East Asia

The era was, above all, a time of proud achievements for North Korea. Socialist politics are often referred to as substantive economic democracy based on the principle of egalitarian access to and distribution of social goods, in contrast to the formal democracy of liberal states founded on ideas of universal suffrage and personal liberty to pursue greater access to social goods. In the early postwar years, North Korea achieved great success in building a state and economic system on the model of substantive democracy, rapidly transforming a war-torn, and previously highly stratified, primarily agrarian society into an energetic, industrial society enjoying distributive justice and universal literacy.

As a formerly colonized country, India takes very seriously the defence of its sovereignty and of its independence of action in the external realm as well as its identity as a Third World nation. These reasons contribute to its reluctance to push a democratic agenda in its foreign policy even though it has a democratic political system at home. Another important feature of India’s foreign policy operation is that despite a federal structure, foreign policy remains a highly centralized and executive function. This in turn limits space for creative public diplomacy initiatives especially along India’s international borders, which are often the sites of various kinds of dispute and contestation both at the state-to-state level and at the people-to-people level. Indian elites and the general public are perhaps slowly beginning to realize that dichotomy between the internal and the external in terms of social and political values and engagement do not make for good publicity. In particular, China’s rise is likely to bring the democracy argument with its specific Indian characteristics as opposed to its Western heritage into sharper relief. At the moment though, contradictions in Indian public diplomacy remain writ large.

this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org. I.

The human settlement of the Pacific Islands represents one of the most recent major migration events of mankind. Polynesians originated in Asia according to linguistic evidence or in Melanesia according to archaeological evidence. To shed light on the genetic origins of Polynesians, we investigated over 400 Polynesians from 8 island groups, in comparison with over 900 individuals from potential parental populations of Melanesia, Southeast and East Asia, and Australia, by means of Y chromosome (NRY) and mitochondrial DNA ( ...

"Authors: Adam Horálek and Pavel Ptáček
"The book contains eight chapters in four major fields (each field contains two chapters) - environment, demography and population, economy, and geopolitics. As an introduction, the short outline of major reforms China took under the rule of Deng Xiaoping is used. In stead of conclusion, the vision of China in 2030 is incorporated according to the official plans and prognoses. The book is structured as a study text, including topics and questions for further reading and thinking about the topics. It is mainly focused on Chinese studies and Geography undergraduate as well as postgraduate students in Czechia (as it is in Czech).

Content:
Otec čínské transformace Deng Xiaoping
2. 1. Environmentální problémy současné Číny
2.2. Projekt jiho-severního transportu vody jako odpověď na deficit vody v severní Číně
3.1. Stárnutí populace Číny
3.2. Populačně-národnostní politika Číny
4. 1. Měnící se role Číny v globální ekonomice a její dopad na místní obyvatele
4.2. Rozvoj západu: analýza hlavní čínské regionální „kohezní“ politiky 21. století
5.1. Afrika jako sféra čínských zájmů
5.2 Energetická geopolitika Číny
Čína roku 2030
"""

In a newly established venture to support librarians who are working to build collections to better serve their East Asian user communities, the American Librarian Association (ALA) and the Hong Kong Book Fair (HKBF) provided funding for a group of ten U.S. academic and public librarians responsible for selecting Chinese language materials to attend the July 2001 HKBF, which in

The risk perceived by investors is crucial in the decision to invest, in particular when it concerns a foreign country. The risk associated to any (foreign) investment is a multi-faceted element given that it reflects many aspects that are relevant to (foreign) investors, such as the level of transparency, corruption, rule of law, governance, etc. In this paper we consider the level of economic freedom, as provided by the “Heritage Foundation”, for the most recent years, in order to analyse how is this measure of risk related to the inward foreign direct investment performance index, as provided by the UNCTAD. Given the subjectivity of risk an appropriate methodology consists on using fuzzy logic clustering, which is applied in the paper in order to verify how different the MENA region is from the set of EU-member states. The results show that economic freedom and inward FDI are positively associated, in particular in the cluster of countries that present a higher economic freedom. ...

Corruption remains one of the key obstacles to emocratization and good governance. Given the nature of the subject, corruption is notoriously difficult to study. International comparisons and rankings of good governance such as the World Bank World Governance Indicators, the Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Index, or Transparency International’s Global Corruption Index are very useful for providing the big picture on corruption. To understand trends and mechanisms of corruption, however, it is necessary to conduct case studies on both successful and failed cases of anti-corruption policies. This paper investigates the successes and challenges of the
fight against corruption in South Korea since the beginning of democratization in 1987. The investigation shows that Korea has generally been successful in controlling corruption. The paper argues that the remaining problems can be largely explained by the legacy of authoritarian rule and the undermining of state autonomy through the concentration of economic power.

