NACS conference 2003

17-19 June 2003, University of Oslo at Blindern, Oslo, Norway

Paper Abstracts

On this page you will find abstracts of the papers that were presented at the NACS-conference in Oslo.

Christoph Anderl, Institute for Paleography and Historical Philology, University of Oslo

Raisa Asikainen, Institute for Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki

Sophie Bertin, Viikki Tropical Resource Institute (VITRI), Department of Forest Ecology, University of Helsinki

Ane Bislev, East Asian Department, University of Aarhus

Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard

Jørund Buen og Gørild Heggelund, The Fridtjof Nansen Institute

Mikko Eskola, Dep of Political History, University Of Turku

Julie Faber, Department of Asian Studies, University of Aarhus

Heidi Østbø Haugen, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo

Torstein Hjellum, Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen

Ka Lin, Department of Social Policy, University of Turku

Björn Kjellgren, Dept of Chinese Studies, Stockholm University

Ingrid Pauline Kjelsvik, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo

Åshild Kolås, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)

Outi Luova, Dept of Contemporary History,

Ma Li, University of Linköping

Megan Murray

Mikael Mattlin, Department of Political Science, University of Helsinki

Jette Miller, University of Aarhus

Bent Nielsen, Department of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen

Stine Lykke Nielsen, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Aarhus

Lauri Paltemaa, Department of Contemporary History, Uni. Of Turku

Lena Rydholm, Dept. of oriental languages, Stockholm university

Shen Yuling, Department of Geography, NTNU

Sun Jicheng, Chinese Department, Stockholm University

Juha Vuori, Dep. Political Science, University of Turku

Key Note Speaker Shuh Shin Luh: Friend or Foe: The Impact of China's Accession to the World Trade Organization on ASEAN countries.

Is China a threat or an opportunity to Asian economies? The rise of China as a strong economic force has been the hottest discussion topic in Asia since it officially attained membership to the World Trade Organization in late 2001. As the global economic continues to suffer from a prolonged slowdown, Asian countries have grown increasingly more nervous over China's economic liberalization and worry that it will suck the already limited financial resources that are flowing into the region. Already, there has been noticeable diversion of foreign direct investment flows to China at the expense of Asian countries, particularly among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the early 1990s, ASEAN accounted for about 30 percent of FDI in developing Asia, while China accounted for 18 percent; by 2000, ASEAN's share has fallen to only 10 percent, while China's had increased to 30 percent.

Certainly, ASEAN economies' structural weaknesses, revealed by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 may be partly to blame. The crisis exposed shaky financial infrastructures and bad debt in countries such as Indonesia and Thailand, driving foreign investors away, and encouraging them to flock to Chinese free trade zones where taxes and other financial incentives are attractive, and where companies are free from the political instability and civil unrest in ASEAN countries.

While China may be taking the lion's share of investment dollars from ASEAN, these countries have not entirely dropped out of investors' list altogether. In fact, even within ASEAN, the newly industrialized economies are likely to gain much from China's WTO accession in the long run. The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, introduced in 2002, lowered the tariff barriers among the five original ASEAN states to a uniform 5%, creating freer inter-market access for multinationals in the ASEAN region. In addition, ASEAN and China have also pushed for a bilateral trade agreement that would make up the world's largest internal market - more than 1.7 billion people; a combined GDP of more than US$2 trillion; and total trade of over $1.2 trillion. Although the less advanced ASEAN countries will certainly lose in the short to medium term, the link-up between the ASEAN bloc and China will inevitably mean benefits in the long run.

Christoph Anderl: Abusive Speech in Late Middle Chinese/Early Mandarin
Source materials in classical Chinese are usually very limited in terms of information on how the Chinese language was used in everyday human interaction. With the appearance of vernacular texts during the Tang, Five Dynasties and Song periods (especially those belonging to the Recorded Sayings (yulu) genre) one gets a more direct insight into this aspect of language. In the dialogues of a number of these texts one also discovers a rich vocabulary of cursing, abusive speech, ridiculing comments, etc. The sources for this important aspect of human interaction are very limited in Classical Chinese. The paper will give a short introduction to the key vocabulary of cursing in selected texts and the embedding of abuse speech in the rhetoric and syntactic structure of early vernacular Chinese.

