This research project studies the military exchanges between the United States and People's Republic of China. US-PRC relations have experienced uneven developments over the last decadeas the two major powers have grappled with the evolving post-Cold War international security Environment as well as shifting domestic agendas and foreign policy priorities. While the October 2002 Crawford summit between Presidents Bush and Jiang, and the resumption of the Defense Consultation Talks in December 2002 offer the prospect for restoring bilateral military exchanges. For a more stable bilateral military relationship to develop and be sustained, longer-term strategies must be formulated that emphasize engagement, exchanges, and better understanding of each other's common interests, priorities, and policy options. Among the key features of this relationship are high-level exchange visits of defense ministers and military leaders; confidence-building measures, including the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, annual Defense Consultation Talks, and port visits; and regular contacts at the functional level between the two countries' national defense universities and military academies. The EP-3 incident raised the importance of China in the Bush Administration's immediate policy agenda. The resolution of the incident has pointed to the need for dialogue. The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks provided additional impetuses for rebuilding the bilateral relationship, including efforts to restore military-to-military exchanges.

Nėra abejonių, kad Kinijos Liaudies Respublika šiuo metu atlieka svarbų vaidmenį pasaulio politikoje, didelės įtakos turi ir tai, kas vyksta šalies viduje: jos politiniai, ekonominiai bei socialiniai pokyčiai. Paskutinius dešimt metų Kinija perėjo nuo planinės ekonomikos prie rinkos ekonomikos. Kinija susiduria su daugybę iššūkių ir problemų, kurios susijusios tiek su vidaus problemomis, tiek su spaudimu iš išorės. Kinija teigia, kad ji nesiekia dominuoti pasaulio arenoje, o tik siekia „taikiai vystytis“, t. y. pasisako prieš perdėtą kišimąsi į kitų valstybių reikalus. Darbo problematika susijusi su vienu pagrindinių dabartinės Kinijos Liaudies Respublikos politikos devizu: „harmoninga visuomenė“ (hexie shehui) ir jos atsiradimo prielaidomis. Darbo tikslas išanalizuot socialines, politines visuomenėje, kylančio nepasitenkinimo priežastis, kokių priemonių imasi KLR valdžia. Dauguma Kinijos intelektualų sutinka, kad vienas esminių valstybės politikos tikslų yra sukurti stabilią – „harmoningą visuomenę“, jis būtinas sėkmingam tolesniam šalies vystymuisi. Aptariamos istorinis politinės minties raidos kontekstas, turėjęs įtakos „harmoningos visuomenės“ idėjos susiformavimui. Šalies modernizacijos laikotarpis nuo 1979 m., kuris turėjo didelės įtakos dabartinei situacijai: socialinė politinė įtampa visuomenėje tapo sunkiai suvaldomi, vis didėja skirtumai tarp miesto ir kaimo, tarp turtingųjų ir vargšų. Dabartiniai Partijų lyderiai skiria daug dėmesio naujų politinių strategijų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / There is no doubt that the People's Republic of China policy now plays an important role in the world stage, and has a significant impact on what is happening in the country: the political, economic and social change. In the past ten years, China has experienced a rapid period of transition from a planned to a market economy. China is facing a number of crucial challenges and problems. Problems are related to internal as well as external pressures and processes. The task of study is to analyze the potential economic, social and political causes of the growing public discontent, and the measures taken by the government of PRC. The idea of „harmonious society“ – is the socio-political goal, which is transforming into an ideology, for the successful development of the country. China claims that it does not seek to dominate the world stage but only seeks to „peaceful development“, maintains stable relationship, not only domestically, but also with its neighbours. Current party leaders have a high attention to the new political challenges and strategies for development. „Harmonious society“ idea of an attempt to justify the need to implement the fairer social policies, the harmonization of central and local government relations, to resolve conflicts arising among the various interest groups, not only for the fair distribution of material but also for the spiritual values.

