Conflicts between the industrialized countries ("the West") and East and Southeast Asia on questions like democratization, human rights and value concepts increased in the last decade. This is due to the processes of globalization, especially after the end of the East-West conflict. A relatively...

This policy paper contributes to the topic of German-Chinese municipal partnerships, with a focus on the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). It first builds a bridge between the idea of town twinning and the future-oriented thematic complex of city diplomacy. Secondly, it looks at the...

Existing scholarship regards the collusion between the Chinese government and the private sector as 'informal' and a series of 'economic alliances', without considering the private sector's institutionalized participation in the process of government policy formulation. This article takes an...

This paper provides a literature review and preliminary field observations on the topic of political representation in the Chinese cyberspace. The authors demonstrate that multiple new communication platforms are being established in the Chinese cyberspace. These new platforms not only transform...