Despite the massive amount of data and sophisticated computing capacity, Big Tech has evolved into the new data sovereigns that governments must accept in the data era. Data mining and application determine the true value of data; in this regard, Big Tech is tough to replace. The so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution" is reshaping the emerging global order, and at its core are Big Tech firms. They not only express their concerns and spread their values and ideologies but also make their strong presence felt in international affairs, as Big Tech appears to be transforming into a new type of Leviathan. With access to significant amounts of data, the rise of Big Tech poses a challenge to sovereignty's exclusivity and superiority, assuming the position of de facto data sovereign. The article holds that the Big Tech firms, by virtue of their technical advantages, have not only deconstructed the traditional concept of sovereignty, but also formed a complex symbiotic relationship.

When and how do the American political elites react discursively to China as a rising power? Do they depict it as an economic or military risk? What role do discursive references to China play in the US populist discourses? Relying on the thematic and critical discourse analysis of all the American presidential debates, this article explores the way US politicians portray China throughout three eras marked by distinct global power configurations. Several types of discourses have been identified. In contrast to the belligerent rhetoric of the early Cold War, when China was framed as a major military threat, after 2004, presidential candidates started referring to Beijing as an economic rival. By 2008, the emerging bipartisan consensus centered on China as mainly a trade competitor. By contrast, populist narratives in 2016 and 2020 stood out because they included emotional appeals and inflated the risks of the Sino-American rivalry to mobilize voters. In doing so, the populists sought to forge coalitions in favor of protectionist policies among those voters, who were employed in manufacturing sectors facing growing international competition. The anti-China mentions reached a peak during the 2020 debates amidst the pandemic when the populist candidate used biased language, relying on tropes resembling the 19th century racist "yellow peril" rhetoric.

Air pollutants allegedly originating from China have become a thorny issue in South Korea. Despite a neutral view of the topic on the part of the South Korean government, recent public polls show a high correlation between the air pollution issue and negative sentiment toward China. How has the media reported on China regarding air pollutants in South Korea? What is the effect of media reports on air pollution on anti-Chinese sentiment and foreign policy attitudes? By examining news headlines and Twitter data in 2015 and 2018, this work finds that media reports blaming China for air pollution doubled during the 2015-2018 period. Discourse surrounding air pollution also shifted: negative sentiment directed at both the Chinese government and the Chinese people increased in 2018 compared to 2015. In addition, an original online survey experiment shows that China-blaming articles have a causal effect on increasing related resentment, particularly toward Chinese people, and that this effect is moderated by age group. Such articles have also had negative effects on foreign policy attitudes via increased anti-Chinese sentiment; greater hostility toward the Chinese people is found to have a causal effect on reduced support for strengthening relations with their country.

Can village leaders' performance impact villagers' trust in the central government? Using village leader-villager relations at the village level as the explanatory variable, we examine a previously ignored source of public trust toward the Chinese government: face-to-face interactions with local leaders. We argue that, as the party-state's first point of contact with villagers, villagers use their interactions with village leaders as a proxy to determine the trustworthiness of China's central government. By analyzing the latest Guangdong Thousand Village Survey from 2020, we find that when villagers report better relations with village leaders, they also express greater trust in the Chinese central government. We find additional evidence for this relationship through open-ended interviews of villagers and village leaders. These findings advance our understanding of hierarchical political trust in China.

During 2016 China's policies towards North Korea appeared to undergo considerable short-term change, increasingly distancing itself from its neighbour and instead supporting the international community's response. Existing research has focused on long-term policy change and given little importance to short-term changes in policy, or has drawn on realist and constructivist theories which expect consistency and struggle to account for these changes. This article took an identity discourse approach to understanding the 2016 short-term changes in China's North Korea policy. It used quantitative computer assisted text analysis methods to measure changes in the dominance of different identity discourses related to North Korea that are produced on the Chinese Internet. It found that around 2015-2016, a previously more dominant "revolutionary" identity discourse lost dominance to a "stakeholder" identity discourse. The article argues that this change made possible the shift in approach to North Korea at the start of 2016 and indicates ways the short-term policy changes at this time may contribute to longer-term change in China's behaviour.

