Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
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China is growing as an international competitor with its gaze directed toward Africa. Chinese state-owned Multinational Corporations (MNCs) gradually gaining a foothold in African countries raise...Show moreChina is growing as an international competitor with its gaze directed toward Africa. Chinese state-owned Multinational Corporations (MNCs) gradually gaining a foothold in African countries raise worries for other investors like the West. The impacts of Chinese MNCs on the international capitalist market are researched in debt but I will connect this to the study of power relations. Not only will this give insights into the local employees as active subjects that are engaged in various relationships of power, but it will also highlight how macro and micro-level actors mutually influence each other. Eventually, I will argue that these power relations are unequal and used by actors to preserve relations of power. Central to this thesis is a discussion of power as a dynamic and socially constructed relationship that can be used to preserve structures of power. This approach toward power follows Foucault in his understanding and goes against the idea of power as a possession. Power relations become visible in Chinese Multinational Corporations (MNCs) expanding overseas to Africa which has implications for actors at both the micro and the macro-level. Power relations visualize that all actors are involved in processes of legitimizing themselves and through this process produce and reproduce power relations.Show less
In 2015, the Sino-ROK bilateral relations were the strongest they had been since the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1992. Due to increasing North Korean nuclear provocations in the...Show moreIn 2015, the Sino-ROK bilateral relations were the strongest they had been since the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1992. Due to increasing North Korean nuclear provocations in the following year, the United States and South Korea decided to deploy THAAD, a US missile defense system. China felt that the presence of THAAD on the Korean peninsula infringed on Chinese national security and decided to impose informal sanctions on South Korea. The sanctions damaged the Sino-ROK ties, and Korean people’s opinion on China worsened drastically. This thesis examines the change in sentiment during the THAAD conflict and analyzes whether sentiments have improved since the normalization of the Sino-ROK relations since October of 2017 by performing a comment sentiment analysis on responses to newspaper articles that were published on South Korean online platform Naver during key events in the THAAD dispute. After the evaluation, sentiment analysis proved itself to be a good substitute of survey-based research methods as the results reflected existing polling data. Furthermore, this thesis finds that South Korean commenters’ sentiments in regard to China worsened steadily during the conflict and did not improve in the following years due to new issues and disputes arising between the two countries. The increase in anti-Chinese sentiment in the Korean population could make it more difficult to conduct diplomacy with China in the future.Show less
During the last decades, climate change appeared at the centre of the academic, political, and societal debate as it is a phenomenon that occurs to be increasingly urgent, given the existence of...Show moreDuring the last decades, climate change appeared at the centre of the academic, political, and societal debate as it is a phenomenon that occurs to be increasingly urgent, given the existence of environmental degradation and extreme weather events. Although developed states from the global north have contributed to climate change significantly, emerging economies that previously were part of the global south, cause rising greenhouse gas emissions as well. The problem requires a collective approach in terms of shared responsibility and multilateral cooperation; however, the architecture of global climate governance portrays to be fragmented. Resulting from the fact that the topic has not received much scholarly attention, this research seeks – by means of a thematic content analysis – to investigate how the trend towards centralised global climate governance through the Paris Agreement has changed the perspective on environmental policy. The research builds on the theoretical approach of liberalism, as well as the spectrum model that explains the degree of centralisation in climate cooperation. Based on the case of China as the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, it can be concluded that after the Paris Agreement entered into force, the nation’s perspective on environmental policy shifted politically/strategically and ideologically/socially.Show less
