This book explores the discourse on conflict prevention and peacebuilding by bringing together researchers from China and Switzerland over a series policy dialogues. The Charter of the United Nations, adopted in the immediate aftermath of World War II, is clear about the fundamental necessity for the international community to act in partnership to prevent violent conflict. Given recent shifts in global power dynamics, there is an apparent need for international policy issues to be addressed in ways that are inclusive of a wider variety of perspectives and approaches. Chinese policy actors are increasingly interested in fostering their own discourse on issues of prevention and peacebuilding, rooted in Chinese experience, and engaging with peers from other contexts. The chapters in this volume explore the rationale for conflict prevention and review prevailing academic and practitioner discourses on fundamental questions such as the rationales for why conflicts should be prevented and whether ‘mainstream approaches’ are still relevant. This book will be of interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, Chinese politics, and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/New-Paths-and-Policies-towards-Conflict-Prevention-Chinese-and/Fung-Gehrmann-Madenyika-Tower/p/book/9780367683368, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

conflict management in the Asia Pacific Assumptions and Approaches in Diverse Cultures Research-based and action-oriented, this book aims to give both a conceptual understanding of conflict management and practical guidelines to managing conflict in the Asia Pacific. It describes the various assumptions, expectations and values of Asia Pacific workers and how they deal with their conflicts. The book's central theme is on doing business internationally and managing conflict with different peoples and countries in the region. It describes how each country handles conflict in the workplace and how other countries can work with them effectively and constructively at various levels of management. The authors define the attitudes, assumptions and self-perceptions which shape a country's approach to conflict. These self-perceptions can have a major impact on conflict management especially when dealing with people from other countries. The contributors of all chapters draw upon a wide range of disciplines to document the conflict beliefs of people in their country. In addition to cross-cultural and other behavioral studies, they use literature and history to identify how people in their country think about themselves and their neighbors. They also refer to case studies where expectations get in the way, how expectations help conflict management, and how people overcome interfering expectations to forge successful business alliances.

This edited volume examines the sources, manifestations and management of conflict in East Asia, which contains many of the worlds conflict flashpoints, such as the Korean Peninsula and the China-Taiwan Strait.In particular, the book will elaborate on the following themes:general and NGO approaches to third-party mediation in conflict situations;r

This book features China’s newly emergent transnational management culture. It uses established and new methodologies to analyze how different types of Sino-foreign joint enterprises manage cultural differences and negotiate strategies that contain conflicts and frustrations. In doing so, the book suggests alternative pathways toward innovative business management in China.

Mediating Across Difference is based on a fundamental premise: to deal adequately with conflict—and particularly with conflict stemming from cultural and other differences—requires genuine openness to different cultural practices and dialogue between different ways of knowing and being. Equally essential is a shift away from understanding cultural difference as an inevitable source of conflict, and the development of a more critical attitude toward previously under-examined Western assumptions about conflict and its resolution. To address the ensuing challenges, this book introduces and explores some of the rich insights into conflict resolution emanating from Asia and Oceania. Although often overlooked, these local traditions offer a range of useful ways of thinking about and dealing with difference and conflict in a globalizing world. To bring these traditions into exchange with mainstream Western conflict resolution, the editors present the results of collaborative work between experienced scholars and culturally knowledgeable practitioners from numerous parts of Asia and Oceania. The result is a series of interventions that challenge conventional Western notions of conflict resolution and provide academics, policy makers, diplomats, mediators, and local conflict workers with new possibilities to approach, prevent, and resolve conflict. Contributors: Roland Bleiker; Volker Boege; Morgan Brigg; Stephen Chan; Frans de Jalong, Sr.; Lorraine Garasu; Mary Graham; Hoang Young-ju; Carwyn Jones; Joy Kere; Debra McDougall; Norifumi Namatame; Chengxin Pan; Oliver Richmond; Deborah Bird Rose; Muhadi Sugiono; Tarja Väyrynen; Polly O. Walker; Jacqueline Wasilewski.