This paper examines Shanghai's grassroots COVID-19 management as a lens to explore the role of local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organisations in public policy implementation in China. We bring together literature on the Party-state relationship with literature on 'routine' and 'mobilizational' governance to construct a framework that conceptualises the CCP as the central actor in implementing public policy through campaigns. We distinguish 9 governance techniques deployed by the CCP in grassroots COVID management, which we illustrate with evidence from 37 semi-structured interviews conducted in summer 2021 with secretaries and directors from local Residents' Committees, government officials mobilised to assist with pandemic management, representatives from property management companies and Party-Mass Service Centres, as well as volunteers and residents. We demonstrate that, although Party-led policy implementation elicits comprehensive compliance, it places significant pressure on the system of grassroots governance.

With the advent of the 'age of conspiracism', the harmfulness of conspiratorial narratives and mindsets on individuals' mentalities, on social relations, and on democracy, has been widely researched by political scientists and psychologists. One known negative effect of conspiracy theories is the escalation toward political radicalism. This study goes beyond the exploration of mechanisms underpinning the relationship between conspiracy theory and radicalization to focus on possible approaches to mitigating them. This study sheds light on the role of counter-conspiracy approaches in the process of deradicalization, adopting the case study of anti-China sentiment and racial prejudice amid the Covid-19 pandemic, through conducting an experiment ( = 300). The results suggest that, during critical events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, exposure to countermeasures to conspiracist information can reduce individual acceptance of radicalism. We investigated two methods of countering conspiracy theory, and found that: (1) a content-targeted 'inoculation' approach to countering conspiracy theory can prevent the intensification of radicalization, but does not produce a significant deradicalization effect; and (2) an audience-focused 'disenchantment' method can enable cognitive deradicalization, effectively reducing the perception of competitive victimhood, and of real and symbolic threats. This study is one of the first attempts to address causality between deradicalization and countermeasures to conspiracy theories in the US-China relations.

This study applies a time-varying parameter/stochastic volatility vector autoregression (TVP-SV-VAR) model to explore the time-varying property of the link between Sino-US political relations and trade. The results indicate that the association of these two variables appears to be unstable. Sino-US political relations have positive and negative impacts on their bilateral trade, and the impact on Chinese imports is stronger than on its exports. In turn, Chinese imports from the US lead to political conflict, while Chinese exports promote peace. The interaction mechanism may originate from the expectations of the future trade environment caused by trade policy uncertainty. The interactions between Sino-US political relations and bilateral trade at different time points are also investigated. The results demonstrate that the link between these two variables is slightly different, depending on the specific status of the bilateral political relationship (friendly, neutral or hostile). Both China and the US should seek common interests to maintain a stable political relationship, and even with an increasing volume of bilateral trade, the risk of political conflicts should not be neglected.

This paper explores cycles in innovative outcomes corresponding with the timing of political turnover. Using data on local government officials and firm level innovation activities in China, firm innovation is found to be negatively associated with a turnover of local political leaders. We examine several potential explanations and find evidence supporting the premise that political turnover reduces firms' incentives to innovate until the uncertainty is resolved. This paper also indicates that local political turnover significantly inhibits firms' research and development investment, government subsidies, and expansion decisions, leading to less innovative outcomes. Moreover, reductions in innovation are greater in cities with higher levels of government expenditure or intellectual property rights trials, or in smaller firms or non-state-owned enterprises during the rotation of local government leaders.

The recent years have witnessed a significant change in China-EUrope relations, with the EU's strategic positioning of China undergoing a fundamental shift from a "partner" to a "systemic rival." By applying a theoretical framework based on neoclassical realism, the present paper examines the determinant factors leading to such a shift. This study highlights three factors: first, a change in the US's strategy and governance capability; second, the power symmetries between China and EUrope, including salient changes in material strength and marked differences in norms; third, an emergent change in strategic culture, encompassing a striving China vis-à-vis a strategically autonomous EUrope. By following Götz's (2021) insights on neoclassical realist approaches that employ intervening variables as complementary factors, we identify the US factor as the most important international factor in structural terms, while the power symmetries and strategic culture act as complementary factors. The paper concludes that while maintaining engagement, China-EUrope relations will only see further intensified rivalry and contradictions in the future.

