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Sino-American Nuclear Relations: The Need for Calm as China Becomes A 21st Century Nuclear State
Get PDFThe re-emergence of China as an economic powerhouse has given it new levels of boldness in claiming what it sees as its rightful territory in the South and East China Seas. China’s claims have been seen by many in the United States and Asia as a policy of expansionism, comparable to Imperialist Japan in 1932-45. These disputes have coincided with the modernisation of China’s nuclear forces. However, Sino-American relations can be managed despite ongoing tensions in Asia. This article will make a number of recommendations to build Sino-American relations whilst China undergoes its nuclear modernisation and mutually fuelled Sino-American security fears
This is how we drink up the sea: Liberal democracy and the prospect of truth
Get PDFI begin my paper by deconstructing Nietzsche’s two distinct theories of truth—Perspectivism and Interpretationism—and the ways in which they differ from one another. I then suggest that by conceiving modern politics to mean liberal democracy, it follows that there are a number of critiques that Interpretationist truth has to bear on the institution. With this synthesis, I argue that rather than posing any danger to modern politics, liberal democracy is endangered only to the extent that it ignores Nietzschean theory and its ramifications for both the political institution and individuals in society. In particular, I suggest that there is a role for philosophy, theory, culture and art to ‘interrupt’ liberal democracy, and in so doing regenerate its capacity for creativity, guard against its habit of static domination, and frustrate its tendency toward deindividuation such that institutions and individuals can attain existential and material freedom. My conclusion supports the notion that a positive understanding of nihilistic philosophy is credible, and could be constructively employed to enrich the political experience if actors chose to embrace it
Australian Strategic Policy in the Asian Century
Get PDFCrafting Australia’s strategic policy involves difficult choices between imperfect outcomes. Though Australia is an island continent blessed with formidable geographic defences, it is also maritime trading nation with significant interests and vulnerabilities extending far beyond its shores. Generally speaking, Australia’s approach to security falls into two traditions: an ‘expeditionary’ posture that commits national power to extra-regional contingencies such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a more regionally oriented ‘fortress Australia’ tradition that focuses primarily on the Asia-Pacific system we inhabit. Both approaches contain strengths and have ably served Australian security imperatives at different times in the past. During periods of national imperilment, such as the Second World War and a turbulent Southeast Asia in the 1950s–1960s, Australian strategic policy fixated on developments close afield. Today, emerging US−China strategic competition heralds the return of great power politics in Asia and portends to regional instability. Accordingly, Australia can ill afford to diffuse its national power across multiple strategic systems over the globe. Against a backdrop of relatively declining Western power in Asia, Australia must once more return to a regionally focused strategic policy and eschew commitments to extraregional contingencies
Technology as a driver of skills obsolescence and skills mismatch: Implications for the labour market, society and the economy
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to synthesise and build on the discourse of technological implications for the workforce in a post-information age. It has found that throughout history, the advance of technology is correlated with social issues, particularly issues of rising unemployment as a result of skills obsolescence and mismatch. However, as long as appropriate measures to adjust to technological changes are taken, unemployment will only remain as a temporary phase. The pursuit of lifelong learning and adoption of strategic human resource management is found to be an effective solution in bridging the gap and slowing down the rate of skills mismatch. Individuals can also pursue the increasing job opportunities emerging within knowledge-intensive and technology sectors. Furthermore, talent brokers have a growing role as an intermediary to the supply and demand of skills
Hard-boiled homemakers: The individual and the dystopian urban in the Japanese anti‑detective novel
Get PDFThis paper discusses the ways in which Japanese authors have engaged with the tropes of hard-boiled detective fiction in order to examine post-capitalist Japanese society. With reference to the extant framework on the relationship between hard-boiled fiction and the urban space, discussion will focus on two Japanese novels: Natsuo Kirino’s Out (アウト, 1997), and Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance (ダンス・ダンス・ダンス, 1983). Both texts depict individuals who have been displaced to the spatial and socioeconomic ‘margins’ of a dystopian urban space, and who, through narratives of crime and detection, attempt to escape its mundane oppression. However, both texts also challenge the hard-boiled genre through an integration of detective fiction archetypes with post-modern textual elements. Accordingly, they are emblematic of the emergent ‘anti-detective’ novel, which denies the hermetic and cathartic aspects of the traditional crime novel to discuss irresolvable issues of modern identity. Nonetheless, whilst Dance uses surreal ‘dream spaces’ as a source of relief for its protagonist, Out instead ultimately critiques its own escapist fantasy through stark violence. Regardless, both texts argue personal autonomy can only be achieved by the rejection of the urban space itself for an arguably unattainable imaginary
Good Addiction
Get PDFThis paper argues that drug addiction can be rational. The paper argues for rationality as a necessary component of a good life, and views paternalistic intervention as appropriate only if intended to prevent necessarily irrational behaviour. Drug addiction is not necessarily irrational. First of all, drug addicts do not lose the capacity to consider whether or not to consume their desired drug, and to act accordingly. And secondly, from a longterm as well as a short-term perspective, drug addicts may consider their addictions more beneficial than harmful. Interventions, then, should only be informative, not preventative. Paternalistic policies should only aim to inform addicts of the consequences of their addictions, they should not deny access to drugs
Regulation of sodium-dependent bicarbonate transporter, SbtA
Get PDFPredictions warn that food production must double by 2050 to meet the needs of predicted population growth (Figure 1) (Tilman et al. 2011). While food crop yields have increased due to breeding for increased harvest index (proportion of biomass that is grain), they are now plateauing (Parry et al. 2011). In addition to better agronomic practices, genetic improvements are needed to increase crop biomass, and therefore yield (Leegood et al. 2010)
The relationship between population size and rates of language evolution
Get PDFLanguages change over time, and the evolution of languages is similar in many ways to biological evolution. But are all patterns predicted by evolutionary theory also seen in language evolution? One well-known biological pattern is that smaller populations tend to lose genetic diversity, and large populations tend to become more genetically diverse, but the effect of population size on language evolution is highly debated. Do small populations have faster rates of change through greater diffusion of new words, or slower rates of change due to strict language transmission? Do large populations gain words faster through more innovators, or lose faster due to simplification across varied speaker communities? This extract, taken from Welsh’s (2015) Honours thesis, provides the background on the relationship between population size and rate of language change, discusses some of the contrasting hypotheses and methodological techniques and explains the research currently being conducted that attempts to clarify the relationship