Li, Quan: The Idea of Governance and the Spirit of Chinese Neoliberalism

State-Fueled Energy: Quantitative Comparison of State-Led Overseas Energy Financing in China and Japan Abstract China and Japan own the largest policy banks—state-owned financiers—in the world. Policy banks have recently drawn international attention as the Export–Import Bank of China (CHEXIM) and China Development Bank (CDB) play an important role in China’s overseas economic activities. This paper examines the extent to which the CHEXIM and CDB behave similarly to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), their Japanese counterpart in energy loan approvals. Combining third-party data from a new database of Chinese overseas energy finance and various matching databases, this paper proposes a fixed-effect model to compare the determinants of the CHEXIM, CDB and JBIC’s overseas energy loans from a comparative perspective. Like their Japanese counterparts, Chinese banks exhibit a certain degree of concern for the recipient’s domestic economy but also exhibit risk-seeking tendencies. Contrary to claims that China’s policy bank is a tool to gain geopolitical advantage, geopolitical concerns and energy security do not appear to be determinants of the CHEXIM’s overseas finance decisions.

T’oegye’s Arguments on the Four Beginnings and Seven Feelings: A Phenomenological Inquiry Abstract This article aims to phenomenologically examine T’oegye’s arguments on the Four Beginnings and Seven Feelings, attempting a theoretical reconstruction through “founding” and “alterity”, so as to reveal the relations and differences between the Four Beginnings and Seven Feelings. On the one hand, the Four Beginnings constitute a founding substratum, on the top of which the Seven Feelings may be founded. Moreover, whereas the Four Beginnings and Seven Feelings share the same assumption of alterity or intersubjectivity, they differ in their emphasis on whether li (理 principle) or qi (氣 material force) shall be prioritised. The priority of principle over material force is inherent in the notion of the Four Beginnings, while for the Seven Feelings, it is the other way around. When confronted by an “other”, one will invariably face a choice to make, in “deontological consideration of the other’s interest” or “private preference”. There is an emphasis that “deontological consideration shall prevail” in the Four Beginnings, for which it is “purely good”. By way of comparison, the Seven Feelings may be affected more often than not by “private desire or preference”, for which reason it will manifest the Janus faces of being both good and evil.

The Cornerstone of Economic Nationalism: National Self-image Abstract The focus of this article is Estonia’s post-socialist economic transition and the reasons behind the liberal nature of the country’s economic policies. I argue that the self-image of a nation plays a significant role in shaping its economic policies. Objectives associated with economic nationalism can be achieved through various means that can include strategies of economic liberalism as well. Thus, the concepts of economic nationalism and economic liberalism are not a dichotomy. I examine the construction of the Estonian self-image through the discourses of radical individualism and industriousness, historical suffering, desire for freedom and return to Europe and sense of abandonment. By showing how these discourses interact with the liberal paradigm, I claim that Estonian policy-makers chose liberal economic policies because they perceived them to most effectively serve their objectives. When economic policies are examined in view of the national self-image and motivation of policy-makers, the incongruence between economic nationalism and liberal policies disappears.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Global Justice: Theories, Concepts, Principles and Indicators Abstracts The paper focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of global justice and discusses theories, concepts, evaluative principles, and methodologies related to the study of global justice. In this paper, we seek to clarify how to conceptualize global justice, how conceptual indicators can be selected and justified by theories, and how those indicators can be conceptually consistent with the concept of global justice. Global justice is a broad concept that is composed of multi-level and multidimensional aspects belonging to both normative and empirical realities. A coherent and integrated theoretical framework that covers the normative basis and various empirical dimensions is therefore much needed in order to address some of the basic and important questions under study. The paper seeks to synthesize the multiple theories and conceptions of global justice that exist in the academic discourse and literature into three main theoretical approaches to global justice—rights based, good based, and virtue based. These three approaches are a good sample of and reflect well the strengths of the different theoretical, intellectual and cultural traditions at play in the study of global justice. From this perspective, the synthesis of the three approaches is meant to provide us with a coherent theoretical framework that serves as the normative basis and justifies the selection of indicators for measurement.

