Joint Declaration Research Articles

The Ties that Bind? U.S.–Indian Values-based Cooperation

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President to the Joint Session of the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, India” (speech, New Delhi, November 8, 2010), http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/08/remarks-president-joint-session-indian-parliament-new-delhi-india. 2. Among others, President Barack Obama has employed the term “natural allies.” See Kevin Whitelaw, “Obama: U.S., India ‘Natural Allies’ in 21st Century,” National Public Radio, November 24, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120712790. 3. Remarks by Ambassador Rajendra Abhyankar, German Marshall Legatum Institue Fund India Forum II, Stockholm, Sweden, October 2, 2010. 4. Robert Blackwill, “A New Deal for New Delhi,” Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2005, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/1403/new_deal_for_new_delhi.html. 5. Manmohan Singh, “PM's Speech at India Today Conclave” (speech, New Delhi, February 25, 2005), http://www.pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=78. 6. C. Raja Mohan, “Balancing Interests and Values: India's Struggle with Democracy Promotion,” The Washington Quarterly 30, no. 3 (Summer 2007): p. 99, http://twq.com/07summer/docs/07summer_mohan.pdf. 7. This was the theme of India's much-noted marketing campaign at Davos in 2006. See, for instance, Fareed Zakaria, “India Rising,” Newsweek, March 6, 2006, http://www.newsweek.com/2006/03/05/india-rising.html. 8. Shyam Saran, “India and Its Neighbors” (speech, India International Center, New Delhi, February 14, 2005), http://meaindia.nic.in/mystart.php?id=53019013. 9. U.S. Department of State, “U.S.–India Global Democracy Initiative,” Washington, DC, July 18, 2005, http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/fs/2005/49722.htm. 10. The White House, “Joint Statement between Prime Minister Dr. Singh and President Obama,” Washington, DC, November 24, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/joint-statement-between-prime-minister-dr-singh-and-president-obama. 11. The White House, “Joint Statement by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh of India,” New Delhi, November 8, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/08/joint-statement-president-obama-and-prime-minister-singh-india. 12. Cited in Sandeep Dikishit, “India Can Help Build Democracy in Arab World,” The Hindu, February 27, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/2011/02/27/stories/2011022765391700.htm. 13. For further analysis on the possibilities for Indo–U.S. convergence on these issues, see Daniel Twining, “India's Relations with Iran and Myanmar: ‘Rogue State’ or Responsible Democratic Stakeholder?” India Review 7, no. 1 (January 2008): pp. 1-37. 14. Nilova Roy Chaudhury, “India Maps its Equation with the World,” Hindustan Times, October 20, 2006, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/nm18/India-maps-its-equation-with-the-world/Article1-164069.aspx. 15. Obama–Singh Joint Statement, November 8, 2010. 16. The authors are grateful to Lorne Craner for this formulation. 17. Indian Ministry of External Affairs, “India-U.S. Joint Statement,” New Delhi, July 20, 2009, http://www.indianembassy.org/prdetail488/download_file.php?action=download&mainfolder=form_files/&filename=Form_Pdf_29.pdf. 18. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks on Internet Freedom” (speech, Washington, D.C., January 21, 2010), http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135519.htm. 19. A New Engagement,” The Times of India, February 28, 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-02-28/edit-page/28641277_1_gulf-countries-soft-power-gulf-states. 20. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks on Regional Architecture in Asia: Principles and Priorities” (speech, Honolulu, January 12, 2010), http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135090.htm. 21. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation between Japan and India,” Tokyo, October 22, 2008, http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/india/pmv0810/joint_d.html. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel TwiningDaniel Twining is Senior Fellow for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Previously handled South Asia policy at the U.S. Department of State and served as Senator John McCain's foreign policy adviser in the U.S. SenateRichard FontaineRichard Fontaine is Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Previously handled South Asia policy at the U.S. Department of State and served as Senator John McCain's foreign policy adviser in the U.S. Senate

New Church Rising

Abstract I had the privilege of participating as a Campbell Scholar at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta with a group of theologians from Kenya, Egypt, Argentina, Jamaica and the US. The theme for our eight weeks together was “The Mission of the Church in an Age of Uprooted People”. This intensive time of dialogue and study helped clarify how the church as a whole has been uprooted from God's desired unity, and provided the space to reflect on the future of the global church from a congregational perspective. The result is this paper in which I explore the present state of Presbyterianism, Protestant denominationalism, and the church as a whole, while also envisioning new paths forward in our global, multicultural age.