Raisa Asikainen: Questions of national humiliation and recognition in Chinese foreign policy
The complex relationships between national humiliation (e.g. the "century of humiliation", for example) and the resultant need to gain recognition
have played an important part in the formation and pursuit of China's foreign policy. The importance of recognition of past injustice has been reflected in many of the central issues Chinese foreign policy: safeguarding national security, guaranteeing sovereignty and territorial integrity and enhancing China's international status. During the past two decades the focus of Chinese foreign policy has, however, changed from concern with national security to concern with the country's own economic development. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the question of recognition in Chinese foreign policy. This is done through discussing different theoretical approaches to the study of Chinese foreign policy, with a focus on the impact of linkage between domestic politics and international relations. Questions targeted in this paper include how and in what ways has China recognized the importance of recognition and reputation in its relations with the outside world? What kind of strategies has China pursued in trying to acquire recognition?

As argued here, the strategies of gaining recognition have changed significantly after the launch of the economic reforms in the late 1970s. Has the importance of different forms of recognition, however, changed in the same way as China has adopted a new, more responsible role in the international community? Does the question of recognition continue to play a vital part in the formation and pursuit of Chinese foreign policy today?

Sophie Bertin: Physiological and morphological effects of solid water, a new water-saving irrigation technique, on four drought-resistant tree species in China
Desertification has already affected 30% of total land territory in China. The establishment and maintenance of a vegetative cover is one of the principal issues in fighting desert encroachment. On the Chinese drylands, forest plantations require water at least during the fist growing season. 

A new water-saving method of irrigation, solid water, has been produced in China, for places where no other water sources are available. Subsurface irrigation is done through water in a gel form that slowly and continuously releases liquid water over a period of time up to 90 days. This product was investigated in a greenhouse experiment. The aim was to test the efficacy of application of 1 kg of solid water as an alternative source of supplying water to seedling transplants.

Three watering regimes (well-irrigated,solid water, unirrigated) were imposed on four drought-resistant tree species over a 25-day period.

The solid water product improves the survival of seedlings but does not promote growth under drought conditions. Trees are undergoing a drought adaptation through osmotic adjustments before they can use efficiently the water released. Although the quantity of liquefied water is not sufficient to protect the seedlings from water stress, it extends the length of survival time by up to three months in the dry season and significantly reduces the rate of water stress development.

In order to limit costs to a minimum, special focus is needed on the water requirement of seedlings used on Chinese drylands, so as to determine the suitable species that are able to adjust their water use to low water availability. In addition, further research are needed regarding the patterns of solid water moisture release as well as socio-economic implications before wider application of the product is possible on drylands in China.

Ane Bislev: A Credit to Whom? Microcredit in Rural China
Since the mid-nineties microcredit (providing small loans to poor women, using collectively responsible groups instead of collateral) has become a popular poverty alleviation tool in China. The Chinese Government adopted microcredit methods for part of its subsidized loan programs in 1997, and has since attempted to use these methods both for specific microcredit institutions and for loans from existing institutions such as the Rural Credit Cooperatives. Apart from the government effort, both international donors and Chinese NGOs use microcredit as part of their development projects in China. Though theoretically similar, these programs are in reality very different from each other and their results have been mixed.
This paper will look at some of the reasons why microcredit in China is at best a mixed blessing. By comparing three different programs (one government project and two internationally funded programs) operating in Yunnan, I will attempt to map some of the problems most common to the implementation of microcredit in China. I will focus on program targeting since this is one of the most fundamental issues at stake. The analysis will be based primarily on my own fieldwork as it is still difficult to get accurate information regarding microcredit in China.

