SPIS TREŚCI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHINA AND THE SECURITY POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The article seeks to present the EU policy towards China. In view of complexity of this topic, author focuses only on the one dimension, i. e. on security issues.
The article falls into four main parts:

1. Major factors of China being an important partner for the EU.
2. Overview of the EU’s security policy.
3. General characteristics of the relations between Beijing and Brussels.
4. Security problems in the EU–China relations.

The fourth part of the article deals with WMD proliferation, embargo on arms sales, conflict in Taiwan Strait, participation of Chinese forces in peacekeeping missions, regional security system in East Asia and technological cooperation.
The conclusion highlights the main purposes of the EU in its China policy. According to the author the EU tries to engage China further in the process of solving global issues, and supports China transition into a responsible and trustworthy partner on the world stage.

FRANCE’S POLICY TOWARDS CHINA AFTER 1989

France was the first Western power to establish full diplomatic relations with the communist China after 1949. In the early 90s however, the French human rights rhetoric after the Tiananmen massacre and notably the selling of arms to Taiwan provoked a crisis in the „historical alliance” between Paris and Beijing. In order to improve economic relations the new Gaullist government and president Chirac de facto abandoned the general de Gaulle’s „doctrine of two Chinas”. Paris stopped condemning China’s violations of human rights and suggested its EU partners to lift the embargo on arms sales to China. Despite the reconciliatory gestures and the intensification of political contacts after 1997, in terms of commercial relations with China, France is still behind the other Western countries. Moreover, the Sino–French trade relations remain dominated by the grands contrats, as a result of the lack of cooperation between the French middle-sized companies, their relatively late arrival into the Chinese market and their weak adaptation to alien culture surroundings. Nevertheless, China remains the biggest commercial partner of France in Asia. The dynamism of cultural exchanges as well as the growing interest in the French language in China indicate that the intensification of political, cultural and economic dialogue is likely to continue.

GERMAN-CHINESE RELATIONS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Although the People’s Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany were both established in 1949, no diplomatic ties between them were instituted until 1972. Since then, however, German–Chinese relations have made significant progress in all fields. For instance, Germany has been China’s leading trade partner in Europe while China has become Germany’s largest economic partner in Asia ahead of Japan.
The Berlin’s position on China is outlined in the document „The tasks of German foreign policy: East Asia at the beginning of the 21st century”, released in May 2002. It states that German policy towards the region and China focuses on the promotion of democracy and human rights, ensuring peace and stability through confidence building measures, protection for Germany’s economic interests, provision of development aid and cooperation in the fields of the education, culture and environmentally friendly technologies.
Representatives of both countries visit each other frequently. In November 2005 China’s President Hu Jintao paid a visit to Germany during which he met with German leaders (president Koehler, chancellor Merkel, former chancellor Schroeder). Both sides consider development of bilateral relations important.
Human rights violations in China remain one of the most controversial issues in the Chinese relations with Western countries. For Beijing, critical remarks in this subject are unjustified and an interference in China’s domestic matters. However, Germany’s attitude towards China is often described as pragmatic. Therefore, we can expect that the bilateral relations in the predictable future will expand.W

CHINA’S EMERGING GRAND STRATEGY: DOMINATING EAST ASIA WITHOUT FIGHTING

Since late 2002, Beijing has implemented an increasingly integrated new grand strategy. It incorporates domestic policy, foreign policy, and cross-strait policy in way of synergy to augment their combined benefits. With it, Beijing has achieved some noteworthy success in foreign affairs, despite daunting domestic dilemmas China is facing. As the country grows into a status quo power, Beijing has begun to encounter untried challenges. One of Beijing’s aspirations under this emerging national security framework, albeit officially unsaid, is to dominate East Asia and nudge out the hitherto leading US influence without a war, but instead with mainly economy and culture. China’s rapidly modernizing military capabilities, which Beijing wished to have fully prepared but preferably not used in actual combat, are intended to strengthen the effects of Beijing’s extra-military instruments.
The article answers the following questions: How has the grand strategy developed? What does it contain? What assumptions is it based on? What characterizes its approaches? How has it manifested in PRC–US/Japan/Taiwan relations? What challenges has it encountered?
The article ends with the table of Beijing’s post–Anti-Secession Law cross-Strait soft offensives.

