Chinese Journal of International Review

As a regional cooperation framework, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to spur economic development by investing in infrastructure and improving connectivity between the countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa located along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Many studies have documented that BRI-related investment projects reduce trade costs, increase trade and investment flows, bring benefits to trading parties, and improve connectivity between countries along the Belt and Road. Financial integration is a critical aspect of intangible connectivity that is fundamental to and benefits from increased trade and investment flows between countries. This study examines the pairwise correlations between 39 stock markets in the Belt and Road regions from 2008 to 2018, focusing on the correlations between China and the other markets. We find that the correlation between two markets in the same region is greater than those in different regions. China has a higher correlation with markets in Southeast Asia and North and Central Asia than in other regions. The correlations fluctuate over time, but their relative rankings among market pairs remain stable. In the first half of 2015, there was an unusually low correlation between China and all other markets, most likely due to China’s stock market bubble. Our systematic examination of stock market correlations in the Belt and Road regions sheds new light on the temporal and cross-sectional dynamics in these understudied financial markets. The findings suggest significant potential for financial integration in the Belt and Road regions.

Experts and scholars are increasingly discussing the trend of US–China decoupling in the context of the two countries’ intensifying strategic conflict. This inevitable trend, though only in the early stages, has already had a significant impact in a variety of fields, including technology, investing, and banking, and is predicted to continue to grow in the future. In areas including capital markets, financial services, investments, and financial institutions, the paper clarifies the financial decoupling between the US and China. As a result of the two countries’ intense competitiveness with one another in a wide range of industries, there was a financial decoupling between the US and China. China is seeking to create its own system which includes independent financial institutions from the US-established or US-based institutions, thereby, creating independence and competing with US’s position. The US, for its part, has been proactive in conducting strong decoupling in the stock market by restricting investment in China and increasing scrutiny of the presence of some Chinese military-related companies on the US stock market. However, due to mutual interests, both countries seem to have the dilemma of separating from each other. The two countries continue the trend of decoupling but at the same time, increase cooperation in various areas including financial services. The decoupling process between the world’s two leading powers has a direct, multi-dimensional, lasting and profound impact not only on the two countries but also on the global system of institutions, rules and standards, in which the challenge side is bigger than the opportunity side. As a partner of both the US and China, Vietnam also faces direct challenges from the financial decoupling of these two powers.

The past few years have seen severe political decay in a number of countries across the world, having attracted wide attention from the international community. While existing research has delved into the causes of political decay from both internal and external perspectives, there has been a notable lack of attention given to the disproportionate influence wielded by armed forces, political parties, and bureaucrats. Taking the case of Egypt as an example, we demonstrate how the interplay between the military, parties and bureaucrats created a stable nexus that contributes to prolonged political decay. Furthermore, we draw comparisons between the well-known case of civil–military relations in Thailand and that of Egypt, highlighting how the social cognition forged in the historical process may contribute to the political power imbalance that makes it difficult for some countries to escape political decline. This research provides novel insights into understanding political decay in certain countries, shedding light on the complex dynamics at play and offering potential avenues for addressing this pressing issue.

Conflict between local state and churches in China has increased both in number and intensity in recent years due to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) tightened regulation and control over religious affairs and religious groups. Drawing on the theoretical insight of the positive function of social conflict proposed by Coser and the empirical findings in China, this paper tries to decode the impact of China’s religious policies on state–church interaction under Xi Jinping’s rule. It finds that the overall impacts of state intensified control over religions are twofold. On the one hand, state intervention paradoxically serves as a facilitating factor to enhance religious group’s internal cohesion, reinforce their group identity and help them reflect on and change their survival and development strategies. On the other hand, increased state control at the same time generates an unpleasant outcome that is not beneficial for a peaceful state–church interaction.

Since Modi came into power in 2014, secularism has significantly retreated in India’s State machinery, institutions and political discourse. Exploring the history of secularism after India’s independence, it can be concluded that India has never achieved a complete separation between the State and the religion. On the contrary, the State has rebuilt its relationship with religion by social reforms. Secularism advocated by the Indian National Congress was a mixture of both Nehru’s ideal of separation between the State and the religion and Gandhi’s ideal of religious tolerance. On many issues the latter’s stand is similar to what the Hindu nationalists argue for. The opportunistic strategy of the Congress on religion-related issues since the late 1970s further opened the door for Hindu communalism. By stigmatizing and redefining the secularism framed by the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reconstructed a political discourse about India being a secular State based on Hindu nationalism. At present, the Congress has no intention of reviving the Nehru-style tradition of secularism and other regional parties once advocating secularism have abandoned the ideal. A rightward shift in Indian party politics is inevitable. Under the BJP’s rule, a secular Indian State based on communal (religious) politics is taking shape.