Jørund Buen & Gørild Heggelund: Climate Policymaking in China and the Clean Development Mechanism: Prospects and Challenges
The purpose of this presentation is the following: i) go through China's status on the global climate issue, ii) discuss China's role/position in the international negotiations and iii) to illustrate development in the climate change issue area in China by looking into the Clean Development Mechanis (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol, one of the flexible mechanisms under the Climate Change Convention.

China at present ranks as the world's second largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) after the USA, contributing 13.5 percent of global emissions. The coal consumption that has fuelled China's rapid economic growth in the past twenty years is the major cause for greenhouse gas emissions. It is expected that China will continue to rely on coal as the main energy source due to the country's large coal reserves.

China has been an active and visible participant in the international climate negotiations. Chinese leaders regard international climate policy in general as a highly sensitive topic, as it is perceived as a threat to the country's sovereign right to develop its economy. China has opposed any discussion as to how and when developing countries shall take on quantitative emissions commitments, beyond the non-binding 'commitments' of the Climate Change Convention. The country has fought against voluntary commitments for single developing countries.

China announced the ratification of the Protocol at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. China has been sceptical to the introduction of so-called fleible mechanisms, including the CDM as they are seen as a way for developed countries to avoid taking action at home. The presentation analyses the reasons for changed attitude, introduces the on-going process for setting up a national system for identification, approval and implementation in China as well as the international CDM initiatives between the Chinese government and bilateral donors or multilateral agencies.

Mikko Eskola: Finland and China 1949-67

Julie Faber: People's Daily and WTO - reality or propaganda?
China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 has been a widely discussed event, not only outside but also inside China. The common Western view seems to be that China's accession will have many negative short-term consequences before the Chinese can fully enjoy the positive outcome of the membership.
The point of my paper is to compare the Western view with the picture that People's Daily represented to the Chinese in two periods concentrated around the accession (November 5th to 17th 2001 and December 5th to 17th the same year). The paper is divided into two parts: a quantitative study of the amount of news dedicated to WTO and related topics and a qualititative study of the content of the articles, divided into 4 main categories: what is WTO?, national economy, international economy, and social consequences.
Since the qualitativ study is not yet finished, my presentation will primarily focus on the quantitative analysis, which focuses on the amount of articles and column space dedicated to WTO and related topics, the sources of the articles, and under which page-headings the topic mostly have been represented.

Heidi Østbø Haugen: The construction of Beijing as an Olympic city
My presentation will be based on a discourse analysis of Chinese English-language newspaper articles and promotional material produced for Beijing’s 2008 Olympic bid. The analysis was originally carried out for my Masters (hovedfag) thesis in Human geography entitled ’The construction of Beijing as an Olympic city’.

The discourse of Beijing as an Olympic city was influenced by the modernist ideologies of the Olympic movement and the Chinese government. ’Olympism’ was described as a driving force behind modernity, as a universal and global value, and associated with ’the new’ and the Western world in Beijing’ Olympic bid material. The meanings of these concepts were determined partly by their oppositions ’’modernity’ was defined in relation to the ’underdevelopment’, ’the new’ was described in relation to ’the old’, and the universalism of the Olympic ideals was opposed to the particular features of Beijing and the Orient. These oppositions were rhetorically useful because they have the potential to be transcended. Beijing presented itself as an object that needed to be changed, and the Olympic movement as the force for such change. Such a description reinforces the Olympic Movement’s self-image as an engine for modernization and progress, and the IOC’s presentation of itself as an organization whose main purpose is to contribute to ’building a peaceful and better world’ (IOC 2001).

While dichotomies such as modernity/underdevelopment and Western/Oriental were sustained throughout the bid material, the ways in which Beijing is positioned with respect to these qualities varied. This ambiguity was also a rhetorical resource in the bid process, as different identities could be stressed in different contexts depending on the arguments Beijing was making.