J. Craig Venter—The Human Genome Project

American-born biochemist-geneticist J. Craig Venter is acknowledged, along with geneticist Francis Sellers Collins (1950-), as being a primary force behind the Human Genome Project. Venter, with private funding, and Collins, with public funding, independently mapped and sequenced human DNA. Their reports appeared in 2001 (one in Nature and the other in Science). A sheet of 5 stamps (Scott No. 561) issued by Palau in 1999 provides an opportunity to honor J. Craig Venter indirectly. The sheet was issued to commemorate advances in science and medicine in the 20th century. One of the stamps representing the Human Genome Project shows the overall structure of DNA. J. Craig Venter was born on October 14, 1946, in Salt Lake City, UT. He spent his youth in San Francisco, CA, where he attended high school. After high school, he joined the US Naval Medical Corps and served in Vietnam, where he provided medical care at an orphanage. After Venter returned to the United States, he enrolled as a premedical student at the University of California, San Diego. However, he soon decided to pursue a career in research. He received a BS degree in biochemistry in 1972 and a PhD degree in physiology and pharmacology in 1975, both from the University of California, San Diego. In 1976, Venter became an assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at the State University of New York at Buffalo and also worked at the nearby Roswell Park Memorial Institute. His research focused primarily on the elucidation of the structure and function of adrenergic receptors and muscarinic cholinergic receptors. Venter was promoted to professor in the early 1980s. For his work on receptors, he received the Boehringer Ingelheim Muscarinic Receptor Research Award. In 1984, he became a section chief at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, where he worked until 1992. His work at the NIH concentrated on neurotransmitters, specifically on genes that encode for enzymes involved in the synthesis of neurotransmitters and receptors. In July 1992, Venter left the NIH and became founder and chairman of the board of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), a not-for-profit genomics research institution in Rockville, MD. He served as its president until 1998. In 1998, Venter joined Applera Corporation and became president and chief scientific officer of the newly founded Celera Genomics. The goal of Celera Genomics was to become the definitive source of genomic and related medical and biological information. In January 2002, Venter stepped down as president of Celera Genomics but continued to chair its scientific advisory board. Currently, he is serving as president of J. Craig Venter Institute. Venter pioneered the use of automated gene sequencers, and in 1990, he developed “expressed sequence tags” (ESTs), a new strategy for the discovery and tagging of genes that revolutionized biological science. In this approach, complementary DNA is partially sequenced, or “tagged,” using an automated DNA sequencing machine. The resulting sequences (ESTs) are long enough for one to be distinguished from another. Venter has published more than 160 research articles and has received many awards, including being elected a fellow of several societies, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology. In 1999, he received the Beckman Award and the Chiron Corporation Biotechnology Research Award. Efforts to bring Collins and Venter together to complete the mapping of the human genome began in late 1999. In March 2000, US President Bill Clinton (1946-) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (1953-) made a joint declaration that all genome information should be free to the public. This announcement led to cooperation between Collins and Venter, and on June 26, 2000, Venter and Collins jointly announced that, after nearly a decade of work, both the public Human Genome Project headed by Collins and Celera Genomics headed by Venter had deciphered essentially all the genes in human DNA. The importance of the cooperation between the 2 geneticists and the genome sequencing effort is far-reaching and may result in the discovery of keys to the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases, from diabetes to heart disease to Alzheimer disease.

On the constitutional foundations of Hong Kong

Hong Kong law is characterized by a mixture of legal sources and traditions, originating from the constitutional government-based structure in the mid-1800s to the new laws, which were promulgated at the beginning of the 20th century. Since Hong Kong’s return into the People’s Republic of China in 1997, the development and forms of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Laws have been influenced by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China of 1982, the Sino-British Joint Declaration of Hong Kong issues of 1984 as well as the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of 1990. The government of China continues to undertake measures, promoting a high degree of autonomy within the Hong Kong as well as its political stability and economic prosperity. All these measures contribute to the promotion of the rule of law and unification of China.