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo propor uma sistemática para a construção de modelos de previsão de risco de crédito e também comparar o desempenho de três técnicas estatísticas multivariadas utilizadas para sua construção: análise discriminante, regressão logística e redes neurais. O método proposto (denominado Modelo PRC) é composto de seis etapas: (i) delimitação da população; (ii) seleção da amostra; (iii) análise preliminar; (iv) construção do modelo; (v) escolha do modelo e (vi) passos para implantação. O Modelo PRC foi aplicado em uma amostra de 17.005 clientes de uma rede de farmácias com crediário próprio. Os resultados encontrados demonstram uma superioridade das redes neurais em relação às outras duas técnicas, o que era esperado devido a sua abordagem nãolinear na combinação das variáveis. Considerando a venda anual aos clientes da base em estudo e utilizando o modelo neural desenvolvido, estima-se um acréscimo de 65% nos lucros. / This work presents a methodology for credit risk prediction, comparing the performance of three statistical techniques used in the prediction process: discriminant analysis, logistic regression and neural networks. The proposed method (entitled PRC Model) embraces six steps: (i) population definition, (ii) sampling, (iii) preliminary analysis, (iv) model development, (v) model selection and (vi) implementation steps. The PRC Model was applied to a sample of 17,005 customers from an organization, which manages his own credit system and controls a pool of drugstores. The results show the superiority of neural networks over the other two techniques. This was expected due to the non-linear approach of the neural network when dealing with the explanatory variables. Considering the neural network model and the annual sales due to customers included on this study, the use of the proposed methodology indicates a 65% potential profits.

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo propor uma sistemática para a construção de modelos de previsão de risco de crédito e também comparar o desempenho de três técnicas estatísticas multivariadas utilizadas para sua construção: análise discriminante, regressão logística e redes neurais. O método proposto (denominado Modelo PRC) é composto de seis etapas: (i) delimitação da população; (ii) seleção da amostra; (iii) análise preliminar; (iv) construção do modelo; (v) escolha do modelo e (vi) passos para implantação. O Modelo PRC foi aplicado em uma amostra de 17.005 clientes de uma rede de farmácias com crediário próprio. Os resultados encontrados demonstram uma superioridade das redes neurais em relação às outras duas técnicas, o que era esperado devido a sua abordagem nãolinear na combinação das variáveis. Considerando a venda anual aos clientes da base em estudo e utilizando o modelo neural desenvolvido, estima-se um acréscimo de 65% nos lucros. / This work presents a methodology for credit risk prediction, comparing the performance of three statistical techniques used in the prediction process: discriminant analysis, logistic regression and neural networks. The proposed method (entitled PRC Model) embraces six steps: (i) population definition, (ii) sampling, (iii) preliminary analysis, (iv) model development, (v) model selection and (vi) implementation steps. The PRC Model was applied to a sample of 17,005 customers from an organization, which manages his own credit system and controls a pool of drugstores. The results show the superiority of neural networks over the other two techniques. This was expected due to the non-linear approach of the neural network when dealing with the explanatory variables. Considering the neural network model and the annual sales due to customers included on this study, the use of the proposed methodology indicates a 65% potential profits.

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo propor uma sistemática para a construção de modelos de previsão de risco de crédito e também comparar o desempenho de três técnicas estatísticas multivariadas utilizadas para sua construção: análise discriminante, regressão logística e redes neurais. O método proposto (denominado Modelo PRC) é composto de seis etapas: (i) delimitação da população; (ii) seleção da amostra; (iii) análise preliminar; (iv) construção do modelo; (v) escolha do modelo e (vi) passos para implantação. O Modelo PRC foi aplicado em uma amostra de 17.005 clientes de uma rede de farmácias com crediário próprio. Os resultados encontrados demonstram uma superioridade das redes neurais em relação às outras duas técnicas, o que era esperado devido a sua abordagem nãolinear na combinação das variáveis. Considerando a venda anual aos clientes da base em estudo e utilizando o modelo neural desenvolvido, estima-se um acréscimo de 65% nos lucros. / This work presents a methodology for credit risk prediction, comparing the performance of three statistical techniques used in the prediction process: discriminant analysis, logistic regression and neural networks. The proposed method (entitled PRC Model) embraces six steps: (i) population definition, (ii) sampling, (iii) preliminary analysis, (iv) model development, (v) model selection and (vi) implementation steps. The PRC Model was applied to a sample of 17,005 customers from an organization, which manages his own credit system and controls a pool of drugstores. The results show the superiority of neural networks over the other two techniques. This was expected due to the non-linear approach of the neural network when dealing with the explanatory variables. Considering the neural network model and the annual sales due to customers included on this study, the use of the proposed methodology indicates a 65% potential profits.