China’s rise in political power over the last decades has been reflected by its growing international influence, e.g., in international organisations like the World Bank or the United Nations....Show moreChina’s rise in political power over the last decades has been reflected by its growing international influence, e.g., in international organisations like the World Bank or the United Nations. Especially its role in the UN Security Council is of importance as China holds one of the permanent seats. One important agenda item of the SC is peacekeeping operations. China’s peacekeeping policy has attracted significant scholarly attention. However, there is a theoretical gap as previous research has not yet focused on the influence of institutions on China, in particular its peacekeeping approach. This study aims to fill this gap by looking at how China’s increase in political power affects its peacekeeping policy. In order to answer this question, this paper connects prior research findings with an analysis of UNSC meeting records on peacekeeping operations from 2000-2003 to explore China’s evolving peacekeeping policy. The analysis provides mixed results: While there is clear evidence for a path dependence and the critical juncture, there is ambiguity regarding a change in China’s peacekeeping policy after 2001.Show less
This research finds itself in the literature on the collective historical memory in China, a field within Sino-Japanese relations. Current scholarship in this sub-field has also discussed China’s...Show moreThis research finds itself in the literature on the collective historical memory in China, a field within Sino-Japanese relations. Current scholarship in this sub-field has also discussed China’s national identity (e.g., Suzuki 2007), official historical narratives (e.g., Vickers 2013), and the space for alternative narratives (e.g., Wang and Chew 2021). Recent studies have identified changes in China’s official history discourse, most notably the transition from a victimhood narrative to one of triumph (e.g., Mitter 2020). Based on these existing papers, it appears that the space for alternative narratives is an unsaturated topic compared to identity politics and official historical discourse, despite its potential for researching a wide variety of niche case studies. Authors that have already explored this topic, like Denton (2014) and Wang and Chew (2021), suggest that, besides the party-state, other factors like the market, popular culture, and the internet also influence this space for alternative narratives. This research explores the medium of cinema to learn how the production of a historical war drama comes about and what that says about the environment for memory-making in China. In particular, I analyze the Chinese war film ‘The Eight Hundred’ in the context of alternative historical memory. Uncovering the construction process of historical memory in China will provide insight into the practices of non-state actors. As such, the research question of this thesis is: How are the state and market currently involved in the process of memory-making through the production of historical war films in China?Show less
This thesis takes an in-depth look at policies and measures that the Chinese government has taken that will make it desirable to bear more children and how this has possibly changed the Chinese...Show moreThis thesis takes an in-depth look at policies and measures that the Chinese government has taken that will make it desirable to bear more children and how this has possibly changed the Chinese Communist Party’s perception of gender.Show less
For Chinese men, finding a partner has become a precarious struggle as there are approximately 30 million more men than women of 24-40 years old in China. Existing literature provides an insight...Show moreFor Chinese men, finding a partner has become a precarious struggle as there are approximately 30 million more men than women of 24-40 years old in China. Existing literature provides an insight into how this demographic reality affects men with a low social status, but how does China's younger generation of men deal with it? This thesis builds on data derived from interviews with eight male Chinese exchange students in the Netherlands. The data shows how my interviewees are willing to step out of the traditional path towards marriage, but are being held back by the consequences of China's demographic reality. The results should be considered with the limitations of this study, but despite these limitations, my research indicates the importance of researching China’s generation of younger middle to high-class men.Show less
South Korea-China bilateral relations deteriorated in the wake of the THAAD announcement in July of 2016. China considers the anti-ballistic missile defense system currently situated on South...Show moreSouth Korea-China bilateral relations deteriorated in the wake of the THAAD announcement in July of 2016. China considers the anti-ballistic missile defense system currently situated on South Korean soil a gross violation of their national security. Subsequently, Chinese public opinion of South Korea regressed swiftly due to negative representation of South Korea’s security policies throughout Chinese state media. In response, South Korea employed public and traditional diplomatic approaches to restore bilateral favorability. Through a mixed method exploratory study, which considers quantitative and qualitative data, the effectiveness of public diplomacy in the given context was clearly deduced . This approach is seldom employed in the field of diplomacy research and thus resulted in a more innovative understanding. The findings demonstrate the insignificant impact that public diplomacy had on Chinese public opinion subsequent to the THAAD incident. Influential Chinese state media, effective traditional diplomatic alternatives, and insufficient coordination represent the key roadblocks for public diplomacy’s efficiency in targeting the Chinese population. Anticipating these variables can facilitate further development of public diplomacy strategies by South Korean policy makers.Show less