Ka Lin: The Transformation Of The Chinese Social Security System And Its Implications For Urban Labourers
The reforming Chinese social security system now is at the crossroads and confronting many challenges. The ongoing process of marketisation has already dismantled the foundation of the previously enterprise-based welfare system, and it further facilities the basic conditions for constructing a new system of social security. This system that utilises various measures of public welfare administration embeds with the idea of redistributivism, as disclosed by the state's social policy effort that compels urban workers to participate a uniform system of old-age protection. This development should be by nature resulted in a great improvement in light of enhancing the level of social equality in society, but in reality, there is a fast extension of income gap in recent years together with a phenomenon of prevailing urban poverty. Thus, the demand for increasing state's budgetary allocation to social assistance for the unemployed and the urban poor ascends, whereas some urban labourers complain the loss of their welfare rights on health care and housing which were available in the past. To find the ways out of this predicament, we need to make an in-depth survey into the system in reference to the growth of a free market. Accordingly, this article will discuss the nature and features of the system change, with the consideration of the problems that the system faced and looking for their resolutions. The article will also give its assessments about the theoretical implications of the Chinese social policy experiences centralised on the relation of the state's social policy-making to its associated process of marketisation.

Björn Kjellgren: Sustainable exploitation? Citizens and non-citizens in a Chinese city
Since its establishment in 1980, the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, arguably the locality most intimately associated with China's reform programme, has acted as a showcase for China's capacity to operate a market economy.
Relating to the more general issues of migration and socioeconomic inequality, this paper describes how administrative and social mechanisms in Shenzhen have created and sustained a three-layered social stratification of inhabitants into permanent population, temporary population, and illegal population.

Old fears of uncontrollable urbanisation combined with a new pragmatic demand for unskilled and flexible labour is seen as the basic rationale behind this structure.

Exploitation of the temporary population and, especially, of the illegal population is sustained by an exiling mechanism which not only rids the city of socially and economically unsuccessful individuals, but also strengthens cultural cohesion by exiling potential agents of conflict.

Although neither the exiling mechanism nor the dominant ideational framework can shield the city from 'social evils', it is argued that lack of freedom of speech and organisation makes social improvement a matter of political ad-hoc solutions to temporary crises more than anything else.

Ingrid Pauline Kjelsvik: State - society relations and the work of popular Chinese women's organisations
This paper will focus on state-society relations in China, the ideal and the reality, through a case study of the Domestic Violence in China, Research, Intervention and Prevention Project (hereafter Network against Domestic Violence). In contemporary Chinese society, various popular women's organisations meet social needs that the state doesn't cover. These organisations represent a unique, close combination of research and direct action, tailored to meet both official requirements and popular (often women's) needs. The Network against Domestic Violence addresses a sensitive and 'recent' subject through their activities, and I wish to examine how they develop their projects, what kind of activities they run, and how they respond to 'new' issues in society. Through cooperation with other parts of society, such as the health system and the police, the Network aims to improve women's situation, and promote a different view of gender relations in China than the dominant one. The Networks fluid relations to ACWF and other state bodies provide the organisation with both legitimacy and recognition for its work, however, what kind of tasks the popular women's organisations should perform in society is an ongoing debate.

Åshild Kolås: Ethnic tourism in China: Renegotiating the meanings of 'minzu'
If ethnic identity is understood as basically negotiated, then ethnic tourism has become an important site for this negotiation in contemporary China. Since the early 1980s, China has opened its doors to increasing numbers of foreign tourists, while simultaneously facilitating the growth of domestic tourism. Areas inhabited by ethnic minorities have now become popular tourist destinations, for urban Chinese as well as foreign tourists. One of the major attractions in these destinations is the exotic 'otherness' of those who have been classified by the Chinese state as 'minority nationalities'. In this paper I argue that minorities living in areas developed for tourism are represented, and represent themselves, in ways that not only reflect and reinforce hegemonic representations of minorities, but also have the potential to challenge the currently dominant images and stereotypes of minority 'minzu' identity. I start with an outline of the growth of tourism in China, and ethnic tourism in particular. I then describe some of the ideological foundations for what I have called 'hegemonic' representations of ethnic minorities in China today, and give some examples of how these representations are reinforced by agents of ethnic tourism, including local bureaucrats as well as private entrepreneurs. Finally I examine how ethnic tourism also creates a space for challenging stereotypes and re-negotiating the meanings of 'minzu'.

