This book explores the emergent concept of 'human security' within the political context of COVID-19 Chinese politics. For decades, Western nations have used 'human rights' as a rubric with which to scold Chinese leaders, betraying a fundamental unwillingness to accept diversity of governance systems. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, different governance systems yield different outcomes-the freedom of circulation, speech and movement in Western democracies yielding one, and use of surveillance, lockdowns, and private-public collaboration in China and Asian societies such as Korea and Singapore yielding another. Chinese political scientists have become fixated on the notion of 'human security,' a utilitarian concept which insists on the importance of protecting and extending human life via health care, technology, and a wide range of other systems-sometimes, in ways which contradict Western notions of human rights, even as they demonstrably achieve superior outcomes for the humans involved. Being the first English language book to explore these issues, this book aims to generate a sustained theoretical relevance in the aftermath of the crisis which is likely to have lasting effects on how people live and will be of note for political scientists, China scholars, and economists.

This book provides a series of systematic theoretical results and numerical solution algorithms for dynamic optimization problems of switched systems within infinite-dimensional inequality path constraints. Dynamic optimization of path-constrained switched systems is a challenging task due to the complexity from seeking the best combinatorial optimization among the system input, switch times and switching sequences. Meanwhile, to ensure safety and guarantee product quality, path constraints are required to be rigorously satisfied (i.e., at an infinite number of time points) within a finite number of iterations. Several novel methodologies are presented by using dynamic optimization and semi-infinite programming techniques. The core advantages of our new approaches lie in two folds: i) The system input, switch times and the switching sequence can be optimized simultaneously. ii) The proposed algorithms terminate within finite iterations while coming with a certification of feasibility for the path constraints. In this book, first, we provide brief surveys on dynamic optimization of path-constrained systems and switched systems. For switched systems with a fixed switching sequence, we propose a bi-level algorithm, in which the input is optimized at the inner level, and the switch times are updated at the outer level by using the gradient information of the optimal value function calculated at the optimal input. We then propose an efficient single-level algorithm by optimizing the input and switch times simultaneously, which greatly reduces the number of nonlinear programs and the computational burden. For switched systems with free switching sequences, we propose a solution framework for dynamic optimization of path-constrained switched systems by employing the variant 2 of generalized Benders decomposition technique. In this framework, we adopt two different system formulations in the primal and master problem construction and explicitly characterize the switching sequences by introducing a binary variable. Finally, we propose a multi-objective dynamic optimization algorithm for locating approximated local Pareto solutions and quantitatively analyze the approximation optimality of the obtained solutions. This book provides a unified framework of dynamic optimization of path-constrained switched systems. It can therefore serve as a useful book for researchers and graduate students who are interested in knowing the state of the art of dynamic optimization of switched systems, as well as recent advances in path-constrained optimization problems. It is a useful source of up-to-date optimization methods and algorithms for researchers who study switched systems and graduate students of control theory and control engineering. In addition, it is also a useful source for engineers who work in the control and optimization fields such as robotics, chemical engineering and industrial processes.

This book brings together scholars based in, or had previously been based in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries, building on their respective primary empirical data and first-hand experience as academics and think tank researchers, in order to pluralise the current debates about governance in transitional societies. In an era of global democratic backsliding, this edited volume offers less-explored local perspectives, to balance the Western-centrism observed in area studies and the focus on former Soviet countries in transit. What is the future of governance in Asia? This book, by attempting to supply a diversity of answers, will interest political scientists, economists, and journalists.

This monograph aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the legal protection of the private equity (PE) investors in China. In an academic sense, this research mainly focuses on the agency problems in the life cycle of PE investment under the business organization law system in China. Briefly speaking, the agency problems of PE investment derive from the two-level separation of ownership and control, one of which is the principal-agent relationship between the PE investors and the fund manager, and the other is the principal-agent relationship between the PE shareholders and the management of investee companies. It is the first research to provide an in-depth examination on the investor protection in the PE investment under the business organization law system in China.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China's energy diplomacy has been expanding rapidly and the country is searching for energy resources worldwide. This movement has not only improved China's energy security and international relations, but also enabled the Chinese national oil companies (NOCs) to access new investment markets and implement development strategies. The Chinese government and the NOCs need each other's support to realise their respective interests. The interaction between the government and the NOCs will have a critical influence on China's energy diplomacy. The Domestic Dynamics of China's Energy Diplomacy explores the long-neglected domestic dynamics of China's energy diplomacy, in particular the interaction of national and corporate interests. It argues that the convergence of national and corporate interests is the key momentum of China's energy diplomacy. It observes that the government-NOC relationship has been evolving with China's economic and enterprise reform. Finally, it tests the empirical evidence of the domestic dynamics of China's energy diplomacy against the three mainstream international political economy theories, showing their merits and shortcomings in explaining the phenomenon, before providing an alternative conceptualisation of the movement.

This book examines how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sought to legitimise its counter-terrorism strategy in the eyes of its domestic and international audiences. An important element of CCP policy in Xinjiang has been the deployment of ordinary Chinese citizens, or the 'mass line,' to create new realities on the ground. This book explores how the history of ideological struggle in the PRC has taken on new characteristics, as well as offering insight into how the CCP has maintained legitimacy in the eyes of its population, even as it pursues policies which are internationally controversial, shedding light on the past and future of the behaviour of the Chinese state, a subject of interest to China scholars, scholars of the Belt and Road, and counter-terrorism experts.

This book explores the emergent concept of 'human security' within the political context of COVID-19 Chinese politics. For decades, Western nations have used 'human rights' as a rubric with which to scold Chinese leaders, betraying a fundamental unwillingness to accept diversity of governance systems. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, different governance systems yield different outcomes-the freedom of circulation, speech and movement in Western democracies yielding one, and use of surveillance, lockdowns, and private-public collaboration in China and Asian societies such as Korea and Singapore yielding another. Chinese political scientists have become fixated on the notion of 'human security,' a utilitarian concept which insists on the importance of protecting and extending human life via health care, technology, and a wide range of other systems-sometimes, in ways which contradict Western notions of human rights, even as they demonstrably achieve superior outcomes for the humans involved. Being the first English language book to explore these issues, this book aims to generate a sustained theoretical relevance in the aftermath of the crisis which is likely to have lasting effects on how people live and will be of note for political scientists, China scholars, and economists.

In diesem Buch wird untersucht, wie die Kommunistische Partei Chinas (KPCh) versucht hat, ihre Strategie zur Terrorismusbekampfung in den Augen ihrer nationalen und internationalen OEffentlichkeit zu legitimieren. Ein wichtiges Element der KPCh-Politik in Xinjiang war der Einsatz gewoehnlicher chinesischer Burger oder die "Massenlinie", um neue Realitaten vor Ort zu schaffen. Dieses Buch untersucht, wie die Geschichte des ideologischen Kampfes in der Volksrepublik China neue Zuge angenommen hat, und bietet Einblicke in die Art und Weise, wie die KPCh ihre Legitimitat in den Augen der Bevoelkerung aufrechterhalten hat, selbst wenn sie eine international umstrittene Politik verfolgt, und wirft ein Licht auf die Vergangenheit und die Zukunft des Verhaltens des chinesischen Staates, ein Thema, das fur China-Wissenschaftler, Wissenschaftler des Gurtels und der Strasse sowie Experten fur Terrorismusbekampfung von Interesse ist.