China Report

What are the key characteristics of the diplomacy of India and China? To what extent is diplomatic capacity an issue in the management of a country’s foreign policy? For example, the number of executive level officials in the diplomatic machinery of China and India (the foreign ministries, embassies, consulates and other subsidiary offices) varies greatly in size, composition and work methods. Compared to about 1200 diplomat-rank officials in India, China has over 6500 diplomats—not counting new recruits who serve as non-diplomatic staff for their first three years, before being promoted as ‘attachés’ under their ‘3-3-4’ system. This and several other elements (structure, competence and capability) constitute a country’s ‘diplomatic capacity’; this concept has drawn new attention in the past five years. Another example is that both are large countries with a number of provinces; ¹ the methods used to bring them into the external policy process offers rich material for comparison, with some clear learning. China’s larger diplomatic machine does not always translate into greater effectiveness. Some Indian methods are unique and score over China’s. This essay draws on research since 1999, comparing foreign ministries (one outcome of which was Asian Diplomacy, Rana 2007).

The article documents the evolution of the structural dimension in South Korean foreign policy through a study of middle-power diplomacy in the post-2008 financial crisis period. This article argues that middle-power diplomacy, which propounds a global role for South Korea assuming leadership and substantially increasing international contribution is a paradigm shift in South Korean foreign policy posture, which until recently was limited to issues of the Korean peninsula. Through the middle power discourse South Korea projects its role in international affairs as a facilitator, interlocutor and norm entrepreneur focusing on international security, development and environment and is aims to create a space for Korean diplomatic entrepreneurism in the emerging international order.

At the Third Plenum held in November 2013, the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted a comprehensive reform programme containing no less than 300 reform proposals. It is potentially the most important reform document to have been passed by the CPC since the landmark Third Plenum in December 1978. Entitled ‘The Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Some Important Questions Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform’, the programme upgrades the role of the market in the general economic system from ‘basic’ to ‘decisive’. It also stipulates a number of reform measures within finance, banking, tax, real estate, hukou, urbanisation, government administration, family planning, etc., and establishes two new important leading bodies. One is The Central Leading Group on Comprehensively Deepening Reform and the other is the National Security Council. Xi Jinping is named chairman of both of these new powerful institutions. This indicates his increasingly dominant role in Chinese politics. The reform programme aims to create a more open and market-regulated Chinese economy by 2020, although without dismantling the guiding role of the state-owned economy. The article argues that implementation of the new ambitious goals will be met by resistance from entrenched vested interests. In the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector powerful actors and interests will try to preserve the status quo. Some private investment will be allowed in publicly-owned entities in order to create enterprises characterised by mixed ownership. However, in key sectors of the economy SOEs will still enjoy a monopoly and will not be exposed to free market competition.

Without doubt, parental love is one of the world’s greatest emotions, regarded as the premise of the filial piety (Xiao in Chinese pinyin) of Chinese people. However, to enhance filial duties, the notion of ‘all good is of parents’ in the official campaigns of China is worth further investigation. This article seeks to verify the hypothesis ‘all good is of parents’ by examining conflicts between the hypothesis and reality, first through classic documents and current documentary reporting in China, and then through the lens of psychology.