Outi Luova: Ethnicity as resource and restraint for local economic development - The case of Chinese Koreans
This paper aims to present some findings from my fieldwork in China. The focus will be on the role of ethnicity as a resource and restraint for local economic development. I will use the terms "nationality-building" and "nationality characteristics" as methodological tools to approach the issue.

Chinese Koreans have mobilized their ethnic relations with South Korea for economic purposes both on grassroots and official level. The strategies of common people have been very successful. Especially through periodical labour migration to South Korea they have been able to raise their living standards significantly. However, the attempts of local governmental offices to activate ethnic relations for economic development did not succeed in general. I will argue, that one the reasons for that could be found in the socialist construction of Chinese Koreanness - a set of specific Chinese Korean nationality characteristics created by Chinese nationality-building.

The paper will also include an initial analysis of new definitions of Chinese Koreanness, and how they may affect the usage of ethnic resources for local economic development.

Ma Li :
Mathematics education is facing a world-wide challenge today. A historical study of mathematics education in traditional China as a reflection of the Confucian Heritage Culture can hopefully provide us with some instructive and interesting lessons.

Megan Murray:
With the launch of economic reforms in 1978, China enacted policies which encouraged the recruitment of foreigners with scientific, technogical, and managerial know-how to come work in China.Since these policies were implemented the number of “foreign experts,” as these foreigners are referred to in China, has grown significantly as China’s economic goals have evolved.China’s growing role in the international economy, includingit’s accession to the WTO, and China’s successful bid for the 2008 Olympics have resulted in more and more emphasis being put on bringing an increasing number of “foreign experts” to China.At present, the term “foreign expert” is used to refer to a ever-expanding range of foreigners working in China from English teachers and radio presenters, to IT experts and managers of joint-venture companies.This paper will outline the usage of the term “foreign expert” in China since the founding of the People’s Republic, highlighting changes and continuities in its usage.The regulatory and recruitment mechanisms which have been introduced by the Chinese government to control and facilitate the flow of “foreign experts” will be discussed, as will the ways in which these mechanisms have evolved to take on new functions as China has become an increasingly active participant in the international labor market.

Mikael Mattlin: Campaigning without issues: networks, face and service politics
The paper debates the relationship between the politician and the voter/supporter in Taiwan. Adopting an anthropological approach this paper claims that recognizing the influence of guanxi (interpersonal relationships) strategies on the interactions between politician and voter/supporter is key to understanding many idiosyncratic practices of Taiwan's election-related political culture, such as ubiquitous service centres (fuwuchu), vote-buying (mai piao) and the "handshaking culture" (woshou wenhua). In distinction to earlier studies on guanxi in Taiwanese politics, usually conducted in a rural setting and linked to local factions (difang paixi), this paper examines the phenomenon in an urban setting where factions are weaker. The paper maintains that voter expectations and established socio-cultural practices shape the campaign organization and activities to stress the cultivation of direct and symbolic personal contacts with voters/supporters as opposed to articulation of political issues and views.

Jette Miller: An Analysis of the Danish Mixed Credit Programme in China - a Programme granting loans to Danish Companies on favourable terms
Keywords: Danish Companies in China, Poverty Reduction in China, Criteria for Evaluation, Development Assistance, Mixed Credit Programme

My thesis is an evaluation of the Danish Mixed Credit Programme - a programme granting loans to Danish Companies on favourable terms. A Danish Mixed Credit is a partially tied interest free or low interest loan aimed at financing development projects executed by Danish exporters in creditworthy developing countries - including China. The Programme was launched in September 1993 under the rules of an OECD-agreement to ensure that the scheme operates in the interest of aid delivery and to avoid trade distortion. Projects are mainly supported within sectors as Food Processing, Environmental Protection, Water Supply and Sanitation, Hospitals and Health Service, Education and Training Courses and Agriculture.

Objective: The purpose of my thesis is to answer the following questions: To what extent has the Danish Mixed Credit Facility in China been able to fulfil the goals of the Danish Development Assistance Policy - and which aspects have been essential in the context of this analysis?