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a series of projects spearheaded by China, aiming to establish a global infrastructural network connecting China and Europe, among others. The EU faces the...Show moreThe Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a series of projects spearheaded by China, aiming to establish a global infrastructural network connecting China and Europe, among others. The EU faces the reality of an externally initiated attempt to integrate the Chinese and European economies, without being asked for permission. China’s strategy has been a bottom up approach, reaching out to individual EU-member states and their publics with ambitions for bilateral agreements and mutual cooperation. Meanwhile, frictions caused by perceived incompatible political differences have been a source of turbulence for Sino-EU relations for decades. The impact of the BRI on these relations remains obscure, warranting research efforts. This thesis asks specifically how the BRI affects EU foreign policy towards China, using the pathways of connection framework to make inferences. The framework, founded in realism, liberalism and constructivism, takes a relational and practitioner-centred approach. To gather data, explaining-outcome process tracing is employed as a method, trying to provide minimally sufficient evidence to explain the occurrence of the phenomenon under study. The study finds that the BRI affects the EU and EU foreign policy in a broad range of categories, as China rigorously pursues its foreign policy interests. It concludes that Chinese efforts are met negatively by the EU, who in return tries to fortify its defences to prevent the BRI from growing roots on the European continent.Show less
As the potential transformative effects and threats of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being uncovered, its standards are becoming increasingly debated on the international stage. However, one of...Show moreAs the potential transformative effects and threats of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being uncovered, its standards are becoming increasingly debated on the international stage. However, one of the three major AI powers, i.e. China, has its approach often reduced to be merely state-centric, which may cause misunderstanding and faulty policies. This thesis exames various standardization strategies concerning both formal and de facto standards, with as aim to better understand the driving forces and crucial factors that are at play in China's standardization participation.Show less
China is the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market, possessing 4.5 million EVs in 2020, far ahead of the second-place country - the U.S., with 1.7 million EVs in the same period (Silver,...Show moreChina is the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market, possessing 4.5 million EVs in 2020, far ahead of the second-place country - the U.S., with 1.7 million EVs in the same period (Silver, 2021). This is because the government promotes EVs as the future of urban mobility due to its low emission characteristic (Iea.org, 2020). However, some researchers argue, that if considering the production and disposal of the vehicles and EV batteries, the life cycle environmental impacts of EVs can be much bigger and EVs may not be as ‘clean’ as most people have thought (Yu, et al., 2018). This is especially true for China, where the electricity generation is still highly relying on high polluting coal-fired plants, landfilling is used for EV and battery disposal that generate enamours negative environmental impacts, the resources for battery production are not secured, and so on (Eguchi, et al., 2020, Song, et al., 2016, Liu, et al., 2020). It is urgent for now to study how to mitigate or solve these environment impacts. Through an extensive literature review, this research has identified the key factors influencing the life cycle environmental impacts of EVs in China. The key findings are summarized as following. At the production stage, most of the environmental impacts are caused by the EV barratries production, including reduces the resource security as it requires a large amount of cobalt, lithium, coal, and such. These resources are non-renewable and some of the extraction rate is very low (Liu, et al., 2020, Zeng, wt al., 2015); it also generates air and water pollution since the electricity to support EV production in China is mainly generated from coal-fired plants (Eguchi, et al., 2020). At the utilization stage, there is normally no direct impact to the environment, but the electricity output efficiency in China is very low, meaning more coal are required and more pollution would be generated to support the EV charging (Jiang, 2019); also, thermal hazard may happen occasionally under abusive condition, for example, in car crashing (Ouyang, et al., 2019). At the end-of-life stage, landfilling is the most common method to dispose EVs and EV batteries in China. Reduces resource security as it make valuable materials on EV uncoverable, generate heavy metal pollution, and reduce food security as landfilling disfunction the agricultural land (Costa, et al., 2021, Song, et al., 2016, Zeng, II et al., 2015, Tencent New, 2019, People.cn, 2020); nevertheless, most of the environmental impacts can be mitigated or solved by recycling the EV and EV battery, yet, there is no clear standards as well as agenda for both EV and EV battery recycling in China (Song, et al., 2016, Shu, et al., 