecursor etc. This co-occurrence of Kungurian conodonts and Murgabian fusulinids in central Japan suggests that previously unrecognized temporal distributions of some key fusulinid or conodont elements need to be clarified and that the intensively-disputed correlation problem between theKungurian containing theMurgabian fusulinids at the Luodian section in Guizhou, South China with the strata containing the ammonoid Waagenoceras in Oman and Sicily was caused by artificial conodont taxonomic discrepancies. The Luodian section in South China could serve as a key reference section for the correlation of the Kungurian Stage (late Early Permian) between the Tethyan and international timescales. 

Confucius institutes and China's national identity

This article examines China’s Confucius Institute program, a significant language policy and planning initiative. I adopt a political perspective in looking into the birth of this language policy initiative, focusing on its role in reconstructing China’s national identity in the context of its rise and its international relations. I explore the background against which the Confucius Institute initiative was formed, and analyse how the Confucius Institute initiative was received in the West and how China responded to it. I argue that China is undergoing a reconstruction of its national identity and the Confucius Institute initiative is a major part of this effort. I suggest that such a reconstruction of national identity is an interactive process with an outcome resulting from China’s negotiation with the international community, involving China stating a new position, listening to international responses, clarifying and elaborating upon its position until its new position is accepted by the international community.