Methodology: A total project portfolio of 54 projects had been approved in China by February 28 - 2003. All in all 20 projects has been selected for further study - That is for qualitative research in both Denmark and China. Research in China is financed by a scholarship from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Furthermore questionnaires are to be sent to the companies in Denmark which have received loans for setting up business in other developing countries. If I can attain the contact info for the companies using the now terminated Norwegian Mixed Credit Programme, I will send them a questionnaire as well.

Bent Nielsen,
When major changes are taking place-whether it happens to an individual or to a society-it seems natural to look back to find some fixed point from which to construe the present and anticipate the future. In the wake of the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s and the sometimes more relaxed political atmosphere, the new turn of the century is witnessing a reappraisal of traditional Chinese values. Chinese intellectuals schooled in Western modes of thought now turn to their own cultural heritage, just like the philosophers of the early Song dynasty (960-1279) who were schooled in Buddhist modes of thinking turned to the pre-Han philosophers and the Yi jing. The philosophical movement known in the West as neo-Confucianism is largely grounded in the metaphysics and cosmology of the Yi jing. In many ways the philosophy of the Yi jing epitomizes the new search for a cultural identity, and to many Chinese intellectuals the Yi jing has become the theoretical fixed point. The present paper explores the role of the Yi jing in contemporary Chinese philosophy.

Stine Lykke Nielsen: Chinese interpretations of sustainable development
Sustainable development is a central concept in contemporary Chinese political discourse and public debate. There is a wealth of scientific literature, white papers, and political reports on the topic, and the concept is the subject of a very lively and open debate in Chinese society.

The Chinese authorities have in recent years been increasingly preoccupied by a growing number of locally organised protests related to environmental problems. These incidents highlight the dilemma of the Chinese authorities striving to balance its focus on economic development with the concern of growing environmental problems in China and conciliating various groups in Chinese society having varying and often contradicting interests.

The existence of so many diverging and even contradicting interpretations reflects the underlying interests and agendas of those involved in the debate, but also more fundamental differences in the conceptions of what should be the future model for China's developmental process.

The main objective of the project is to analyse the discourses and interpretations connected with environment and development among various competing actors in Chinese society today, drawing lines back into Chinese history.

Lauri Paltemaa:
The article is a work-in-progress paper that discusses the ideological underpinnings of the Democracy Wall Movement's argumentation in Beijing 1978-1980. Using the underground journal Beijing Spring (Beijing Chuntian) as an example, the author analyses the way the journal's editors used language of progress, consciousness, and enlightenment to create narratives of their Cultural Revolutionary past describing themselves as enlightened champions of the people as well as framed their adversaries as unenlightened and backward. Furthermore, it is argued that the consciousness-centred language of the activists influenced their social criticism and designs for social change. The article discusses the background of such language in the light of Chinese intellectual history as well as its role in limiting and guiding Chinese democratic dissent in general. Especially the role of the Fourth of May Movement's thinking and its ideals of progress and enlightenment and their Maoist version is important in this respect. In general the author argues that analysing Chinese dissent focusing on the use of consciousness, enlightenment and progress as central categories in democracy activists' argumentation yields a picture that is fairer to its subject than earlier studies on the Democracy Wall Movement.

Lena Rydholm: Theories of genre and style in China in the late 20th century
In Chinese literary theories, since ancient times up to the late 1980s, the concepts of genre and style have not been clearly separated. The term wenti (originally just ti) has been used to denote both concepts. In the abundant literary theories up to the late Qing dynasty, much effort was made to separate and describe the characteristics of literary genres and to create functionalistic genre systems used by writers/bureaucrats. But discussions of the concept of wenti were scarce. The dominant feature of the modern literary theories from 1940s up to the late 1980s was the emphasis on evaluating the content of literary works based on political and moral values, rather than analysing form, style, language and aesthetic features. This was a direct result of the interference of politics in literature and led to a complete stagnation in the fields of genre theory and stylistics.

