Asian Review of Political Economy最新文献

This article explores the ongoing influence of colonialist legacies in contemporary climate governance, highlighting that although the colonial system has ended, its legal and knowledge discourse still profoundly shape global climate politics. Climate litigation is not only a legal tool but also a means of discourse construction. The Western legal framework strengthens its authority in global climate governance through its dominant position in knowledge production, thereby marginalizing the countries of the Global South. To break this hegemony of Western knowledge's universalization and objectification, the Global South must establish an autonomous knowledge system. The article argues that the BRICS countries, as a typical practice of South-South cooperation, play an important role in challenging Western narratives and providing alternative governance models. The article takes the request for the "Consultation Opinion on the Obligations of States in Climate Change" adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2023 and submitted to the International Court of Justice as the research background, emphasizing that this historic case provides a unique opportunity to observe the discourse construction and knowledge system of the BRICS countries. This article intends to answer two questions: (1) What is the core discourse of the BRICS countries in climate governance? (2) How are these discourses constructed? Through analysis, this article emphasizes the core position of the knowledge system in legal and political discourses and points out that only by promoting a turn in epistemology can the power structure in global climate governance be changed.

Rare earth elements (rees) are abundant in the Earth’s crust but difficult to access technologically. This creates a strategic imbalance that China has exploited not just through dominance in production but also by maintaining deliberate opacity. This paper introduces a dynamic signaling model in which nondisclosure of quotas, patents, and regulations serves as a recurring tactic that increases uncertainty, prompts cautious hedging, and results in unpredictable timelines for diversification among rival countries. Static costly-signaling models cannot fully describe this ongoing process; instead, pooling equilibria based on nondisclosure prevail, supported by super-modular effects through various layers of opacity. Monte Carlo simulations show that opacity can halve the likelihood of reaching resilience within 15 years and broaden the range of possible diversification timelines, shifting expected completion times by more than 4 years. Policy scenarios suggest that transparent procedures are most effective in enhancing resilience, while excessive opacity can backfire by causing panic-driven diversification.

Mass education is commonly viewed as a foundation for democratic development, assumed to cultivate democratic values. However, the political trajectories of many Asian countries challenge this premise. This study reassesses the relationship between mass education and democratic development using panel data and applies both linear interaction models and difference-in-differences designs. While findings show a positive association between education and democratic development in Europe, the relationship is absent in much of Asia. These results suggest that education’s political effects are not inherently democratizing but depend on its institutional and historical context. In particular, where education expanded under centralized, non-democratic regimes, it often reinforced authority rather than enabled democratic engagement. The absence of sequencing between state-building and democratic reform emerges as a critical factor limiting democratic consolidation. This study highlights the need to move beyond universalist assumptions and instead examine how education interacts with regime type and institutional development across different regions.

China’s 2021 Data Security Law and the 2023 revision of the Counter-Espionage Law frame most cross-border knowledge flows as matters of national security. Germany’s approach, evolving in parallel, embeds research security within a broader “de-risking” agenda that characterizes China as a systemic rival. Often operationalized through managerial guidelines, this approach is increasingly underpinned by binding EU export control and data regulations aimed at protecting data, technology, and personnel from unwanted foreign access. Against the backdrop of a wider global trend toward securitizing academic collaboration, this study asks how security-oriented regulations reshape the discourse of Chinese and German academic actors working in their respective settings, how research-security standards filter into the written rules and public statements of partner institutions, and what mutual or asymmetric forms of socialization emerge. Combining Copenhagen-School securitization theory with Johnston’s model of socialization as well as middle-power role theory, the study traces norm diffusion across the bilateral research space through a mixed-method design. It triangulates qualitative content analysis of policy and institutional documents (2019–2025) with process-tracing of regulatory changes across three critical temporal breakpoints (2021, 2023, 2024) that represent distinct phases of legalization and securitization. Evidence suggests that Chinese and German institutions selectively borrow each other’s security lexicon and procedural templates, which produces reciprocal yet uneven norm internalization. This raises transaction costs, narrows epistemic communities, and frames collaboration as strategic competition. By showing that knowledge-security rules act as vectors of mutual socialization rather than unilateral control, the article refines securitization theory for middle-power contexts.

The re-emergence of Donald Trump in the global political scene with the "America First 2.0" agenda has sparked a fresh round of the trade war between the United States and China. This study investigates the systemic impact of Trump's protectionist policies, particularly the reciprocal tariff policy announced in April 2025. Simulations of various tariff escalation scenarios between the two countries are conducted using the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach through the GTAP model. The findings show that reciprocal tariff increases are associated with significant declines in key economic indicators, such as GDP, investment, exports-imports, household income, and national welfare, with a greater impact on China. Sectoral analysis in the US reveals that labor-intensive sectors, such as textiles, has gained benefits while high-tech sectors suffered losses. On the contrary, China's energy sector has experienced growth due to import substitution. These findings confirm that extreme protectionist policies tend to be counterproductive, creating economic distortions, policy uncertainty, and undermining the global trade order. Finally, the study recommends a multilateral and data-driven approach as a more sustainable trade strategy amid rising global geopolitical tensions.