Thousands of academical works are devoted to the theory of modernization. In general under modernization we can understand the processes where rural, traditional societies are transformed into industrialized and modern.  This encompasses not only economical modernization and development of market infrastructure and technology, but also political modernization and the developed system of interest representation. However the process of modernization is believed to have its own impact on every aspect of political, economical, social and cultural life of the state. In this context East Asian historiography seems to be one of the best samples.

This succinct review returns to the debate on political-culture and Singaporean social policy nexus that has been abandoned since 2000. They put the spotlight on the social policy through the Confucian lens, examining to what extent Confucianism teaching was conditioned in formal welfare provisions. Yet, they are too focused on the common idea of Confucianism while overlooking the original idea of Singaporean value promoted by Lee Kuan Yew. Hence, this article raises the discussion of the links of Singaporean values and the Central Provident Found (CPF) which have barely been highlighted in the literature. Singaporean values are hybrid between Confucianism and Western values. This article argues that although the CPF has expanded in terms of features and benefits, it has not crossed the line that separates Singapore from Western models. Because of its Singaporean values, the country does not follow the typical European model, which is being adopted by other East Asian countries. This article concludes the CPF not only reflects its centrality to Singaporean values but also as a value stabilizer that has long history in contributing to Singaporean nation-building.

La regione del Belūcistān è, dopo anni di dominazioni straniere, suddivisa all’interno di tre Stati: Iran, Afghanistan e Pakistan. La sua posizione è notevolmente strategica in quanto situata sul lato occidentale del Medio Oriente, possibile punto di sbocco sul mare Arabico e sull’Oceano Indiano per gli stati dell'Asia Centrale e Orientale, area di mare cardine delle tratte delle petroliere che dal Golfo Persico si dirigono verso est. Le popolazioni presenti nella regione subiscono costantemente, da parte dei governi centrali, le violazioni dei propri diritti umani, economici e culturali subendo continue discriminazioni, particolarmente per ciò che concerne la partecipazione alla vita politica e al mercato del lavoro. Tensioni, scontri e guerre, che proseguono a fasi alterne da anni, sono legate principalmente alle richieste, di partiti e movimenti del Belūcistān spesso non uniti e rivali tra loro, di maggiore autonomia economica e politica. La regione, ricca di gas, petrolio e minerali, è da alcuni anni al centro di interessi geostrategici ed economici. Di particolare importanza gli accordi sino-pakistani per la costruzione del megaporto di Gwadar e del China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), che ha acutizzato le proteste e le rivolte delle popolazioni locali, accrescendo l’aspirazione indipendentista.

In moving towards becoming a market economy, China has made dramatic strides since embarking on reforms in 1978, but liberalizations have been accompanied by inflationary booms followed by bouts of social instability. These last account for much of the caution in China’s approach to joining the World Trade Organization, which is seen as critical to securing further foreign direct investment, foreign technology and access to foreign markets—all necessary to economic growth and development. There is a reluctance to make firm commitments to abide by WTO rules on a schedule faster than that expected of developing countries. Perhaps the commitments required could be undertaken in confidence-building stages.

L’histoire de la monnaie en Asie orientale est intimement liée à celle de la Chine. En effet, le modèle monétaire chinois a inspiré ceux des voisins immédiats. Dès le viie siècle avant notre ère, sont utilisés en Chine divers signes monétaires manufacturés en bronze dont la valeur d’échange excède la valeur métallique. La Chine invente donc très tôt le principe d’une monnaie fiduciaire faite pour circuler et non pour être thésaurisée. Du premier au dernier empereur, la monnaie garde le même aspect, à savoir une pièce ronde trouée en son centre. Cette monnaie, appelée sapèque en français, se répand grâce au commerce dans toute l’Asie orientale. Le Japon, puis le Vietnam et enfin la Corée l’imitent pour produire leur propre monnayage.
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East Asian monetary history is closely linked to that of China. The Chinese monetary system was used as a model by neighbouring countries. Starting from the 7th century before the Common Era, China used various coinages made out of bronze. Because their exchange value exceeded the metallic value, this was an early invention of a fiduciary coinage made for circulation and not for hoarding. From the first to the last emperor, Chinese coins shared the same shape. They are round coins with a hole in the centre. These cash coins circulated among traders throughout East Asia. First Japan, then Vietnam and finally Korea imitated them to produce their own coinage.
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中国的货币形制启发了周围邻国。中国很早就创造了用于流通而不是储藏的法定货币。从公元前七世纪起，中国就拥有了青铜制的布币及刀币。这些货币的交换价值超过其金属价值。中国因此很早就创造了货币用于流通而不是储藏的原则。从秦始皇帝开始一直到清朝末代皇帝溥仪，中国钱一直是圆形中部为方孔的。这种钱币英文叫 cash coin, 法文叫 sapèque。宋朝时中国钱币通过贸易传遍全东亚。从日本到越南、韩国都相继模仿中国钱币而铸成了自己的货币。