The Chinese Communist Party plays a crucial role in attempting to create a metanarrative on the history of China. The specific means used to achieve this goal have been analyzed from the viewpoints of politics, history and ideology. The role that political "code-words" play in such a process is still under-explored. This contribution fills part of this gap by exploring the most recent political and ideological concepts that set the boundaries of acceptable discourses on history. Our analysis focuses on an article authored by the China Institute for Historical Research and published in the January 2021 issue of Qiushi. We decode the meaning that this article conveys to policy makers and intellectuals in the People's Republic of China. We also unveil the meaning that this and similar texts might hide to international observers, who do not enjoy an unmediated access to Chinese language sources. ; Il Partito comunista cinese svolge un ruolo cruciale nel tentativo di creare una metanarrativa sulla storia della Cina. I mezzi specifici utilizzati per raggiungere questo obiettivo sono stati analizzati dal punto di vista della politica, della storia e dell'ideologia. Il ruolo che giocano le "parole in codice" politiche in tale processo è ancora poco esplorato. Questo contributo colma parte di questa lacuna esplorando i concetti politici e ideologici più recenti che fissano i confini dei discorsi accettabili sulla storia. La nostra analisi si concentra su un articolo scritto dall'Istituto cinese per la ricerca storicae pubblicato nel numero di gennaio 2021 di Qiushi. Decodificheremo il significato che questo articolo trasmette ai politici e agli intellettuali nella Repubblica popolare cinese, svelando anche il significato che questo e altri testi simili potrebbero nascondere agli osservatori internazionali, che non godono di un accesso immediato alle fonti in lingua cinese.
The post-Mao era inaugurated a stage of deep review of the role of Communist Party(CCP) in Chinese society: from "revolutionary party" (geming dang) into "ruling party" (geming dang). This entailed a revised approach consisting in new method of selecting & promoting party's officials by emphasising qualifications as expertise, managerial skills, aptitude for encouraging economic development rather than ideological & political faithfulness. This new strategy succeeded in reaching a consensus of the growing middle class about the main political goals of Chinese regime & consequently in dampening political & social opposition by digging a huge break in social body. With regard to this strategy of cooptation & social segmentation the Jiang Zemin's theory of "three representatives" is emblematic. Though this expression of openness & efficiency keeps being obsessively confirmed in official speeches & in legislation the exercise of freedom in China is far from being guaranteed. The approach of managing power of past regime is still "in office" & rigorously practised in order to control the frequent turmoil of peasants. Likewise frequent initiatives of intellectuals who claim the authorities deny the people their rights are severely repressed. Nevertheless the sharp-eyed party's control on community does not prevent some expectations of change from being fulfilled. Greater & greater groups of intellectuals, lawyers, journalists are resorting to state legislation to get the basic rights recognised and, for this purpose, they don't hesitate to deliver any sort of information to Internet in order to smooth the authorities' reaction. These actions offer a glimmer of hope in Chinese scenario. Adapted from the source document.
The Chinese Communist Party plays a crucial role in attempting to create a metanarrative on the history of China. The specific means used to achieve this goal have been analyzed from the viewpoints of politics, history and ideology. The role that political "code-words" play in such a process is still under-explored. This contribution fills part of this gap by exploring the most recent political and ideological concepts that set the boundaries of acceptable discourses on history. Our analysis focuses on an article authored by the China Institute for Historical Research and published in the January 2021 issue of Qiushi. We decode the meaning that this article conveys to policy makers and intellectuals in the People's Republic of China. We also unveil the meaning that this and similar texts might hide to international observers, who do not enjoy an unmediated access to Chinese language sources.
Beginning in the late 1990s, Chinese political and intellectual circles are becoming aware of the existence of a clear imbalance between the exceptional results of two decades of economic reforms and the relatively marginal role of the People's Republic in large international forums. The debate on the need to assume a mentality of "great power (大 国 心态 daguo xintai)" and to "share global responsibilities (共担 全球 责任 gongdan quanti zeren)", which arose in those years, is echoed in President Xi's recent statements Jinping, who warned in January 2014: "To strengthen the cultural soft power of the Nation, it is necessary to increase international discursive power, strengthen competences in international communication, meticulously build a discursive system aimed at foreign countries, make better use of new media and increase the creativity, the appeal and the credibility of the discourse addressed abroad (.). "The volume aims to analyze this evolution of Chinese political communication directed abroad, under different perspectives, in order to reconstruct the essential lines of the conceptual framework, institutional, media and discursive within which the political message is packaged and distributed to the foreign audience.