South Korea’s unrealized proposals in the 1960s remind us that the tension between bilateral dominance and fragile regionalism remains one of the central dilemmas of Asia’s order today. Yet scholarship has largely overlooked South Korea’s Cold War multilateral initiatives. This article investigates Seoul’s efforts to reshape regional economic and security arrangements amid escalating Cold War tensions, focusing on proposals for the Asian Common Market, the Asian and Pacific Council, and the Asia–Pacific Treaty Organization. Using archival documents, presidential speeches, and declassified U.S. records, and interpreted through a constructivist and a historical context lens, the analysis shows how South Korea sought to reframe its identity from a peripheral Cold War state to a regional leader by advocating economic integration and multilateral security. These proposals encountered significant resistance, especially from the United States and Japan, underscoring the limits of middle-power diplomacy in Cold War Asia. The article demonstrates that these unrealized initiatives not only highlight the constraints of U.S.-led bilateralism but also illuminate enduring tensions that continue to shape Asia’s regional order in the Indo-Pacific today.

South Africa joined BRICS with the aim of benefiting from enhanced trade with the grouping, which encompasses four of the largest economies in the world. This article undertook an empirical review to determine an answer to the following research question (RQ): whether South Africa’s exports to the original four BRIC/BRICs member countries had grown and diversified following its membership over the first fourteen-year timeframe (2010–2024)? Across these, decline was identified in the findings, demonstrating that South Africa’s participation in the group has performed below its potential and stated rationale. The article notes a growing trade deficit and lack of industrialised imports from South Africa, especially when compared with the EU and the US. This is shown to be mainly due to South Africa’s asymmetrical openness towards the BRICs, including having the single-lowest tariff rates towards the other four members at 4.9 to 5.3%, while the next lowest BRICs’ general tariff is at 10.3%. Against these findings, the article makes the case for a BRICS Plus treaty in order to eliminate any tariff and non-tariff barriers, as well as formulate realistic expectations and obligations for internal cohesion and external engagement based on credible commitment.

This paper explores the lack of coordination on drug clinical trials in the Greater Bay Area, encompassing Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao. Despite growing regional cooperation in the field of biomedicine and biopharmaceuticals, coordinated drug clinical trial governance across the three jurisdictions remains largely disjointed, with separate approval systems, ethics review processes, and deeper obstacles such as compliance burdens and talent-related issues. Drawing lessons from the European Union’s experience, the paper argues that harmonization and simplification of regulatory standards can enhance coordination efficiency and effectiveness. It recommends an approach in which the three regions develop a mutually agreeable framework while aligning with top-level design and strategic priorities set by Mainland, as well as international standards. This coordinated model could pave the way for the Greater Bay Area to become a leading hub for internationally recognized high-quality clinical research.

In the era of “AI plus healthcare”, personal health data has shifted from static records into dynamic and time-sequential data flow covering a full lifecycle. While it has become an important element of production in healthcare industry, it also faces new risks and challenges and the current legal framework of personal health data protection in China cannot satisfactorily address these challenges. The ambiguous rules on personal health data ownership and the ineffective individual empowerment model of data governance fail to respond to the dual needs for protection of personal health data and extraction of data value. In view of diversified and sometimes conflicting values and interests embodied in personal health data, it is therefore recommended that the agile governance model, characterized by dynamic adaptability and multistakeholders collaboration, be adopted. The bundle of rights over data should be allocated among data subjects, data processors and the government; a differentiated consent mechanism based on risk classification should be constructed; the principle of purpose limitation and minimum necessary should be reinterpreted in an expansive and generalized manner within the limits of reasonable expectation and risk control; and, anonymization measures and tort liability rules should be improved by clarifying obligations of stakeholders and balancing their rights and responsibilities. Through dynamic risk control by collaboration of multiple stakeholders, the agile governance model can reach the balance between sufficient protection and rational utilization of personal health data in data processing.

This research examines Africa’s evolving role in the Global South’s development trajectory, focusing on its multifaceted cooperation with China as a transformative force in the global development architecture. The study is driven by the need to understand how Africa, once marginalized in global governance, is asserting agency through strategic partnerships (particularly with China) across infrastructure, trade, industrialization, health, education, and diplomacy. The objectives are to analyze the historical roots, current dynamics, and developmental impacts of Africa–China relations while assessing the extent to which these engagements align with Africa’s own priorities, as articulated in Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Key findings reveal that, despite persistent concerns around debt sustainability, environmental governance, labor practices, and political influence, Africa has increasingly leveraged Chinese cooperation to close infrastructure gaps, promote industrialization, and diversify global alliances. Importantly, African states and institutions have demonstrated growing negotiation power and strategic vision, positioning themselves not as passive recipients but as co-creators of alternative development pathways. The study recommends strengthening institutional capacity, ensuring transparency and local ownership in partnerships, and fostering continental coordination. If guided by African priorities, Africa–China cooperation can help redefine South–South relations and support a multipolar, inclusive global development order.