'The Apostolicity of the Church' in Light of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Consensus on Justification

AbstractThe fourth phase of the international Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue resulted in a final report, The Apostolicity of the Church (AC), which was published in 2006. The convergences described in this document are best understood in light of the earlier stages in the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue, especially in relation to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ). AC seems to move beyond the 'differentiated consensus' of the JDDJ as it aims at some form of 'differentiated participation' of Lutheran and Roman Catholic ministers in the same apostolic ministry. A careful study of the way the topic of apostolic succession is dealt with in AC shows that a central aspect of the Roman Catholic concept of apostolic succession remains somewhat invisible in the document. This aspect can be made explicit in terms of the relation between faith and institution. The fact that this issue remains unaddressed may hinder the very attempt to determine the content of the proposed 'differentiated participation'.

China-ASEAN Relations, October 2009 to March 2010: Chronology of Events

China-ASEAN Relations, October 2010 to March 2011: Chronology of Events Weng Cuifen As a research institute based in Singapore, the EAI monitors developments in relations and interactions between China and the individual countries of Southeast Asia as well as the ASEAN grouping as a whole. This material is presented in the form of (1) a chronology of events, and (2) important documents — the Editors October 2010 4th Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM 8) Summit in Brussels to exchange views on ways to recover from and prevent financial crises. Wen Jiabao presents a brief account of the achievements made since the ASEM 7 Summit convened in Beijing two years ago, particularly the economic and financial recovery made by ASEM partners. He also proposes some recommendations to the ASEM 8 leaders. 12th At the first ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus) in Hanoi with the defence ministers from the 10 member states and eight of ASEAN’s dialogue partners, Chinese National Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie says, “China is positive and open to regional security cooperation and supports ASEAN centrality” in the ADMM Plus mechanism. General Liang recommends that the new forum promote mutual understanding and trust to consolidate the political foundation for regional security cooperation, and to move ahead with practical cooperation. [End Page 353] 21st The 7th China-ASEAN Expo opens in Nanning, Guangxi. Themed “CAFTA and New Opportunities”, this expo is the first one after the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area agreement came into effect on 1 January 2010. Deputy Director General Jia Guoyong of the Trade Development Bureau of Ministry of Commerce of China reports that the annual expo has been instrumental in boosting the economies between ASEAN and China. 29th At the 13th ASEAN-China Summit, the ASEAN leaders and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agree to a Joint Statement on Sustainable Development, with a view to sustaining economic growth and promoting trade and investment linkages, social development, poverty reduction and environmental protection. The joint statement substantiates the ASEAN Leaders’ Statement on Sustained Recovery and Development which was adopted at the 16th ASEAN Summit in April 2010. The ASEAN leaders meet the three East Asian state leaders from Japan, the Republic of Korea and China at the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, where they voice their accord for the Luang Prabang Joint Declaration on ASEAN Plus Three Civil Service Cooperation. The declaration was adopted just before the ASEAN Plus Three Summit takes place, by the heads of the ASEAN Conference on Civil Service Matters Plus Three, during their meeting in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. 31st The 2010 Shanghai Expo is declared officially closed by the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Shanghai. The ASEAN member states participate in the expo and the Summit Forum preceding the closing ceremony. S. Pushpanathan, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for the ASEAN Economic Com-munity, says, “There was no better platform for ASEAN to reach out to 70 million Chinese visitors at one go than at the Shanghai Expo”. ASEAN is one of the 13 international organisations in the International Organisations Joint Pavilion. November 2010 12th Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, during his trip to Guangzhou to attend the opening ceremony of the 16th Asian Games, meets with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Wen says that China has become the biggest export partner and second-largest trading partner of Thailand, and the two countries should use the platform of the China-ASEAN free trade area to increase bilateral trade exchanges. The ASEAN-China Air Transport Agreement is signed at the 9th ASEAN and China Transport Ministers Meeting. The member states of ASEAN agree to allow designated ASEAN airlines to fly from any city with an international airport in its region to any city in China with an international airport, and vice versa with full third and fourth freedom traffic rights. [End Page 354] 14th At the invitation of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, China’s Vice-President Xi Jinping arrives in Singapore for a three-day official visit. After a meeting with Singapore’s then Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Xi and Lee attend the unveiling ceremony by the Singapore River bank of the monument...