During the 19th century an interesting and original phenomenon of political medievalism developed in Sicily. The Middle Ages, especially the Norman Age and the glorious moments of the island's history, were exploited and reworked by Bourbon policy to underline and legitimize Ferdinand I's hegemony over Sicily, creating a parallel between the Norman kingdom of Roger II and the Bourbon kingdom. At the same time the Norman myth is reworked and used by Sicilians to ask greater autonomy for the island and to get the freedom from the Bourbon yoke and subordination to Naples. Many intellectuals and historiographers participate in this political and cultural process. In architecture medievalism is expressed in the Sicilian Neo Gothic, therefore in the re-evaluation of medieval artistic styles, which is based on the reworking of the Norman-Swabian age. Examples are the restoration of the Palermo Cathedral by Marvuglia and Palazzotto and the new constructions of palaces and private villas such as Villa Pignatelli Cortes, the Chinese Palazzina, Campofranco Palace, Domville and Donnafugata's castle. In these monumental works we can see the influence of exotism and the political message in the Sicilian architectural culture during the 19th century and during the Risorgimento. Medievalism; Sicily; Risorgimento; Palermo Chathedral; Marvuglia; Palazzotto; Ferdinand I; Sicilian Neo Gothic.
During the 19th century an interesting and original phenomenon of political medievalism developed in Sicily. The Middle Ages, especially the Norman Age and the glorious moments of the island's history, were exploited and reworked by Bourbon policy to underline and legitimize Ferdinand I's hegemony over Sicily, creating a parallel between the Norman kingdom of Roger II and the Bourbon kingdom. At the same time the Norman myth is reworked and used by Sicilians to ask greater autonomy for the island and to get the freedom from the Bourbon yoke and subordination to Naples.Many intellectuals and historiographers participate in this political and cultural process. In architecture medievalism is expressed in the Sicilian Neo Gothic, therefore in the re-evaluation of medieval artistic styles, which is based on the reworking of the Norman-Swabian age. Examples are the restoration of the Palermo Cathedral by Marvuglia and Palazzotto and the new constructions of palaces and private villas such as Villa Pignatelli Cortes, the Chinese Palazzina, Campofranco Palace, Domville and Donnafugata's castle. In these monumental works we can see the influence of exotism and the political message in the Sicilian architectural culture during the 19th century and during the Risorgimento. Medievalism; Sicily; Risorgimento; Palermo Chathedral; Marvuglia; Palazzotto; Ferdinand I; Sicilian Neo Gothic.
Xiao Hong (1911-1942) il cui vero nome era Zhang Naiying, attraversa il primo novecento cinese lasciando inizialmente le tracce riconosciute di scrittrice impegnata, sensibile ai temi della guerra e della patria e alla descrizione della sua terra (Manciuria) devastata dell'invasione giapponese. In seguito la critica cinese la ignora durante tutto il periodo maoista, perché il suo apporto letterario non appare abbastanza concreto e convinto, le sue povere creature finzionali – soprattutto contadine, vittime della miseria e della violenza sia essa naturale o umana, politica o di genere – non contribuiscono alla costruzione di una visione positiva del radioso futuro che attende la Cina. Viene riscoperta solo alla metà degli anni '80 del secolo scorso, quando la critica sia cinese sia occidentale rilegge le sua opera, anche in chiave femminista, superando il pregiudizio ideologico e riconoscendo la grandezza di Xiao Hong nel panorama della letteratura cinese moderna. Esilio, fuga, insicurezza sono parole che descrivono adeguatamente lo stato esistenziale e letterario di Xiao Hong: nella vita quanto nella sua scrittura troviamo le coordinate di una provocatoria instabilità, che Yan Haiping (2006, 136) definisce "mobile violence", dovuta alle sue scelte anticonformiste come donna e scrittrice, alla tragica precarietà dei tempi, ma anche a una ricerca instancabile di testimonianza che la spinge a non fermarsi (fisicamente e intellettualmente) sulla soglia delle apparenze e all'ombra delle idee. Per questo non solo i suoi personaggi femminili, frammentari ma intensi, sono venati di un realismo lirico anche quando sfregiati dalla condizione di umana sofferenza che li affratella agli animali e a tutte le creature viventi, ma anche la sua stessa figura, nei riflessi autobiografici presenti nelle sue opere, emerge come fonte di costante memoria e mimetico verismo. La pratica espressiva che più caratterizza la fuga di Xiao Hong da stereotipi e ignoranza è la rappresentazione del corpo femminile dislocato e rivelato in tutta la sua oscena verità: gravidanza, malattia, abusi, invecchiamento, i suoi "placeless bodies" (Yan Haiping, 2006, 146) sono segni tangibili di sottomissione ma anche di resilienza a un destino di genere. ; Xiao Hong (1911-1942), original name Zhang Naiying, lived through the first half of the twentieth century, leaving behind the image of a socially engaged writer, sensitive to the issues connected to the people of her troubled homeland, in the North East of China. After an initial enthusiastic reception of her most representative novel, The Field of Life and Death (1935) in the literary arena, she was later neglected by Chinese critics, and excluded from the Maoist literary canon, as her fictional creatures and her works did not fit the optimistic spirit and the class consciousness requested to the