How are the European Union and its individual member states positioning themselves within the intensifying trade war and power struggles between Washington and Beijing? Does the fact that both the United States and the EU have recently updated their strategic approach to China and continuously underline their democratic regime patterns and support for like-minded systems-contrasted with Beijing as a perceived promoter of an illiberal world order-imply a return of "Cold War" system antagonism? Could this also result in a reemergence of strategic triangles? Shedding light on Washington's expression of active support for Taiwan (and Hong Kong) and EUrope's related position statements, this article concludes that these emerging constellations would best be described as strategic polygonal relationships. While the EU Commission seeks to formulate a common foreign and security strategy, the various EU member states are defining their distinct positions within the new global power matrix emerging between Washington and Beijing.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1007/s11366-020-09692-6.].

Poverty alleviation and politics are interrelated in complex ways. Poverty governance is essentially a multi-faceted process of using political power, exercising political authority, mobilizing political resources, running political institutions, and gaining political legitimacy. However, the approach of economics has long dominated current discussions in the literature on poverty reduction, resulting in a relative lack of political science research on poverty reduction interventions. This special issue has gathered together carefully selected articles to examine the politics of poverty governance in non-electoral settings, with a specific area focus on China. Despite focusing on China, this special issue adopts a comparative analytical lens and extends beyond China studies by striving to position China's poverty governance in relation to general theories of political science. This introductory article seeks to expound the motives highlighted in the special issue, identify the literature gap that the special issue aims to fill, summarize the key findings and contributions, and finally suggest some promising new areas of future research.

As China's global footprint expands and Sino-American competition intensifies, it is apparent that one of the most important arenas for competition between Western Liberal norms and Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) authoritarian norms is going to come in competing technologies (Western/Korean/Taiwanese 5G/chips vs Huawei 5G/chips) and competing cyber-norms (Western cyber-libertarianism vs Chinese cyber-sovereignty). Inside China, China's technologies and its cyber-sovereign norms converge.Outside of China, while China champions the norm of cyber-sovereignty, Huawei itself may pose the greatest challenge to sovereign states' cyber-sovereignty where Huawei controls or otherwise participates significantly as a provider for telecommunications networks, given its relationship to the Chinese state. Is China sincere in advocating cyber-sovereignty as an international norm, or is this just something it is concerned about inside China?Are the laws of China and the technologies and practices of its own Huawei antithetical to China's own stated norms of cyber-sovereignty? Is cyber-sovereignty simply a stop-gap measure adopted by an insecure regime to justify draconian censorship and thought control at home while it seeks to use its growing presence in 5G telecommunications to expand its surveillance of foreign powers/actors worldwide? Finally, in keeping with the theme of this special issue, does digital orientalism explain the growing tension between China and some of the Western/Liberal powers as it regards competition in 5G? Is the US/West needlessly securitizing Huawei and its 5G, or is there something there worth securitizing? Clarity about these issues and the implications of the answers arrived at are important for nations around the world as China expands its technological reach via Huawei and other national champions.

This review essay covers five recent books on US-China relations, in particular addressing the rising challenge from China to the United States. These books examine US-China rivalry and advocate for changes, more or less, in US foreign policy. The essay offers a new synthesis by referring to lessons in US history and theoretical inspirations on flexible network. It evaluates the importance of liberal democracy for the United States to formulate its strategy and policy in response to China's rising authoritarianism.

It is no secret that EU member states cannot come to terms on a unified China-policy. Most studies on EU-China relations come to the conclusion that disagreement exists and that this fragmentation is utilized by Chinese foreign policy in a kind of divide and rule strategy. However, the question as to why the EU members disagree has not been answered satisfactorily. This paper investigates the reasons for this discord from the perspective of the core-periphery theory. We illustrate how the spatial position of nations within Europe-in a geographical and political sense-shapes their outlook on China. As a case study to illustrate the differences in the outlook on China of among EU member countries, we analyse the discourses on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines in the Hungarian and German press from April 2020 until summer 2021. We argue that these differences have their grounds in the spatial-relational positioning at either the core or the semi-periphery of the EU. Based on our findings we suggest that a sustainable EU China-policy has first to address these differences in foreign policy outlook and then find a common ground.