Review: Lutheran and Catholic Reconciliation on Justification: A Chronology of the Holy See's Contributions, 1961–1999, to a New Relationship between Lutherans and Catholics and to Steps Leading to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

Review: Lutheran and Catholic Reconciliation on Justification: A Chronology of the Holy See's Contributions, 1961–1999, to a New Relationship between Lutherans and Catholics and to Steps Leading to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

“A Genuine and Energetic League of Nations Policy”: Lord Curzon and the New Diplomacy, 1918–1925

At the end of April 1922, S.P. Waterlow of the Central Department of the Foreign Office, which dealt with Franco–German relations and European security, put up a memorandum. This claimed: “Except on paper and as an expedient for minor purposes or an escape for some dilemma, we have not taken the League [of Nations] seriously.” It contrasted London's indifference with the active use which Paris was making of the League, asserted that “the objects of British policy and those of the League are broadly speaking identical,” and urged: “let us institute a genuine and energetic League of Nations policy.” This recommendation was strongly endorsed by the Assistant Under-Secretary, Sir William Tyrrell, who believed that such a policy would secure almost universal popular support for co-operation with France, and he proposed making a joint declaration that for the purpose of maintaining the frontiers created by the Treaty of Versailles: “the two countries would place at the disposal of the League all their resources for the enforcement of its decisions.”1

Justification by grace and faith. 10 years anniversary of the signing of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification”. Test of a critical balance in Lutheran perspective.

Justification by grace and faith. 10 years anniversary of the signing of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification”. Test of a critical balance in Lutheran perspective.

US presses ahead with Iran sanctions

As part of its effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, the United States is seeking to tighten sanctions on it. The US has tabled a draft United Nations Security Council resolution that would place heavy restrictions on Iran's nuclear industries, military procurement and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile, the US Congress is close to finalising its own bill expanding sanctions on Iran, including on energy companies with significant interests there. In an apparent effort to stall sanctions, on 17 May 2010 Iran issued a Joint Declaration, with Turkey and Brazil, under which low-enriched uranium would be transported to Turkey for processing and returned as fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. The declaration has instead so far served only to accelerate US sanctions efforts.

St. Paul and Ecumenism: Justification and All That

AbstractAfter some opening reflections on the place of justification in recent Pauline scholarship, the essential argument is that both Catholic and Lutheran readings of Paul on justification, regardless of their strict exegetical accuracy, serve to articulate key principles of Christian existence under grace which need not only to be conjoined or placed alongside each other but need to be allowed, in the spirit of Receptive Ecumenism, to inform each other. In the Catholic case the need is for an expansion in the direction of a more effective and genuinely Pauline emphasis on the dynamism of grace. There are three sections. First, a detailed exploration, presented in a number of subsections, of the historic theological background to the issues at stake in the ecumenical dialogues and the way in which these might be best conceptualised. Second, situated against this backdrop is a summary exposition of some of the key achievements of the 1999 affirmation of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. Third, note is taken of some of the criticisms that have been made of the Joint Declaration, identifying the need for receptive ecumenical learning if its best intentions are to be realised. This generic need is illustrated in relation to one area of potential receptive Catholic learning from Lutheranism concerning the effective dynamism of grace and the character of Christian life as confident trust in this as a continually renewed event.

Business as usual: The use of English in the professional world in Hong Kong

This article examines the role of written and spoken English vis-à-vis written Chinese, Cantonese and Putonghua in the four key service industries that have driven Hong Kong’s economy in the past decade. The study forms part of a long-standing and continuing investigation into the impact of Hong Kong’s transition from British colony to Chinese Special Administrative Region on patterns of language choice and use in the professional workplace. This article presents findings from the most recent phase of the investigation, which involved a questionnaire survey of over 2000 professionals working at different levels and in a range of disciplines in the services sector. The results indicate that English continues to function as the unmarked medium of written professional communication, whereas Cantonese remains the usual language of oral communication. Despite the gradual diminution in the institutional role of English since the signing of the Joint Declaration in 1984, and the perception that English use has declined since 1997, the findings indicate that the importance of written and spoken English has increased during this period. The results also suggest that the frequency with which Hong Kong professionals need to communicate in English increases with rank and experience.