Consumerism and Surveillance in Leighton Evans and Michael Saker’s Location-Based Social Media: Space, Time, and Identity Abstract In Location-Based Social Media: Space, Time, and Identity, Leighton Evans and Michael Saker present a comprehensive way of thinking about Location-Based Social Media Networking (LBSN) for a scholarly audience. The most basic understanding of LBSN is the act of “checking in” and sharing a location across a social network. However, Evans and Saker explain that this act of marking a physical presence in a place at a particular time creates profound effects on spatiality, identity, and temporality. Using Evans and Saker’s work as a starting base for understanding the effects of LBSN on the individual, I study the implications of LBSN features in monolithic social media platforms as a tool for consumerism and surveillance for marketers, the state, and everyday individuals.

The Introversive Political Meritocracy: A Political Possibility Beyond “The End of History” Abstract The criticisms of the falsity of universal recognition carried out by leftists, led by Karl Max, and the queries of its desirability proposed by rightists, represented by Friedrich Nietzsche, raise challenges to Francis Fukuyama’s theory of “the end of history” from two opposite directions. At present, Chinese-style political meritocracy based on the party state is a political form that combines these left-wing and right-wing challenges and has the potential to move beyond “the end of history”. However, whether it can truly surpass “the end of history” depends on whether it can form a desirable and stable alternative political form under modern conditions. To this end, Chinese-style political meritocracy must respond positively to the three challenges it faces under modern conditions: the tension between “debichengwei” (one’s virtue must have a matching position, 德必称位) and moral universalism, the corrosion of social justice from the hierarchical social structure caused by “weibichenglu” (one’s position must have a matching salary, 位必称禄), and the threat of social indoctrination to individual autonomy. The “introversive political meritocracy” jointly shaped by “advocating morals for the public,” “arete based on altruism,” and “introversive self-cultivation” is a desirable political form that can successfully respond to these three challenges.

On the Evolution of Baojuan Performances in Shanghai: A Development of Traditional Literature in the Modern City (1875–1915) Abstract This article traces the history of baojuan (scroll recitation) performances in Shanghai in the period 1875–1915. Scroll recitation is a type of ritualized storytelling that originated in Buddhist preaching, but that also included secular subjects in the later period. This study demonstrates how a traditional performative art was integrated into the cultural environment of a developing cosmopolitan city at the end of the nineteenth century, and how it was transformed for the new demands of urban audiences in the early twentieth century. This study analyzes the process of secularization of scroll recitation through the growth of entertaining aspects of its contents and performance style in Shanghai. It makes use of newly discovered historical materials, including newspapers and periodicals of that period, which help to clarify many details of this art’s evolution in the modern city.

Defining, Explaining and, then, Exploiting the Elusive Concept of “Governance” Abstract The concept of “governance” has become omnipresent in the lexicon of politics and political science. It has very quickly acquired many different meanings, but its most important property seems to be its capacity to serve as a substitute for “government”. The former is (allegedly) good, and the latter is (allegedly) bad. In this essay, I explore the definition, the presumptions and the utility of governance. I conclude that it can make an important contribution of our understanding of the increasingly complex process of making and implementing public policies, but not as a substitute for government.

Emerging Powers and Leadership Norms Abstract Leadership is a notoriously ambiguous term in international politics, one with meanings that range from disguised hegemony or domination on the one hand to purely consensual coalition-building and the provision of focal points for collective action on the other. The term usually has positive normative content (leadership is viewed as necessary for global governance to succeed), but the form that leadership takes—the mix of instruments that are deployed, whether a single leader is necessary or collective leadership is possible—varies over time and across regions. As global leadership by the USA is called into question, the leadership norms advanced by emerging powers represent different formulas that may ultimately be transferred to the global level. Brazil in South America, Germany in Europe, India in South Asia, and China in East Asia demonstrate specific types of leadership that may coincide or clash as their roles in global governance grow in importance.