‘As a student of international relations and a former diplomat, Zhang brings the insights of a practitioner and the eye of scholar to explain why Chinese actors choose to engage in aid cooperation with traditional donors in the Asia-Pacific. This book is among the first to take a holistic approach to understanding the motivations of the many agencies involved in China’s aid program, and it will challenge the expectations of many readers.’ —Dr Graeme Smith, The Australian National University ‘This book breaks new ground by examining a little-known dimension of China’s foreign policy: trilateral aid cooperation. Denghua Zhang sets this highly original analysis in the context of the new assertiveness of Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping, the China International Development Cooperation Agency established in 2018, and the Belt and Road Initiative, which now serves as the framework for Chinese overseas aid and engagement. At a time when the debate in the West about the rise of China has intensified, not always knowledgeably, this book fills an important gap in our understanding of China in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.’ —Dr Stewart Firth, The Australian National University ‘This thoroughly researched work examines trilateral cooperation as a new and interesting aspect of China’s growing international aid program, and as a window into the changing nature of that program as well as the wider foreign policy in which it is embedded. The broad themes and topics discussed are clearly significant, ultimately touching on one of the most important international issues of our time, the implications of the rise of China for a long-established Western-dominated international system.’ —Prof. Terence Smith-Wesley, University of Hawai‘i

Sino-Japanese relations are crucial for the entire East Asian region and beyond. With both countries among the five biggest economies in the world, and being highly interdependent, the bilateral relationship is of key importance not only for economic cooperation and prosperity in the region but in a larger global perspective. Moreover, Sino-Japanese political and military relations are central to the regional security of Northeast Asia. Any deterioration in relations has the potential to generate conflicts with far-reaching consequences. Accordingly, conflict prevention and conflict management in Sino-Japanese relations are of vital concern to the international community. In the past decade, however, the Sino-Japanese relationship has been increasingly marked by political strife and tension. While this has not escalated into military conflict and in spite of changes with the emergence of a new leader, Yasuo Fukuda, in Japan and a political reshuffle at the 17th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2007, future developments are difficult to predict. Historical grievances and differing interpretations thereof play a large role in sustaining political tensions, which are reinforced by mutually negative perceptions at a grassroots level and a noticeable lack of trust. Japan’s occupation of parts of China in the first half of the 20th century and according to Chinese a failure by Japan to issue an apology remain a key obstacle to any improvement in relations. Tensions over contemporary issues have strong historical linkages and it is clear that problematic political relations have sub-optimized the economic potential between the two countries as well as heightened suspicions of each other’s military ambitions. More positively, business communities in both China and Japan have been pro-active in advocating improved cooperation and also a large majority of the ruling elite are eager to improve relations. Given the complex history and current power relations between the two countries, cultivating such will by no means be an easy task. Nevertheless, the authors hope that this book will help further understanding of Sino-Japanese relations and so contribute towards the development of mutually advantageous relations – a necessity in today’s world order.

Why has the Chinese government sometimes allowed and sometimes repressed nationalist, anti-foreign protests? What have been the international consequences of these choices? Anti-American demonstrations were permitted in 1999 but repressed in 2001 during two crises in US-China relations. Anti-Japanese protests were tolerated in 1985, 2005, and 2012 but banned in 1990 and 1996. Protests over Taiwan, the issue of greatest concern to Chinese nationalists, have never been allowed. To explain this variation in China's response to nationalist mobilization, Powerful Patriots argues that Chinese and other authoritarian leaders weigh both diplomatic and domestic incentives to allow and repress nationalist protests. Autocrats may not face electoral constraints, but anti-foreign protests provide an alternative mechanism by which authoritarian leaders can reveal their vulnerability to public pressure. Because nationalist protests are costly to repress and may turn against the government, allowing protests demonstrates resolve and increases the domestic cost of diplomatic concessions. Repressing protests, by contrast, sends a credible signal of reassurance, facilitating diplomatic flexibility and signaling a willingness to spend domestic political capital for the sake of international cooperation. To illustrate the logic, the book traces the effect of domestic and diplomatic factors in China's management of nationalist protest in the post-Mao era (1978-2012) and the consequences for China's foreign relations.