Chinese Journal of International Review

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, leadership role in fulfilling inter-governmental responsibilities became increasingly prominent in China’s diplomacy strategy. China has frequently sponsored major events, and the host diplomacy for environmental governance embraced greater welcome both at home and abroad. Under the guidance of pursuing ecological civilization, China’s role in the global environmental governance arena has been strengthened via delivering increasingly remarkable results. As host diplomacy has been evidenced as one of the core components of China’s overall diplomacy, enhancing international cooperation and adopting host diplomacy strategy gradually manifest profound meanings and broader implementation in the new era, which also echoes the growing expectations from the international community for China to shoulder greater common responsibilities and provide more public goods globally. This thesis attempts to analyze and discuss the achievements, challenges and prospects of China’s host diplomacy for environment in the new era, and call for strengthening research and practice in such field, with the aim of serving the country’s overall diplomacy and augmenting global environmental governance in a scientific and effective way.

China’s economic diplomacy in the Middle East has entered a new stage in the New Era. With a proposal to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind, China is strengthening energy and infrastructure cooperation with the Middle East countries and expanding collaboration in finance, post-conflict reconstruction, and the health industry. Technological innovation and green development have become new impulses for improving cooperation, and a multilevel and multifaceted China-Middle East cooperation pattern has been forged. China adjusts its economic diplomacy in the Middle East in the New Era considering multi-dimensional factors: First, to respond to both sides’ new demands for economic development, seek solutions to the sluggish growth of its traditional economic cooperation pattern with the Middle East, and enhance high-quality cooperation; second, to promote a peaceful and stable regional environment and consolidate Middle East countries’ diplomatic support to China, serving China’s increasing security interest and need for political influence in the Middle East; and third, to improve Middle East countries’ willingness and capacities to deepen their engagements in global economic governance and jointly build an open world economy to respond to mutual demands for international economic institutional reform. China’s economic diplomacy would play an increasingly important role in the Middle East in the post-COVID period.

Deterrence policies are adopted to promote stability; however, in South Asia they have worked against the notion. Instead, they have pushed the participating countries, both regional and global, into an arms race, thereby promoting regional instability. This paper therefore makes an attempt to provide narratives to explain how deterrence policies of India and Pakistan have complicated the securitization process in South Asia, and have made deterrence less unstable. In this regard, first this paper examines deterrence within a conceptual framework and the historical anecdotes that have driven both Pakistan and India into the brink of chaos. Here, we also apply Buzan and Waever’s Regional Security Complex Theory to explain the existing security complexity in the region. Next, the paper examines the deterrence policies adopted by both the nations to protect their national interests. Then the paper shows how the deterrence policies adopted by these countries have encouraged the great powers to penetrate into the region to pacify their security interests. The paper presents a cyclical dynamics to explore the interests of the regional and great powers. Finally, the paper discusses the trickle-down effect of this security complexity on regional stability, followed by actionable recommendations and a conclusion.

This paper deals with the question of whether Russia will experience the second rise of the mafia akin to the experience of the 1990s during the current Russia–Ukraine conflict. It examines the necessary conditions for the rise of the mafia that were present in the 1990s, such as the absence of trust in the state, the demand for protection, and the supply of individuals willing to provide protection. The paper concludes that despite economic woes generated by Western sanctions, the conditions for the rise of the mafia are currently absent in Russia. Nevertheless, turbulent times frequently lead to an increase in organized criminal activity, which seems to be the case in Russia at this particular point in time. Furthermore, due to anti-Western rhetoric, the idea of organized crime as a foreign threat to Russia will likely continue to gain momentum.

As an integral part of International Relations (IR) theories, English School reflects the thinking of international affairs from Britain and other non-American countries in the West. The emergence of English School is the result of the split of IR academia after World War II and the extensive debate related with the behaviorist revolution in 1950–1960s. On the one hand, English School adopts a holistic method and then elaborates the notion “international society” as its label. On the other hand, compared with constructivism, English School is quite different in terms of adoption of the historical approach.