intellectuals of the time. She was then re-discovered only in the 1980s, when both in China and the West her works have been re-read with a feminist or cultural studies approach. In this paper I explore the personal and literary forms of escape underpinning her figure and literary production. Exile, escape, uncertainty are the key words which can adequately describe Xiao Hong's life and writing, in which, as Yan Haiping (2006, 136) states, one can find the sense of a 'mobile violence', due to her choices both as a woman (who revolted against her traditionally bound clan) and as a writer, who adopted a quite innovative, fragmented style combining personal memories and a crude and yet poetic realism. The literary practice which mainly expresses her constant escape from stereotypes, ignorance and conventional fetters is the representation of a dislocated female body subject to any kind of violence and humiliation: Xiao Hong's 'placeless bodies' (Yan Haiping 2006, 146) are tangible marks of subjugation but also of resilience against a gendered destiny, which let her construct her literary and personal identity on a popular standpoint.
In today's world where fewer and fewer barriers and borders limit relationships, interactions between things, people, services, it is no wonder that in a globalized economy like ours, interests, connections, needs of various aspects from people all around the world, happen to coexist and working their way out in certain defined places. There are indeed, some places which more than others, for various reasons ranging from political situation, location, economy rather than taxation, have the ability to attract capital and resources from other countries, giving rise to international financial hubs. One on all in Europe is definitively the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg which with an area of 2,586 km² and a population of only 602,005 people, it is home to more than 130 international banks, Europe's number one investment fund centre, World's top ten largest Private Equity houses, Europe's number one cross-border insurance center, and EU-regulatory framework and EU-wide licensing of financial services. The following chapters, indeed, aim to disclose the main features which bring Luxembourg to be that leading financial center in Europe, the reasons why so many international banks and firms choose the Grand Duchy as their home, the most relevant aspects of the country economy with a focus on the leading sectors. The first two chapters will give a global overview of what the situation is in Luxembourg in order to have a picture of today business and highlighting the strength of the grand duchy economy, bringing on aspects and achievements globally acknowledged. The second chapter however will give more insights on the specific of Luxembourg tax system, detailing the appealing tax regime and even so, the support and protection of the double tax conventions signed with countries worldwide, strengthen the business climate in this country. The analysis will go through the key factors that make Luxembourg so attractive, like favourable tax treaty agreements with 57 countries, a very competitive company taxation at 28.59%, no withholding taxes on dividends, paid to EU or double tax treaty resident, lowest VAT rate in Europe at 15%. Will together be analysed, the most used incentives for the entities, as the investment tax credits (Luxembourg tax law, indeed provides a tax credit available and amounts to 13% of the increase in investments in tangible depreciable assets made during the tax year), or the new regime of the intellectual properties which give the possibility to have on a net income from qualifying IP assets, a benefits of an 80% exemption from income taxes. The essay will continue with the coverage of the core business of Luxembourg financial activity; the third chapter will give a detailed analysis of banking and wealth management, asset management services offered, the corporate finance services required by all the entities which are created and have the registered office in the Grand Duchy, followed by the analysis pf private equity and venture capital investments, real estate investment vehicles, and hedge funds which can be considered the main features of the country financial activity. The last two chapters will analyze and emphasize the international character of the system and the future prospective on how the economy, the activities and the services may evolve, giving more insights on which the priorities will be in the near futures and where the efforts will be made in other achieve some certain standard of sustainability. The fourth chapter indeed will focus on the constantly growing relationship established with the Chinese economic world the Arabic world, which both play a very important role in the today economy and happen to be two of the main actors of Luxembourg financial system. The fifth and last chapter will highlight how Luxembourg has a comprehensive domestic climate finance agenda which since 2015, have seen the government and the financial services industry, working together in a dedicated climate finance task force to implement a coherent and fully integrated climate finance strategy. The Luxembourg government contributes to the technical support facility of the Amundi Planet Emerging Green One, the largest green bond fund in the world. This Luxembourg based investment fund targets green bonds emitted by banks in developing countries and at the same time helps develop green bond policies, training programs, and best practices in such markets through the technical support facility.