Hidden Currents during the Honeymoon: Mao, Khrushchev, and the 1957 Moscow Conference

The Conference of World Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in November 1957 was the largest gathering of world Communists since the birth of Marxism. Scholars have long assumed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) dominated the conference. Newly declassified archival records and memoirs indicate that the idea of convening a conference and issuing a joint declaration was proposed by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CPSU. During the conference the CCP leader, Mao Zedong, played an important role. Mao's extemporaneous remarks at the conference shocked the leaders of the CPSU. His comments on the Soviet intraparty struggle, his blunt remarks about nuclear war, and his declaration that China would overtake Great Britain within fifteen years created doubts and dissatisfactions in the minds of the delegates and cast a cloud over the conference. The Moscow Declaration also revealed incipient Sino-Soviet disagreements, portending Beijing's challenge to Soviet leadership in the socialist bloc. Thus, the Moscow Conference was a turning point for Sino-Soviet relations.

The Rule of Law Under 'One Country, Two Systems': The Case of Hong Kong 1997-2009

The transplant of English common law to, and the development of a set of legal institutions that supported the Rule of Law in, Hong Kong is one of the major legacies of British colonial rule in Hong Kong. When the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in 1984 and Hong Kong began to prepare herself for reunification with the motherland in 1997, there were concerns about the possible deterioration of standards of the Rule of Law and of civil liberties in Hong Kong after the handover. It was generally recognized that one of the crucial tests for whether the “One Country, Two Systems” model works would be whether the Rule of Law can be maintained in Hong Kong after 1997. The practice of “One Country, Two Systems” (OCTS) is itself dependent on a particular kind of Rule of Law – that practiced with regard to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) – the “mini-constitution” enacted by the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1990 that came into effect in 1997 as the constitutional instrument of the HKSAR of the PRC. Would the Basic Law, which embodies the grand promises made by the PRC government in the text of the Joint Declaration regarding how the HKSAR would be administered, be faithfully implemented by the Chinese authorities? Would Hong Kong be able to practice autonomy, with “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong”, evolve a higher degree of democracy than ever before, and ensure the protection of human rights and property rights under the Rule of Law? Would the Rule of Law continue to contribute to Hong Kong’s economic prosperity and continue to safeguard it as a free, pluralistic and open society and an international city? At this point in time, more than twelve years after the handover, we should be in a good position to answer these questions. This paper seeks to provide a basis for answering these questions by reviewing the legal and constitutional history of the HKSAR since its establishment in 1997. It will focus on what the author considers to be the most important events, cases or developments. It divides the legal history of the HKSAR so far into four periods. The four sections of the paper will deal these periods respectively, followed by a concluding section.

The Anatomy of North Korea's Foreign Policy Formulation

IntroductionNorth Korea itself is a puzzle. At the end of the Cold War, it was widely believed that North Korea would collapse, considering the loss of its economic patron and ideological backbone in the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, this logic seems to be fading out. Despite its economic setbacks, North Korea has successfully developed its missile and nuclear capability and thus increased the survivability of its regime without suffering military attacks. On the contrary, even though the United States has invented two negotiating frameworks, the Four-Party Talks in the 1990s (China, the two Koreas, and the United States) and the Six-Party Talks (Russia, China, the two Koreas, Japan, and the United States) in the 2000s, the U.S. diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and to include North Korea into the international community have been unsuccessful.A certain question arises: Why are negotiations with North Korea, currently the Six-Party Talks, often ineffective? Indeed, neither the bilateral agreement, the 1994 Agreed Framework formed by the United States and North Korea, nor the multilateral declaration, the Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks in September 2005, have been able to deter North Korea from developing and possessing its nuclear capability. In order to understand these phenomena, it is imperative to understand the nature of North Korean foreign policy.In this paper, I argue that North Korean foreign policy can be explained by neoclassical realism, which regards distribution of power in the international system as an independent variable, domestic perception of the system and domestic incentives as intervening variables, and foreign policy decision-making as a dependent variable.1 From the neoclassical realism perspective, foreign policy decision-makers can be constrained by both international and domestic politics, and their perceptions with regard to international anarchy, including whether they have assured its security, are influenced by such domestic factors as states' political structures and ideologies.2 In the case of North Korea, the international distribution of power is interpreted by its domestic political system, based on the national ideology (Juche) and the supreme leader (Suryong) political institution, and I argue that this perception has predominantly determined its foreign policy objectives and decision-making.The Distribution of Power in the International System and Northeast AsiaThe current distribution of power in the international system does not favor North Korea. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, North Korea has faced grave security threats from inside and outside the state. Domestically, as the surge of democratization in Eastern Europe from the early 1990s illustrates, North Korea faced a potential social uprising from inside at the end of the Cold War. It has also been facing the possibility of economic collapse due to decreasing economic assistance from the former Soviet Union, unexpected political events due to the death of Kim Ilsung, and social instability due to the catastrophic famine that struck during the mid- to late-1990s, all of which have contributed to decreasing the overall national strength. Internationally, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the disappearance of the Soviet nuclear umbrella, and North Korea's security has become much more vulnerable vis-a-vis hostile states in the region, especially the United States, than during the Cold War.In fact, the United States and its allies have become capable of expanding their alliance functions since the 1990s. This is well illustrated by the modernization and realignments of the U.S.-ROK alliance3 and the redefinition of the U.S.-Japan alliance role, which has developed its function and scope since the 1996 Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security,4 which now includes not only the defense of Japan but also regional and global contingencies. …