THE IMAGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN CHINESE PRESS

The paper tries to define the image of the United States of America in Chinese newspapers and the Chinese self-stereotype (according to idea that stereotype of the aliens is the reverse of our imagination of us). The analysis comes in two parts. The first one concerns the image of US in international relations, US attitude towards China as an emerging power. This image is negative, but free from ideological influence. The Chinese criticize the American hegemony (in ancient Chinese terms), and the American sign of human rights in Chinese eyes becomes a tool of control (because the concept of fellow creature is not familiar to Chinese culture). America, it’s society and culture arouses mixed feelings in the Chinese. Two most important ideas of American credo – democracy and freedom, are criticized as leading to social chaos. This analysis shows the Chinese vision of itself as a powerful country, proud of its success and tradition. And this positive self-image of, China is the basis of new Chinese nationalism.

Chiny – Unia Europejska – Stany Zjednoczone: Wyzwania w XXI wieku Zapis dyskusji na wspólnej konferencji Fundacji „Polska w Europie” oraz Centrum Cywilizacji Azji Wschodniej Szkoły Wyższej Psychologii Społecznej w Warszawie, w dniu 28 lutego 2006 r.

China – European Union – United States: Challenges in 21st century. Record of the conference co-organized by the „Poland in Europe” Foundation and the Centre of East Asian Civilisations of Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Warsaw, 28 February 2006

Autorzy:

• Krzysztof Gawlikowski
• Andrzej Eljasz
• Ryszard Piasecki
• Edward Haliżak
• Jan Rowiński
• Henryk Szlajfer
• Witold Kieżun
• Maria Wągrowska
• Władysław Góralski
• Kazimierz Krzysztofek
• Kazimierz Starzyk
• Jan Milewski
• Karin Tomala
• Ksawery Burski

RESTRUCTURIZATION AND PRIVATIZATION OF CHINESE ENTERPRISES

State Owned Enterprises (SOE) sector at the end of 70. was consisting of more than 100 thousands of enterprises with around 70 percentage of total country’s workforce and equally being responsible for almost 40 percentage of Chinese GDP at the time. Due to its size and several additional social functions provided by SOE, to implement the transformation plan was the great challenge – very often it was based on spontaneous local experiments subsequently adopted as an accepted general plan. Thus, to assess whether the Chinese government succeeded is not an easy task.
This plan was based on four stages seeking, in general, improve the financial standing and prepare SOE for sale to the private investors. Many of these companies were struggling with debts and huge losses, so to make them effective took a long time. Charged with the responsibility for the financial effectiveness, the managers of SOE were forced, i. a., to reduce employees. Thus, growing unemployment ratio is one of the main current issues to be resolved by the Chinese government.
Along with those four main stages, the whole SOE sector was divided into large ones and Small&Medium Enterprises (SME) groups to adopt various approaches towards restructuring them. Restructuring the SOE, China is witnessing the booming private enterprises sector. Both trends significantly changed the economical environment of China, introducing new management styles and economical effectiveness. From the social point of view, the growing private companies sector supplied the Chinese society with the new middle class.

IPR PROTECTION IN CHINA AFTER THE ACCESSION TO THE WTO

The People’s Republic of China is commonly seen as a country having a very low standard of protection of intellectual property rights. Some commentators say that the Chinese government wittingly accepts this fact viewing it as profi table for the country as an opportunity of developing the Chinese industry on the basis of already existing and verifi ed technological solutions.
China’s access to the World Trade Organisation on 11th December 2001 meant that it also had to adhere to provisions of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement), a document creating a minimum standard of protection for different kinds of intellectual property rights.
Already existing legal provisions of the Chinese legislation had to be adapted to TRIPs standards and certain new measures had to be undertaken. Moreover, a number of steps were taken by the Chinese authorities, from establishing new institutions and special courts up to campaigns promoting the protection of intellectual property rights in the society.
Notwithstanding the remarkable efforts made by Chinese authorities in a relatively short period of time the marketshare of products infringing intellectual property rights in China is still enormous, there is admittedly some improvement, visible on the basis of objectively collected and analysed data. One should also note that further development of the Chinese economy, based on research and development of new technologies, requires the Chinese authorities to guarantee a high level of protection for intellectual property rights.