What do studies of land rights in China contribute to the broader discipline of political science? First, the Chinese case challenges orthodox theories of secure, private property rights as a prerequisite for growth and sheds light on the distinctly fiscal roots of urban bias, a phenomenon pervasive in countries making the transition from agriculture to industry. Second, studies of land grabbing in the Chinese case provide a basis for comparisons of state-society relations in authoritarian vs. democratic regimes. While democratic institutions create more openings for aggrieved actors to organize and shape policy, ordinary citizens in both authoritarian and democratic regimes use protest in order to capture a greater share of rents from land. Third, land grabbing exacerbates inequalities; research on the Chinese case in comparative context shows that exclusionary modes of land ownership and limits on full social and political citizenship are mutually reinforcing across all types of regimes.

We conduct an online survey to explore how Chinese people living in Germany perceive and react to group criticism in the context of the debate on the , a chronicle about life during the lockdown in Wuhan. We find that the majority rating of the book is a lukewarm "neither like nor dislike." Most participants are open to criticism in principle and do not agree that the book only spreads so-called "negative-energy". However, many participants were skeptical about the objectivity of the book and concerned about its potential use by so-called anti-China forces, even though the degree of blind patriotism is relatively low in our sample. The factors influencing the book's evaluation are intriguing: perceived Western sentiment, media exposure and uncritical patriotism all affect COVID-19-related conspiracy beliefs, which in turn lead to a more negative evaluation of the book. A cluster analysis reveals two groups which differ in terms of properties like blind patriotism, belief in certain conspiracies, and also demographic parameters. Our results shed light on identity politics, motivated beliefs, and collective narcissism.

To what extent does the co-existence of the empowering Internet and resilient authoritarianism rely on the state-controlled information environment? Drawing on online ethnography and a dataset of Amazon reviews, this article addresses the question by examining the debate over the memoir of a Chinese-American entrepreneur. It finds that such digital experiences, though in a free information environment, have resulted in frustration, anger, and ultimately disenchantment with the West among overseas Chinese. The findings contribute to the growing literature on digital orientalism and digital authoritarian resilience.

Both income inequality and political polarization have increased dramatically in much of the world over the past few decades. One might wonder how these two phenomena correlate with each other. Are there any striking similarities in the correlated patterns of income inequality and polarization across the globe? More importantly, how can improved equality in income distribution contribute to mitigate political polarization? Although the potential polarizing effects of income inequality is a growing concern, the evidence provided by the existing literature, however, has been mixed and incomplete. This research seeks to address the shortcomings of the current scholarship by using the repeated cross-sectional data from six waves of the World Values Survey from 1990 to 2020, to investigate whether and how widened income inequality and growing political polarization are linked globally. The findings indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant cross-country association between levels of income inequality and political polarization. The results remain robust to different specifications. This research has the potential for advancing the study of linkages between income inequality and its political consequences.

As China has risen as an advanced technological society, a new type of Orientalism-Digital Orientalism-has likewise emerged. Using historical materialism, this paper details these developments, including China's change from a civilization-state to modern nation-state and its transition from a technical state to an advanced technological society, closing the technology gap that had left it vulnerable to foreign aggression and continued forms of international dominance and hegemony. It reviews and develops theories associated with technological societies, and how these relate to technophobia generally and the rise of Sino(techno)phobia specifically. It then theorizes three distinct but overlapping trends or themes in Orientalist depictions of China over the past two centuries: 1) 'classical' Orientalism, first theorized by Edward Said; 2) 'Sinological Orientalism,' described by Daniel Vukovich; and now 3), 'Digital Orientalism,' which was first introduced by Maximilian Mayer. This paper develops analyses associated primarily with the third theme, investigating contemporary developments in the context of China as a rising power and how scholars and other nations have responded in turn. It argues that China appears to have surpassed others now as a technological society, including the US, with China's response to COVID-19 as a clear example, and with clear implications for China's national advancement and global position vis-à-vis the United States particularly.