Macau Autonomy - Looking for a Fresh Awakening

After 10 years of life, the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) is under pressure because of the moat between expectations and achievements by Macau's local government and the spectrum of autonomy conquered through the leverage of the political arrangement. An arrangement opened by the bilateral negotiations between Portugal and the PRC that led to the signature of the Joint Declaration between the Government of Portugal and the Government of the PRC's concerning to the Question of Macao. A set of mutual obligations ratified in the letter and spirit of Macau Basic Law (MBL). The so-called "second system" has increasingly become under scrutiny as a new Law of State Security (Lei de Bases da Seguranca Interna) made its way and was quickly approved by the local Legislative Assmbly, albeit the reservations that rise in the legal community, in the pro-democracy camp and also among many expatriates. This law has beed seen as a Trojan Horse for the mainland interference and control of the MSAR, turning the exercise of the fundamental human rights and liberties uncertain.

NATO and the UN

When the secretaries-general of NATO and the United Nations, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Ban Ki Moon, signed a joint declaration in September 2008, it came as a surprise to many observers. After almo...

Negotiating with China in Power Asymmetry: The Case of Sino-British Negotiations on the Handover of Hong Kong

AbstractThis article describes the process of the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong that led to the signing of the Joint Declaration of 1984. It shows how the British, as the weaker party in the asymmetrical negotiations, retreated from their initial proposals and how they came to work within the parameters set by the Chinese side. This then helped them to gain concessions from the other side that were important to them in managing the interim period of their rule, while helping to safeguard the territory after its reversion to China. The article highlights the link between the communications among the top leaders and the conduct of the negotiations, showing how skillfully the British identified the other side's concerns and perspectives and how they were able to use the subtleties of language and pressure of time to their advantage. The British experience has important bearings on the literature of international negotiations.

Graduate Employability, ‘Soft Skills’ Versus ‘Hard’ Business Knowledge: A European Study

There is a growing awareness in the UK and mainland Europe of the importance of higher education to the development of a knowledge-based economy. European universities are increasingly required to produce highly mobile graduates able to respond to the ever-changing needs of the contemporary workplace. Following the Bologna Declaration (19991. 19 June 1999 . “The European Higher Education Area” (Bologna Declaration), Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education, Bologna, higher education across Europe has expanded rapidly. This has resulted in questions being raised about the quality of the graduate labour market and the ability of graduates to meet the needs of employers. This paper analyses graduate and employer perspectives of graduate employability in four European countries (UK, Austria, Slovenia and Romania). In doing so it adds to current debates in this area.

The potentials and limits of China–EU cooperation on climate change and energy security

Due to economic interdependency through trade and investment, economies of scale, and economic complementarities, China and the European Union (EU) have a huge potential for cooperation. Already many things have happened so far. Since 2004, the cooperation on climate change has been a key issue on the political agenda of China–EU summits. In 2005, the EU and China even endorsed a “Joint Declaration on Climate Change” which emphasizes reducing the cost of clean energy key technologies for China, first and foremost through the development and deployment of near-to-zero-emission CCS technology. Letting China gain access to clean energy technology is the key issue of climate change cooperation. Despite great efforts and potential mutual benefits, this is still a field of conflicting interests. The authors argue that currently, cooperation on the transfer of clean energy technology is very limited due to rational interests of the actors and the insecurities involved in cooperation.