Fox and Godement’s (2009) Power Audit of EU-China Relations grouped the EU’s member states into four categories based on their national approaches to relations with, as well as their preferences for, the EU’s policies towards China. In this typology, the UK, at the time governed by New Labour, was deigned an “Ideological Free Trader”—seeking to facilitate greater free trade while continuing to assert its ideological position, namely in the areas of democracy and human rights. Since the Conservative Party took the reins of power in 2010 (in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2015), China’s prominence on the UK’s foreign policy agenda has arguably increased. This paper examines the direction of the UK’s China policy since 2010, and asks whether the label “Ideological Free Trader” remains applicable. Through qualitative analysis of the evolving policy approach, it argues that while early policy stances appeared consistent with the descriptor, the emphasis on free trade has grown considerably whilst the normative (ideological) dimension has diminished. Consequently, the UK should be redefined as an “Accommodating Free Trader” (an amalgamation of two of Fox and Godement’s original groups—“Accommodating Mercantilist” and “Ideological Free Trader”). At time of publication, the journal operated under the old name. When quoting please refer to the citation on the left using British Journal of Chinese Studies. The pdf of the article still reflects the old journal name; issue number and page range are consistent. Picture credit: Georgina Coupe
The European Union's position on “one China” has stood since the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1975. As a union of distinct member states, the nature of the European Union's (EU) foreign policymaking complicates efforts to maintain coherent common positions. Its effective “one China policy” (and those of its member states) is no exception. In recent years, the edges of the bloc's long-standing policy have started to fray as the EU–PRC relationship has become more fraught and many member states have sought to deepen their effective, if “unofficial,” engagement with Taiwan. I explore these changes to the EU's effective “one China policy” by employing a subsystems framework, starting from the position that the EU has foreign policies (rather than a singular policy) created through three subsystems. Through the Normative Power Europe lens, I explore the extent to which the actors pulling at these “threads” at the edges of the EU's policy are motivated by normative concerns. I argue that the “fraying” of the EU's “one China policy” is not the result of a conscious decision by the EU as a collective normative actor but stems from shifting preferences within the national and supranational subsystems.
Exploring the "federalization debate" that occurred in the context of the Prague Spring, this article highlights the diversity of opinions among political elites in Slovakia regarding the federalization and democratization discussions in 1968. The language Slovaks used to call for federalization reveals how they conceive of democracy and democratization, and it shows the variety of meanings Slovaks ascribed to federalization and to the popular slogan, "First federalization, then democratization." Federalization and democratization were mutually dependent in the minds of many Slovaks. The author argues that Slovak political and cultural figures writing in the late 1960s saw federalization as a necessary precondition for democracy; they regarded the nation as one of the basic units of democracy, which led them to champion institutional safeguards for Slovak national rights as a prerequisite for successful democratization. K Ke ey yw wo or rd ds s: : Prague Spring; Czechoslovakia (Democratization); Kultu ×rny život (periodical) It might not have happened in Prague without Bratislava, and in Bratislava without Prague. Antonín J. Liehm 1 Late in 1967, Antonín Novotný, first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), faced a mutiny from his own Central Committee. Down to his last trump card, Novotný played the ace up his sleeve, secretly inviting the Soviet general secretary, Leonid Brezhnev, to Prague. During his whirlwind visit in December 1967, Brezhnev met with several members of the Central Committee's Presidium, including Alexander Dubček, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). Through his conversations with Presidium members, Brezhnev learned of the astonishing opposition to Novotný within the party. Instead of shoring up Novotný's precarious position, Brezhnev offered only a halfhearted
This paper probes Slovak cartoons of the 1960s for insight into Slovak attitudes toward national rights and democratic reforms during the Czechoslovak Spring, an upheaval in the spring and summer of 1968, when Slovakia experienced a rapid growth in the number of published cartoons and a new generation of Slovak cartoonists emerged. Slovak cartoonists in 1968 exhibited a sincere desire to see democratization come to fruition, yet they feared democratic reforms would come to naught, due either to internal resistance or external intervention. Moreover, Slovak cartoonists devoted considerable attention to Slovaks’ demands for national rights and autonomy, including contemporary demands for the federalization of the Czechoslovak state into Slovak and Czech national republics. Their cartoons belie the stereotype of Slovaks in 1968 as narrowly focused on national issues such as democratization, showing instead how Slovak cartoonists regarded federalization as a democratic arrangement of Czech-Slovak relations and thus as an integral part of democratization in Czechoslovakia while also using humor and satire to remind their fellow Slovaks that federal reform was not tantamount to democratization.
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