Latin American Journal of Asian Studies

China’s Regional Rise in the 21st Century: A Shift toward Soft Power in East and Southeast Asia

2023-09-11T14:50:49+00:00

The main objective of this research is to analyze Chinese foreign policy movements in East and Southeast Asia during the period 1998-2021. The growing importance of soft power for China’s foreign policy will be analyzed. Beijing opted for this type of measures since it seeks to project a more positive image, in order to generate a sufficient level of trust that would allow it to establish reliable and stable trade relations with countries in its region. By carrying out an analysis of official secondary sources, this article will demonstrate that cooperation, political and economic, has been a strategic tool of China's foreign policy. This course of action has encouraged a shift towards participation in supranational organizations, contributed to regional rapprochement, and strengthened China's positioning in the region.

A Decade of Building Community with Shared Future for Mankind and its Plans for the Future: From Vision to Action

2023-11-08T14:08:57+00:00

In 2023, the tenth anniversary of Xi Jinping's proposal is commemorated, initially put forward in 2013 during his tenure as the General Secretary of the People's Republic of China. This significant initiative aims to promote international cooperation and advocate for sustainable and equitable global development. Since its inception, it has sparked extensive discussions in the political, economic, and social spheres, both at the national and international levels. Moreover, it has acted as a catalyst for various efforts aimed at achieving a more united and harmonious global community. This academic inquiry delves into the origins and evolution of Xi Jinping's visionary framework, which integrates a wide range of administrative and national management concepts and strategies applicable worldwide. Additionally, it examines Xi Jinping's active and discursive participation in various national and international forums from 2012 to 2023. The primary aim is to provide an objective and historically well-founded perspective on this proposition.

Internationalization of Higher Education in the People’s Republic of China: A Process of Securitization?

2023-11-08T14:01:44+00:00

This research paper analyzes, in the light of the securitization theory, the process of internationalization of higher education in the People's Republic of China (PRC) framed in a new national security logic promoted by its president Xi Jinping. Official documents and speeches are studied to describe the paradigm shift and to glimpse the strategic turn that the PRC is taking through a securitization movement in relation to its higher education. Preliminarily, the results speak of a change in the official discourse on higher education towards a more nationalistic and closed to Western proposals on university internationalization. It is concluded that higher education for the PRC plays a central role in the realization of its development plan as a country and that to achieve the consolidation of its own ethos requires greater regulation and active planning that closely links youth, education, and nationalism, and that discourages an unregulated entry of international trends and ideas. In education, China is ending the period of learning and importing from the West and is now seeking to withdraw and develop its own way of doing things in relation to its own identity.

Factions and agenda-setting in the G20 (2008-2019): Assessing Pre-Pandemic Dynamics

2023-11-21T14:17:24+00:00

Based on previous studies that have identified an over-representation of the interests of G7 countries in the functioning of the G20 (Benson & Zürn, 2019; Lei & Rui, 2016; Prodi, 2016), this article aims to identify the factors that contribute to the imbalance of the agendas or proposals that have characterised the forum’s work. Four factors that could influence the phenomenon under study are analysed theoretically: the degree of globalisation of the countries participating in the G20, their political regimes, the stability of their institutional systems, and the levels of development of their respective economies. With the use of a mixed methodology based on a multinomial logistic regression model and in-depth interviews, attention focusses on how the factors identified contribute to the imbalance observed in the forum. The results show that there are factions within the G20 that effectively congregate around the forum's agenda; those states dominating this exercise of political power have similar political regimes and economic development models, as well as internal structures more open to globalisation. This study provides a possible explanation of how imbalance in agenda-setting occurs in an international forum. In turn, it shows how the homogeneity of the members favours their role in establishing the framework for global economic and financial governance.

Soft Power, Football and Culture on the Bilateral Relationship between Argentina and Bangladesh: Opportunities and Challenges for Strategic Engagement

2023-11-21T14:29:18+00:00

The article will examine the influence of soft power on the bilateral relationship between Argentina and Bangladesh, particularly in the wake of the impact of Argentina’s triumph in the 2022 World Cup, which has generated great interest in Bangladesh and led to the reopening of the Argentine embassy in the country. The concepts of soft power and how sporting success can enhance the bilateral link between two small nations. Football will be analyzed as an essential foreign policy element of our cultural soft power and as a window for strategic cooperation in our relationship with Bangladesh. In addition, the experience of the Chinese case, whose soft power tool has sought to improve its presence and relations with foreign nations, will be studied. The research will also discuss the possibility of integrating sports cooperation and bilateral exchange policies into the bilateral agenda, with the presence of football as an element of cultural influence in Asian nations, an area that has been little studied in the literature on Argentine foreign policy.