Résumé - anglický jazyk Název diplomové práce v anglickém jazyce: The Constitution of the People's Republic of China de iure and de facto This thesis deals with the issue of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China de iure and de facto. As presumed, the Chinese Constitution de iure does not meet all the requirements for effective constitution of the modern state and that between the Constitution of the PRC de iure and de facto exists a discrepancy relationship, the thesis aims to individually identify and analyze common constitutional and political elements which collectively create a real form of the Chinese Constitution de facto ("living" Constitution), upon which constitutional mechanisms of Chinese political life are based on. The work consists of three chapters, whereupon the work can be divided into two parts. The first part is the theoretical part, where the first chapter deals with defining the term of Constitution itself, whether from a purely normative point of view, as well as from other approaches, especially those from sociological and political science, which are crucial to properly understand the content of the Constitution de facto. Afterwards there is the categorization of various concepts of the Constitution, followed by the classification of different types of the Constiution....

Assessment of the foreign direct investment (FDI) spillovers in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has become a lively area of research in the past decades; nonetheless, the existing primary literature seems to be inconclusive. The present thesis revises the literature through a meta-analytical approach using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). Considering that the previous liter- ature reviews are of either inferior quality or incomparable focus, our research is based on a collection of 1081 estimates from 14 primary studies published between 2007 and 2017 comprising data from 1995 to 2012. A variety of 85 characteristics of the observations is coded whilst we employ at least 30 of these within each BMA estimation. Through separate testing of individual spillover measures (horizontal, forward, and backward), an extensive evidence of publication bias is collected for horizontal spillovers in PRC-exaggerating the mean magnitude of the reported estimates. Finally, the thesis identifies that the spillover effect from FDI inflows originating from the area of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan is systematically different from the others. JEL Classification O1, O3, O4 Keywords FDI, spillover effect, China, PRC, meta- analysis, publication bias, BMA Author's e-mail hermandominik@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail...

This master’s thesis will thoroughly analyze the discourse that is the transformation and interaction of the Maoist ideology with the previous Confucian traditions and its importance in institutional spheres of society in contemporary China. The thesis aims to analyze correlations and causations to the aspect of the rise of Maoism from a non-Communist Chinese society highly influenced by Confucian values and traditions to a Maoist dominated Chinese cultural, social, and political landscape. With a comparative discourse analysis and a theoretical framework based on the development and rise of authoritarian ideologies and the correlations ideologies and religions can have interchangeably, the thesis aims to shed light on the aspects of rising authoritarianism and how they influence contemporary Chinese institutions of power. This is indeed of utmost relevance and importance since the Chinese Communist Party under the rule of Xi Jinping now increases its cultural, social, and political influence within the country itself, the greater Chinese speaking world, and on the international stage. The CCP utilizes Confucian centers of learning around the world to strengthen the nation’s political, social, and ideological influence and power monopoly and to spread CCP propaganda through the Confucian centers. In other words, the Confucian philosophy and ideology has had an increasingly more important role in the Chinese political, social, and cultural landscape. The usage of comparative discourse analysis linked to authoritarian development and continuation of authoritarian systems is useful to understand the contemporary Chinese context but also other contexts where religiously linked authoritarian rule has been replaced with a communist or Marxist authoritarian rule based on ideology, such as the case of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe after World War II.

From the start of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” in 2011 until November 2023, 78 foreign visits have been made by three U.S. Presidents and five Secretaries of State to Southeast Asia. To uncover the U.S. ambitions in Southeast Asia, this thesis uses frame analysis to study speeches, statements, and remarks published by the U.S. Department of State and the White House during the visits to categorize them as displaying predominantly soft, hard, or smart power. The frames identified during the visits show that each administration has displayed a different kind of power. While the Obama administration focused on soft power, the Trump administration displayed significantly more hard power. The Biden administration used almost exclusively smart power during their visits. The thesis contributes to the operationalization of Joseph Nye’s concepts of soft, hard, and smart power, while also attempting to understand the U.S. ambition in Southeast Asia, especially as relations with the PRC have become increasingly tense.

No description available.