INDOCHINA – AN UNEASY INTEGRATION

This article sets out to present the evolution of integration ideas and the status of Indochina states’ integration at the turn of 20th century. Since the end of the 19th century the observed attempts of Indochina region’s integration can be considered unsuccessful. They have been naturally based on the geographic proximity of the Peninsula’s states. Initially, the idea was to create a federation, imposed by the colonial power – France. Another initiative, forced by political situation, was to unite the national liberation movements with communist Vietnam as a leader. Successive regional economic initiatives stimulated by the United Nations also turned out to be failures because they were selectively directed towards some states and didn’t contribute to creating a regional consciousness. It was as late as in 1990’s that the region’s integration process was initiated thanks to the solution of some problems and disputes in mutual relations, and an objective tendency to strengthen the regional ties.
The creation of Indochina states’ regional subsystem proceeds in the framework of the Southeast Asia region with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its organizational structure. The process of Indochina’s integration takes the most comprehensive form, consisting in an economic integration, designed to support trade liberalization and a stable socio-economic growth. Nevertheless, some activities have an uncoordinated nature.
The Indochina states don’t aspire to create a uniform political or military structure. They cooperate in this field through the ASEAN initiatives. The activity of the former French Indochina’s leader, Vietnam, is also developing in this direction. Therefore, the main objective of the Mekong subregion is such an economic growth, that it could enter ASEAN free trade zone as planned, in 2008, and reinforce the regional structures under the circumstances of the globalization of contemporary international relations.

CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND POLITICAL LIFE IN MONGOLIA

Although Mongolia proclaimed its independence early in the 20th century, the country was forced to follow the policy dictated by the Soviet Union until the year 1992. During the period Mongolian political tradition and its main institutions were subjected to Soviet-style institutions. Still, this Russification and Marxist-Leninist ideology, did not eliminate the Mongolian traditional way of thinking and the ethos of this culture.
After the communism collapsed, the Mongolians embraced democracy enthusiastically, adopted market driven economy and opened up to the Western-style democracy. The writer feels that numerous social and cultural issues of democratic changes were too difficult to be tackled in the Mongolian cultural condition. It should be remembered that there are enormous differences between the Western and the Eastern cultures. The notions such as power, authority, wealth, family and relative relationship or human being in Mongolian cultural context have quite different connotations than in Western understanding. Such cultural uniqueness produces a type of granting special political favours to Mongolian voters which is relatively unknown in the Western countries. Therefore, the shift to democratic society in Mongolia, like in many other Asian countries, should take place with clear explanation of the difference.
The paper presents some historical and cultural issues of Mongolian tradition necessary for understanding of the political situation as well as the general features of main political parties. It also explains the reason of predominance of post-communist party and lack of success of the democrats in the country.

BUDDHIST MONASTERIES IN SOCIAL LIFE IN BURMA

The study is based mainly on Author’s personal experience. He outlines general characteristics of Theravada Buddhism in Burma (referring to the fundamental work by Melford E. Spiro). The emphasis is put on the lacking division between the sacrum and profanum, and on the traditional deep involvement of the state into religious affairs. The Author describes the Burmese monastery as an „autonomous and open structure” – a centre of local social life. He indicates the close mutual bounds of the monks with the society. The reader is offered a list of monks’ essential functions, a description of their internal hierarchy, and of the structure of monastery (the nature and functions of its principal buildings). A short characteristics of monastery’s inhabitants is also given with a particular emphasis on „novices” (koyin) – boys temporarily admitted to a monastery. The ritual of their ordination is also presented. The Author concludes his description with short remarks on monks’ life: on the principal norms, their education, and the standard timetable of the day.