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?'
Impact of Nuclear Data Uncertainties on Transmutation of Actinides in Accelerator-Driven Assemblies
Abstract The potential impact of nuclear data uncertainties on a large number of performance parameters of reactor cores dedicated to the transmutation of radioactive wastes is discussed. An uncertainty analysis has been performed based on sensitivity theory, which underlines the cross sections, the energy range, and the isotopes that are responsible for the most significant uncertainties. To provide guidelines on priorities for new evaluations or validation experiments, required accuracies on specific nuclear data have been derived, accounting for target accuracies on major design parameters. The required accuracies (mostly in the energy region below 20 MeV), in particular for minor actinide data, are of the same order of magnitude of the achieved accuracies on major actinides. Specific requirements also concern the improvement of minor actinide data related to decay heat and effective delayed-neutron fraction assessment.