2021, Yu, et al., 2020, Casper, et al., 2020, Abdullah, 2021). Accordingly, recommendations are proposed to shed a light on the sustainable transition of urban mobility, assuring ‘cleaner’ pathways for future EV development in China. Switching the current electricity generation system to more sustainable ones can mitigate the environmental impacts generated from EV and EV battery production, and EV charging. Reducing or phasing out the current EV subsidy scheme and encourage car-sharing. Setting up clear standards as well as proper agenda to facilitate EVs and EV batteries recycling is able to enhance the resource security for EV and EV battery production, and the environmental impacts generated from landfilling. Additionally, promote alternative subject which is more sustainable is also a possible solution. Nevertheless, the whole life cycle of the value chain for the alternative subjects must be examined to indicate the sustainability before promotion.Show less
In dit scriptie is er op basis van voorbeelden uit series een vergelijking gemaakt in de uitingen van homoseksualiteit in Chinese donghua en Japanse anime. Ook is er kort ingegaan op de...Show moreIn dit scriptie is er op basis van voorbeelden uit series een vergelijking gemaakt in de uitingen van homoseksualiteit in Chinese donghua en Japanse anime. Ook is er kort ingegaan op de geschiedenis van animatie en het ontstaan van homoseksualiteit in geanimeerde series en films.Show less
The main cause of birth-rate decline, in any country as well as China, is due to natural changes in socio-economic factors, such as the labour market, prospects of financial stability, the housing...Show moreThe main cause of birth-rate decline, in any country as well as China, is due to natural changes in socio-economic factors, such as the labour market, prospects of financial stability, the housing market, the marriage market, a work-life balance, urbanization, affordable childcare and education of both men and women. The one-child policy might have assisted a fast-track through the stages of demographic transition, but the main reason for the current continuation of low fertility is caused by these socio-economic factors. To prove the legitimacy of this argument, even though there were no birth control policies set in place in Japan since the end of the Second World War, fertility still declined due to similar socio-economic circumstances as in China today. However, after Japanese policy makers started addressing some of the socio-economic factors, birth rates did ever so slightly improve since the low in 2005, further showing evidence of the importance of these determining factors. The argument that will be used in this paper to answer the research question “Why did Chinese policymakers drop the one-child policy and how effective is this policy move in reversing the demographic trends?” is as follows: The one-child policy was fully dropped as policy makers finally realized, while too late due to the opaqueness of the Chinese government, that the fertility rates were socially and economically unsustainable. The effect of the implemented policies in reversing the demographic trend is weak because the socio-economic factors which determine continuous low fertility are not addressed.Show less
China’s national identity plays a crucial role in the research of Chinese nationalism security and historical memory making. Identity politics played an increasingly important role in China,...Show moreChina’s national identity plays a crucial role in the research of Chinese nationalism security and historical memory making. Identity politics played an increasingly important role in China, especially after the reform and opening up of the Chinese economy initiated by Deng Xiaoping and the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. The CCP’s moral and ideological legitimacy was increasingly challenged. Deng and Jiang Zemin turned to patriotic education and Confucianism for the solution, citing the lack of patriotic feelings among citizen as the cause for the Tiananmen crisis (Gilley 1998, 271-2). The selective and “active forgetting” nature of writing history is also present in the construction of national identity and political discourse which are dependent on elites and their political aims (Renwick & Qing 1999, 112). Under Xi’s rule, the national identity discourse has taken a shift in narratives, where nationalism humiliation faded slowly into the background and gradually replaced by more ambitious and victorious narratives (Chang 2021). The motivation behind this shift can be shortly summarise as CCP’s historical goals of “great rejuvenation of the nation” which Xi explicitly expressed since his succession. The construction of national identity involves selecting specific historical events as strong evidence for themes, even though it might ignore or exclude the complete picture, especially in China, where the historical discourse is highly politicalised (Zhao 2015). Therefore, this paper is interested in “How does China constructs its national identity discourse around the themes of ‘The China Dream’ and ‘Chinese inherent peacefulness’”? The documentary Great Power Diplomacy will be used as a case study in answering this 2 question. It is argued that the CCP has carefully constructed a framework in integrating themes of “China Dream” and “Chinese inherent peacefulness” into the Chinese national discourse through propaganda, while the constructed discourse also serves as a useful tool in deflecting criticism.Show less