The diminished influence of politics on literary theory in the past two decades has opened up for new development in these fields. The influence of Western genre theory, linguistics, stylistics etc. has triggered renewed interest in these issues and has led to the recognition of the importance of form, language, style and aesthetic features in the analysis of genre and style, and of the immediate need to discuss the concept of wenti itself. Mainland Chinese literary scholars now face a formidable challenge. They are attempting to introduce Western genre theory and stylistics in China, re-evaluate ancient Chinese theories of style and genre and to create new concepts of wenti based on all kinds of combinations of Chinese and Western literary theories. In this paper I discuss some of these new theories by contemporary scholars Chu Binjie, Tao Dongfeng, Tong Qingbing, Wang Meng and Zhang Yi.

Shen Yuling: Water and Land resources management in Xinjiang Uyuar Auonomous region, China
Xinjiang Uyuar Autonomous Region is located in the Northwest of China and covers an area of 1.6 million km2. The Tarim Basin, covering an area of half a million square kilometres, is the largest inland basin in the world. In the basin lies Taklamagan desert, which is the second largest desert in the world. The climate of Tarim Basin is characterised by hot summer and cold winter. The annual precipitation in the lowlands is only 50-70 mm with no particular seasonality. Evaporation of free water in the same area is 2000-3000 mm per year. Due to the low precipitation, agriculture in the lowlands is completely based on rivers originating in the mountain areas where rainfall is more abundant.

Irrigation agriculture in Xinjiang has a long history, in 1949 the cultivated area was about 1209.7x103 ha., population was 4.33 million, and Uyuar minority accounted for 75.9%. After 1949, under the ideology of "exploit Xinjiang, construct Xinjiang, defend Xinjiang", the amount of irrigated land had been substantially expanded with the immigration into the region. In 1998, cultivated area was 3310x103 ha. population was 17.47 million, Uyuar minority accounted for 46.6%.

This expansion of cultivated areas due to planned immigration and agricultural expansion has set off a number of unfortunate land degradation processes found in many areas of the basin:

Due to increase of cultivated areas and water withdrawal in the upper reaches, there is an increasing water shortage in the lower reaches. This leads to land being abandoned, ultimately leading to desertification in the oases fringes.

Excess use of irrigation water combined with a non-existent/inefficient drainage system in the upper reaches leads to a rise in groundwater table. Combined with high evaporation rates this has lead to increasing problems of salinization in the lowland oases where in some cases large areas now is wasteland unsuitable for cultivation.

There is a lack of suitable outlets to drainage water, and drainage water with high levels of mineralization, chemical fertilizer and pesticides flow into lower irrigation canals. This leads to deteriorating water quality in lower reaches, causing serious health problems of people living downstream.

There are large areas of arable land resources but water resources are limited in the region. How to allocate and manage water among different users, especially between old farmlands and land reclamation, how to coordinate the relationship between upper reaches and lower reaches, between agricultural production and environmental protection, are complicated and need to be studied further more.

Juha Vuori: Security as Justification - An Analysis of Deng Xiaoping's Speech to the Martial Law Troops in Beijing on the ninth of June 1989
This paper presents a micro level empirical analysis of Deng Xiaoping's speech to the Martial Law Troops in Beijing on the ninth of June 1989. The paper discusses the mechanism of how the regime justifies and legitimates actions that break the "rules" of regular political activity through the construction of security issues. Speech acts analysis and the framework of securitization are used as the tools of analysis. The theory of securitization, developed by Ole Wæver, has not been utilised in analysing China before. This theory provides a new approach to analysing how policies are legitimated in the PRC, while China provides a hard case for the theory, which is premised on all human languages sharing a common mechanism of speech acts.

The framework of securitization does not take security as an objective, given necessity but as an intersubjective construction. This means that almost any issue can be constructed as an issue of security - an issue of survival. Traditional security studies have restricted the focus of security to the national security of states, but the framework of securitization reveals that the logic of security applies to other levels (system, inter-state, state, social group, individual etc.) and sectors (military, political, societal, economic, environmantal etc.) as well.