Democratic prospects: China and Taiwan
The contrast between democratic conditions and prospects in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC) can be stated easily: Taiwan is already a democracy, the PRC isn't, and the prospects for China becoming democratic, much less a democracy, are poor. Would Taiwan have been better off under Beijing's rule since 1949, or has it prospered economically and politically by maintaining its separation and virtual independence? Even Mainlanders find it hard to disagree with the notion that Taiwan's separate development has been its salvation. Although Taiwan endured Leninist rule for decades, its economy expanded. Floating one hundred miles off the Fujian coast has spared the island a succession of traumas from which it will take the Mainland years to recover, and then only when Communist rule comes to an end. Of these traumas only the most damaging need be mentioned, all of them subsumed under Chairman Mao's celebrated justification and exhortation: 'A revolution is not a dinner party ... [I]t is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another'.
Chinese Power and the Idea of a Responsible State
The interrelated themes of power and responsibility are useful concepts for understanding Chinese foreign policy during a troubled yet remarkable half a century of Communist Party rule. Evaluations of the behaviour of the People's Republic of China (PRC) over these five decades have often related directly to concerns about the use the PRC has made of its material and ideological resources. Has Beijing worked to support the dominant norms of the international order, or has it striven to overturn them? Has it ever deserved to be called a "responsible power", a term defined by the dominant states, or has it acted irresponsibly? To place these questions more explicitly within an international relations framework, has China shown itself since 1949, and more especially during the period of reform and opening since 1979, as capable of being socialized into supporting global norms? Or, as realists would predict, have there been signs that its rising power over the past two decades has generated new tensions in the international system? Looking more to the future, what kind of challenge does its enhanced capabilities pose to the status quo?'
Toward Building a Linked Open Data Cloud to Predict and Regulate Social Relations in the Saudi Society
Background: The trend in producing linked open data to publish high-quality interlinked data has gained widespread traction in recent years. Various sectors are producing linked open data to increase public access and ensure transparency, in addition to a better utilization of government data, namely linked open government data. Problem Definition: As compared to the developed countries, Saudi Arabia lags behind in benefiting from this new era of ubiquitous web of data, despite its publication of government related data in non-linked format. In the context of Saudi open government data, the full potential of multi-category data published by various government agencies at different portals is not being realized as the data are not published in open data format and remain unlinked to other existing datasets. Methodology: To bridge this gap, this study presents a framework to extract and generate semantically enriched data from various data sources under different domains. The framework was used to produce the Saudi linked open government data cloud by interlinking data entities with each other and with external existing open datasets. Results: The effectiveness of our approach is validated by applying it to a socially significant issue, i.e., divorce rate, in Saudi Arabia. By posing smart queries to semantically enriched data, we were able to perform an in-depth analysis of different factors related to increasing divorce rates in Saudi Arabia. Arguably, without using linked open data and related technologies such analysis would not have been possible. Finally, we also present a simulated visual environment for better understanding and communication of such analysis for decision and policy makers.